Blessed Angela (Aniela) Salawa, March 12

Blessed Angela (Aniela) Salawa Franciscan Tertiary
Siepraw, Krakow, Poland, September 9, 1881 – Warsaw, March 12, 1922

Beatified by Pope John Paul II in Krakow, August 13, 1991.

Roman Martyrology: At Cracow in Poland, Blessed Angela Salawa, virgin of the Third Order of St. Francis, who chose to commit her life to working as a woman of service: she lived humbly among servants and migrated to the Lord in absolute poverty.

The category of household has over the centuries, the Church and Christianity, many figures of saints and Beate, who started working in this field, for a time more or less along, led the families and the faithful, the example of their moral and Christian virtues, and an apostolate in every possible environment of everyday life.

The majority of them, then left with the task of home, to join in religious institutes and congregations, some becoming their own founders, when the sisters were not, certainly came in Third religious.
But there were also those that were domesticated, and these remained so until the end of life, sanctifying between the stove and cleaning of homes, including reprimands or admiration of the landlords, becoming apostles of Christ among the needy.

It was Saint Zita (1218-1278) home of Lucca, patroness of the city and appointed by Pope Pius XII September 26, 1953, patroness of the household, party April 27 and then at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century Polish Blessed Angela (Aniela) Salawa, under this designation.

She was born September ,9 1881 at Siepraw at Krakow in Poland, eleventh of the twelve children of Bartholomew and Salawa Ewa Bochenek, was baptised Angela (Aniela), her father was a blacksmith and her mother was devoted to house and her many children, to whom she taught piety, modesty and hard work. With these principles she grew and was formed under the guidance of her mother, who also prepared her for he First Communion at twelve years, according to the custom of the time.

As early as age 15, in 1894, she was in service to a family Siepraw, grazing cows, cutting grass, entertaining the children in the early spring of 1895 and eradicating the roots of grass tufts in the frost period. She returned to the family home until October 1897, rejecting in the meantime the insistence of her father for marriage, then moved to Krakow to go to work as a cooperator family. Where she was hosted by her sister Teresa, which confirmed that she did not feel called to marriage.

In Krakow, she went to service at the family Kloch, where she worked hard without complaint; at 16 she was attractive, and the landlord took to threatening her, so shortly after Angela left that employment.

After working for some families in neighboring countries, she returned to Krakow, where on January 25, 1899, she witnessed the serene death of her sister Teresa, also the home; shaken by the loss, she felt the call of an inner voice that called her to walk the path of perfection, entry to which she paid promptly.

She tried the force by extending her time for prayer in church and at home and in meditation, with the assistance of her spiritual director, the Jesuit Father Stanislaus Mieloch, gave herself to God with the vow of perpetual chastity, a vow already pronounced in early youth.

Taken to engage in a fruitful apostolate and dark, among the households of Krakow, the gathering, she taught, counseled, and when implementing her duties, often forgot herself. Despite poor health, she was always cheerful and sociable, dressed well, not for the world but for God. In 1900 she enrolled in the Association of St. Zita, promoting care for the household, so she could exercise in a more organized fashion, a fruitful apostolate in her work, becoming a guide and a model of Christian life.

In 1911 she was struck by a painful disease that upset for a long time, then her mother died and the young lady with whom she worked with affection and dedication and also felt abandoned by her companions who could no longer gather in the house. This distressing period of suffering, told in her diary, was addressed by Angela, joining more to God in prayer and meditation, and in 1912 she also had mystical phenomena, with the vision of the encounter with Jesus

She joined the Third Order of St. Francis, taking the suit May 15, 1912, in the church of the Conventual Franciscans and August 6^th, 1913 she made regular profession. During the First World War, she helped with her little savings, prisoners of war, without distinction of nationality, voluntarily undertook to love the wounded and sick in hospitals in Cracow, where she was respectfully called “the holy lady” .

Criticized for loving her master, the lawyer Fischer, she was dismissed in 1916 from the house where she had worked since 1905. Followed some years of neglect, without work and with the disease more pressing, while continuing the mystical phenomena, in 1918 weakened, she retired from work and retreated into a small room in an attic, under lease, so she began the last period of his life, five years of suffering in union with God, which gratifiedher with visions, especially of Jesus with a crown of thorns and suffering.

Her confessor bore her daily Communion and compañeras inconsolable, she alternated in her hovel to assist. Noted on her diary: “Thinking back to my life, I believe to be in that vocation, place and status, from childhood in which God has called me” in her ardent love, begged to take upon herself the disease of others, her suffering was multiplied, while those for whom it was offered healed.

At the end she agreed to leave that environment and was hospitalized at St. Zita’s Hospital in Krakow, where after receiving the sacraments, she died March 12, 1922 in extreme poverty with a reputation for holiness.

In conjunction with the diocesan process for his beatification, on May 13, 1949, her body was transferred from the cemetery to the Basilica of St. Francis of Krakow. Pope John Paul II proclaimed her Blessed August 13, 1991 in Krakow, during his apostolic visit to Poland. Her feast is celebrated March 12.

Author: Antonio Borrelli

Source: Santi e Beati