Born Joseph (Józef) Kolbe to Juliusz and Marianna (Dąbrowska) Kolbe, Fr. Alphonse was a younger brother of and collaborator with St. Maximilian Kolbe. Like his brother, Fr. Alphonse entered the Franciscan Order. From about 1910 he received schooling (along with his brothers) at a small Conventual Franciscan seminary in the city of Lvov (now Lviv, Ukraine). He eventually joined the Franciscans in Lvov, on Sept. 14, 1916, his ordination to the priesthood occurring on June 29, 1921 at Krakow. His various assignments included that of rector of the Franciscan minor seminary in Lvov and work for the Order in Grodno.

Within a few years Fr. Alphonse was directed to join and assist his brother in his dynamic ministries of publishing (notably the magazine "Knights of the Immaculate" (Rycerz Niepokalanej) and education. He often took over for his brother when Maximilian was sent away for treatment for his chronic tuberculosis. The brothers moved from Grodno to their new Franciscan foundation at Niepokalanów in 1927, where their ministry continued its rapid growth. Niepokalanow was founded on donated land at Teresin as a Marian community dedicated to Mary as the Immaculate Conception, with Fr. Alphonse and Fr. Maximilian serving as the two priests for the initial community of 18 brothers. In 1929 a small school for boys was established at Niepokalanow with Fr. Alphonse as the first rector. It grew to be today's Minor Seminary and High School.

In July of 1930, Fr. Maximilian and several Franciscan brothers left to establish a monastery in Nagasaki, Japan - the "Mugenzai no Sono" or "Garden of the Immaculate" - today still an important part of Catholic life in that nation. By this time the monastic brotherhood at Niepokalanow had grown to include 83 Franciscan brothers, who continued to build up the community while publishing and distributing several hundred thousand copies of their periodical, teaching 36 boys, and meeting all the other demands of communal monastic life. Fr. Alphonse remained behind in charge of the monastery and its many activities, an assignment which only lasted for several months. By winter he was sent to a hospital in Warsaw, where he underwent surgery for a ruptured appendix. He died there on Dec. 3, 1930, and was buried at the monastery on Dec. 8, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.