Key Facts

  • Lay, single, woman
  • Born: October 7, 1902, Warsaw, Poland
  • Baptized: July 23, 1903, Church of St. Adalbert in Wiązowna
  • 1910 – moved to Krakow
  • Ursuline Sister’s High School
  • Red Cross Nursing Course
  • Warsaw School of Nursing 1922-1924
  • 1956-Benedictine Oblate of Tyniec Abbey, Benedyktynska
  • Died: April 29, 1973, Feast of St. Catherine of Siena
  • Miracle #1 – 2001
  • Beatified: April 28, 2018
  • Feast Day: April 28

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Even if we are martyrs, it doesn’t matter.

God’s Word hardly or not at all reaches the sick who are unwashed and hungry.

What dignity belongs to our profession! Christ in us serves Christ in the other person.

Details

  • 1
    First lay Catholic Registered Nurse to be beatified
  • 2
    Helped nurse victims of the Polish-Bolshevik War – 1917
  • 3
    Graduated in 2nd class from Warsaw School of Nursing – 1924
  • 4
    Studied community health nursing in France, Belgium & USA
  • 5
    Liaison officer, Krakow Branch, Polish Welfare Committee & German authorities
  • 6
    Coordinated social and nursing help for the poor, displaced and homeless in the Krakow region (WWII)
  • 7
    1929 – Resigned due to ill health, treated at Zakopane, Poland and Davos, Switzerland where she wrote her 1st novel, The Key to Heaven, published in 1934
  • 8
    1929-1939 – Editor of Polish, the first professional nursing journal
  • 9
    Vice Chair, Polish Association of Nurses (PNA)
  • 10
    1939 – actively participated in drafting the 1st Nurse Practice Act
  • 11
    1937 – Assisted in forming Catholic Union of Nurses which entered CICIAMS founded in Lourdes in 1933
  • 12
    1938 – Published 2nd novel, A Cross in the Saints
  • 13
    Head, Department of Community Nursing, Krakow School of Nursing
  • 14
    During Soviet Occupation, fired from her post as Assistant Director of the School of Nursing because of her strong Christian values
  • 15
    Appointed Director of the School of Psychiatric Nursing in Kobierzyn – 1957
  • 16
    Authorities closed down the Psychiatric School of Nursing
  • 17
    Started Parish Nursing in Krakow Diocese with support of Fr. Machay.
  • 18
    Instituted retreats for handicapped and housebound at the Salvatorian Retreat Center in Trzebinia
  • 19
    Lent 1960, invited Bishop Karol Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II) to accompany her to visit 35 chronically ill patients in their homes
  • 20
    Under her influence, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla made February 11, an Archdiocesan day of prayer for the sick and those who look after them. When elected Pope, he expanded this to the World Day for the Sick.
  • 21
    1973 – Delivered talk, Lay Apostolate and Care of the Sick at the annual conference of the Polish Bishops Committee on Pastoral Care.
  • 22
    April 1973 – Cardinal Wojtyla visited her flat and helped position the dying Hanna Chrzanowska in bed, “his last act of love and human kindness towards her.”
  • 23
    1973 – Archbishop Cardinal of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla presided at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and funeral services and accompanied her coffin to the Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow
  • 24
    2001 Beatification miracle – interceded for the complete cure of student and colleagues Zofia Szlendak-Cholewińska from coma due to ruptured brain aneurysm and her return to the Church