TWO MORE SAINTS FOR POLAND

The beatification of CARDINAL STEFAN WYSZYNSKI, the former Primate of Poland who heroically resisted communism, will take place on Sunday, Sept. 12. in Warsaw.  SISTER ROZA MARIA CZACKA, a Polish nun who died in 1961 after a lifetime of service to blind people will take place at the same time.

The Cardinal, whom I can remember praying for as a child, is credited with helping to preserve and strengthen Christianity in Poland despite the communist regime’s persecution from 1945 onwards. In 1953, Cardinal Stefan was placed under house arrest by Communist authorities for three years for refusing to punish priests active in the Polish resistance against the Communist regime.

 Born Aug. 3, 1901, in Zuzela, Poland, Stefan Wyszynski was ordained in 1924, serving as a chaplain to Poland's underground Home Army, the AK, under wartime German occupation.

He was named bishop of Lublinby Pope Pius XII in 1946, becoming the country's youngest prelate, and was elevated to archbishop of Warsaw-Gniezno two years later.

Raised to cardinal in 1953, three years after signing a controversial "understanding" with the communist regime, he was forcibly prevented from receiving his red hat until 1957.

He also helped to secure the approval of Karol Wojtyła as archbishop of Kraków in 1964, which ultimately led to Karol Wojtyła’s election as Pope John Paul II in 1978.

Cardinal Wyszyński died on May 28, 1981, 15 days after Pope John Paul II was shot in an assassination attempt. Unable to attend the cardinal’s funeral, John Paul II wrote in a letter to the people of Poland: “Meditate particularly on the figure of the unforgettable primate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński of venerated memory, his person, his teaching, his role in such a difficult period of our history.”

 Cardinal Wyszynski died during strikes by the Solidarity movement, and his Warsaw funeral was attended by tens of thousands of Catholics in a show of anti-communist defiance.

The Polish parliament declared 2021 the Year of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński,in anticipation of his beatification.

 

 SISTER ROZA MARIA CAZCKA was a Dominican sister who was proclaimed Righteous Among the Nations  (see Blog   April 17,2021).

She was born in 1908 in the town of Kiełczewo, (German Empire), now in Kościan County, Poland.

At age 21, she joined the Dominican sisters in Kraków  and  made her final vows in 1934.  In 1938, she went to Vilnius to establish a new monastery with a group of Dominicans. The sisters worked on a 12-acre farm outside the city, living in a wooden house with a small chapel.

 During the World War II occupation in Vilnius, with other nuns, she helped many refugees. The nuns also sheltered fifteen Jewish refugees from the Vilna Ghetto from the youth scouting group Hashomer Hatzair,  including Abba Kovner, Izrael Chaim Wilner, Haika Grossman, Elye Boraks, Chuma Godot, and Izrael Nagel.

The nuns' monastery became a base of the local Jewish resistance, where the Jewish resistance organization  was formed. In 1943, the Germans arrested the mother superior and closed the monastery, but the nuns, though deprived of their main base, continued their activities. In 1944, Sister Roza became a prioress.

That year she also took in two children whose parents were murdered during the war. After the war, due to the borders' change and the loss of Vilnius by Poland, she returned to Kraków.

She had many functions in the Dominican convent in Kraków. She was a porter, organist, and cantor. She was also a prioress of the monastery several times.  

In recognition of her merits, she was awarded the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" in March 1984, at age 76. On March 25, 2018, she celebrated her 110th birthday, and was  called "the oldest living Cracovian" (inhabitant of the city of Kraków). She died in Kraków on November 16, 2018.

All the photos I have found of her show a woman who radiates the joy of her Spouse.