1 Timothy 2:5-6
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony to which was borne at the proper time.
The saints are the hands of God reaching down to bear grace to us. Francis Gajowniczek came to know this. He was chosen at random by the commandant of Auschwitz to die along with several other prisoners in reprisal for an escape. His sentence was to perish in the starvation bunker without food or water in the middle of the blistering Polish summer of 1941. As he was about to be led away, there was a stir in the ranks of the assembled prisoners in the yard. A man stepped forward and volunteered to take Gajowniczek's place. He explained that he was old and a priest, of no use to anyone in the Nazi New Order of utility. The commandant, with brutal Nazi calculation, accepted the proposal — and St. Maximilian Kolbe was led away as a ransom just as his Master had been. Most of us do not have to go to this extreme to ransom the captive. But there are other sorts of captives in our lives: captives to drugs, or alcohol, or despair or pain. We can ransom them with gifts of ourselves in various ways. Is there a captive in your life? How can you help him or her to get free?
