This Educator Founded Four Religious Orders — as a Layman
Though never ordained, Blessed Edmund Bojanowski devoted his life to the poor, the sick, and the young — founding four religious congregations to carry on his mission of Catholic charity.
Blessed Edmund Bojanowski’s memorial is observed in Polish dioceses (in some, it is an obligatory memorial) on Aug. 7. He’s quite unusual — a layman who founded a female religious congregation. Four of them, in fact.
Bojanowski was born in 1814 in Grabonog, near Poznań, in central-west Poland. The year 1814 was a watershed for Europe. It marked the beginning of the end of the Napoleonic era, with the Corsican exiled to Elba and the start of the Congress of Vienna to reestablish the old order on the old continent. It was not an auspicious moment for Poland, which had been occupied and divided up between Austria, Prussia and Russia since 1795. Many Poles had cast their lot with Napoleon in the hope of recovering national independence, but his promises were fleeting and, with his collapse, the old partitioning powers resumed their control of the country. They would tighten their grip even more after an unsuccessful Polish Uprising in November 1830.
He grew up in a religious home. At five, Bojanowski fell ill and almost died. He took it as a sign to dedicate his life to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He received his early education at home, though he eventually studied in Wrocław (Breslau) and Berlin. He suffered a bout of tuberculosis in 1835. His frail health resulted in both his attempts to enter the priesthood coming to naught. Throughout his life, Bojanowski was committed to Eucharistic adoration.
In modern terms, Bojanowski worked for social justice out of Christian charity. Large parts of Poland, especially rural areas, were poor. Diseases such as cholera were common, and many children were neglected. Bojanowski was interested in culture, especially folk culture and legends, which he collected. His work in the villages led to him establishing reading rooms and acquiring books for schools for neglected children. He also established orphanages for their protection. He was especially active in caring for people during a cholera epidemic in 1848-49. Poland’s political oppression and the paired neglect/suppression of opposition by the partitioning powers contributed to the country’s economic regression in this period.
To institutionalize and perpetuate those works of Christian charity, especially with the poor and youth, Bojanowski founded four communities of female religious. They quickly spread across Poland and even to England. Probably the best-known example is the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. They are also present in the United States, operating a seniors home in Woodbridge, New Jersey, and a child-care and youth program in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Bojanowski hoped to be a chaplain to the sisters, but his second attempt to pursue ordination also failed because of his health. He died in 1871 (eight years after another failed Polish Uprising against Russia). He was beatified in 1999.
His biographer Maria Winowska called him a “precursor” of Vatican II because, before it was in style, he manifested the apostolate of the laity, addressing the need of Christian charity to a hurting world and paving the way for the Church to minister in that context. Such service by the laity would become more widely embraced in the 20th century, with leaders like St. Josemaría Escrivá and Ven. Tomás Morales. Both of them, however, were priests; Bojanowski stands out for what he did as a layman.
One description of Bojanowski, in Polish, was that he was a “serdeczny dobry człowiek,” a sincerely good (and unpresuming) man. I came to know more about Bojanowski during the four years I lived in Warsaw (2001-05). The local parish was splitting up into new churches (in Poland, churches are built, not closed), and our neighborhood was put in the trust of a “Chapel of Blessed Edmund Bojanowski,” literally a block and a half from my home.
This depiction of Blessed Edmund comes from a stained glass window in the Church of St. Adalbert in Poznań. Poznań is close to where Bojanowski came from and is significant as the site of Poland’s first diocese (in 968). I chose this depiction for two reasons. First, as Bojanowski’s cause is somewhat recent, it is often iconographically represented in newer churches’ art, e.g., stained glass.
Second, the depiction is relatively standard for Bojanowski. He is usually shown in one of two ways: with two or three children huddled around him (as is the case here) or with an open book, reading aloud and speaking about Christ to listeners. The fate of Polish children in a partitioned land in the 19th century was frequently depicted in art connected with saints of the time, be it Blessed Angela Truszkowska (the founder of the Felicians) or St. Albert Chmielowski, whose social engagement was the subject of an early play by Karol Wojtyła (the future John Paul II), “Brat Naszego Boga” (The Brother of Our God).
