Saint of the Month - March 2016: Blessed Aniela Salawa

Bl. Aniela Salawa

A Servant to Servants

Memorial:  March 12th

The lovely name of this month's featured holy person - Aniela (or Angela) - is derived from the word "angel", and she certainly lived up to the word.  Aniela Salawa was a humble domestic servant - inconspicuous in the society of her time - yet, now, she is honored in the Church as a Blessed; paid special honor throughout all of Poland. Literature in English, about this holy woman, is very limited, but whatever I could piece together about her life from various English and translated Polish sources, I share below...

A youthful Aniela.

Born in the town of Siepraw (Krakow, Poland) on September 9, 1881, she was the 11th child (out of 12), born to a faith-filled family of modest means.  The Salawas owned a farm and her father, Bartholomew, was also a blacksmith.  According to her biographers, Aniela was sickly all her life but was, nonetheless, an attractive young woman; petite, and also clean and meticulous in the way she dressed.  Her childhood was typical for people of her time and social status - she did manual chores on the farm and helped her mother with domestic work; formal education was very limited.

At age 16, her father suggested marriage, but Aniela resisted the idea because she had aspirations of one day joining a religious order.  So to avoid any prospects of marriage that her father was planning, she followed one of her sisters, Teresa, to Krakow, where Teresa worked as a maid.  There, Aniela also found employment as a servant in various homes... and for a time, her spiritual fervor waned because of the worldly influence of the city-surroundings and the allure of her now-steady income.

Teresa, who was deeply pious, made efforts to reel her younger sister back to her former spirit, but it was only after Teresa unexpectedly died from illness that Aniela began to seriously reflect on where her life was headed.  She rededicated herself to Christ rather than allowing herself to get caught up in the world again. In fact, at around 18-years-old, she applied for entrance with the local Carmelites but was politely declined because of her chronic poor health.  Resigning herself to living the lay-state, she made a private vow of virginity and diligently applied herself to living a more committed faith-life.

“I love my work because it enables

me to endure suffering, work harder

and pray often; other than that I

have no other desire in the world.”

~ Words of Bl. Aniela

For the rest of her years, Aniela appeared to have a rather uneventful life.  She continued working as a servant, moving from one family household to another due to various adverse circumstances.  In one home, her master made inappropriate advances towards her causing her to promptly resign; in another, the other servants mistreated her out of jealousy for the high opinion their mistress held for Aniela.  Regardless what her challenges were, she conducted herself with dignity and was an admirable example of forgiveness and virtue to her fellow domestics; some were even inspired and converted by her.  

In May of 1912, Aniela was admitted into the Franciscan Third Order (a branch of the Franciscans for the laity) and professed in August 1913.  Prior to her profession, she was already well-prepared for it by her daily attendance at Mass (since 1903) and frequent personal vigils in front of the tabernacle.  Unrealized by most (except for her confessor), Aniela had also began receiving extraordinary favors from the Lord - she experienced ecstasies during prayer; locutions from Jesus and visions of him in his sufferings; the special presence of her guardian angel who aided in her spiritual growth.  For example, on one occasion, she got to church late for her usual Eucharistic prayer vigil and was told by the caretaker that she could only stay for a short time since he was preparing to close the church.  Aniela knelt in prayer in a corner of the church and when the time came for the man to lockup, he could not find her anywhere.  Upon his return in the morning, to his surprise, he found her kneeling in ecstasy in the same corner. When reporting the matter to her confessor, the maiden explained that she had asked her guardian angel to somehow arrange things so that she could remain in overnight prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and, in response, her angel simply made her invisible.

"I want you [Jesus] to be adored as

much as you were destroyed."

~ From the diary of Bl. Aniela

The last five years of Aniela's life were marked with immense suffering, offset by the joy of daily Holy Communion and spiritual consolations from Heaven.  She was evidently, a victim-soul, who offered her devotions and personal trials to God for the salvation of sinners, particularly priests. I read from one source that the onset of her final illness actually began when she compassionately prayed to Jesus to take on the sufferings of two sick people - a partially paralyzed young man who was contemplating suicide and an elderly, incurable cancer patient (a poor man) who was dismissed from a hospital.  I'm not certain about what happened with the cancer patient but the paralyzed man miraculously recovered.  In the meantime, Aniela was suddenly plagued by new bodily pains and she eventually developed cancer.

As her health steadily deteriorated Aniela came to a point where she could no longer work and was forced to move to a small, rundown basement apartment.  She was sustained through the charity of the Society of St. Zita, a pious association of domestic servants that she was a longtime active member of.  Despite her illness and poverty, she cared for the sick, in and around, Krakow until she, herself was incapacitated by her cancer.  Because of Aniela's many works of charity and mercy, some people referred to her as the "holy lady".

Left: The tomb-shrine of Bl. Aniela in the

Basilica of St. Francis in Krakow.

Right:  A 1st Class [bone] Relic of the

Beata in this ministry's custody.

Aniela Salawa died peacefully in the hospital of St. Zita, Krakow, on March 12, 1922. A cultus developed around her memory and healing miracles were reported at her grave, leading to Aniela's beatification on August 13, 1991.  Her shrine and relics are venerated in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Krakow, Poland.  May the Lord see fit to quickly raise her to Sainthood.

A Reflection
"While connected to the spirituality of St. Francis, she (Aniela) showed an extraordinary responsiveness to the action of the Holy Spirit."  ~ Words of Pope John Paul II at the Beatification of Bl. Aniela Salawa

A Short Prayer
Lord, through the inspiration of your servant, Bl. Aniela Salawa, I ask for the grace to be continually open to the action and inspiration of the Holy Spirit in my life.  Amen.