150 YEARS OF THE NAZARETH SISTERS

In the footsteps of Blessed Frances Siedliska in Rome (25)

Sr. M. Beata Rudzińska, CSFN

Blessed companionship

The 19th century was a special time in the Church for the birth of new religious communities. It was no different in the Polish Church. Many foundresses and founders, like Frances Siedliska, traveled abroad from occupied Poland to seek religious freedom and better conditions for establishing congregations there. Despite the revolutionary changes that took place in Rome after it was taken over by the Italian state, it was still the center of the Church and the home of the successor of St. Peter, whose blessing the founders sought. It is significant to me that these people, gifted with different charisms and guarding them faithfully during the establishment of the congregations, were at the same time very open to each other, helping each other in various ways. For several foundresses of that time, a special person and point of reference was the already mentioned Fr. Peter Semenenko, one of the three founders of the Resurrectionists. Frances most likely met him at the Reparation Sisters House. In his Diary we find several hundred (sic!) notes on visits to the Nazareth house, meetings, letters, matters related to the congregation of Frances Siedliska. The Nazareth Sisters and Resurrection Fathers’ archives preserve the originals of 163 letters from Frances to Fr. Semenenko from 1875 to 1885. There is also a touching holy icon from 1885 with the dedication of Fr. Peter to Frances (in the congregation: Mary) on the occasion of her feastday, which she celebrated on August 15.

In the milieu centered around the General of the Resurrectionists, Frances gets to know more people: Cecilia Borzecka and her daughter Jadwiga – the foundresses of the Resurrectionist Sisters. In 1884, on the day of St. Cecilia’s memorial, Franciszka writes in her diary: “We attended Mass in St. Cecilia’s room. Mrs. Borzecka and her daughter Jadwiga were also there, with whom I am bound by God’s friendship. Oh how nice it is to love everyone in the Lord Jesus.”

She also met personally and corresponded with Marcelina Darowska, the foundress of the Immaculate Conception Sisters. Another, Kolumba Bialecka, the foundress of the Dominican Sisters, lent her hospitality for a few months when she came to Rome in 1885 for the approval of her congregation by the Holy See.

Already at the end of her life, she welcomed into her Nazareth home the expelled from her own Lviv convent and effeminate abbess of the Visitation Sisters, later foundress of the Benedictine Sisters of Charity – Columba Gabriel. Her life, described in an unparalleled way by Sr. Malgorzata Borkowska OSB in her book “Czarna Owca” (in English: “Black Sheep”), can be read in one breath. There we find a beautiful testimony about Frances Siedliska and the community of the Nazareth Sisters, of which I want to quote at least a fragment here:

“In that year of 1900 (when Mother Columba arrived in Rome) there was still alive the foundress and first general of the Nazareth Sisters, Blessed Frances Siedliska, a woman of great heart and great gentleness, who at the same time suffered much herself from human tongues and unjust suspicions. Whatever was said in Galicia, Mother Frances had no intention of joining this chorus before she first got to know the slandered woman well. They understood each other very quickly and trusted each other. In the first weeks of her stay in Rome, Mother Columba had no mental support in anyone but Mother Frances, but she found a lot of it in her.”

Together with Fr. Jacek Cormier OP, who at the time was helping the Nazareth Sisters with the congregation’s constitution, she accompanied Mother Columba, also as an interpreter, in the long and difficult investigation conducted by the Holy See. She accompanied Mother Columba, once she was exonerated, to the convent in Subiaco, where she was trying to recover from a difficult experience. This cordial bond was interrupted by Frances’ death in 1902. But the grateful memory survived in the congregation she later founded. When Mother Columba died in 1926, her fellow sisters asked the Nazareth Sisters that she be allowed to rest in their tomb at Campo Verano until they could purchase their own. As a result, she again “went to reside” with the Nazareth Sisters – this time for almost 30 years.

All of the people I mentioned above are either beatified or candidates for the altars. Truly, blessed companionship!

Pictures:
A holy icon with the dedication of Fr. Semenenko to Frances Siedliska – GA CSFN
Wikipedia:
Bl. Cecilia and Jadwiga Borzecka
Blessed Marcelina Darowska
The Servant of God Columba Bialecka
Blessed Columba Gabriel
Blessed Jacek Cormier OP