Pope Francis on April 29, 2018, recognized Hanna Chrzanowski, declared blessed on April 28, 2018, in Krakow.
«Yesterday Hanna Chrzanowska, lay faithful who dedicated her life to the care of the sick, in whom she saw the face of suffering Jesus, was proclaimed Blessed in Krakow,» the Pope said after praying the Regina Coeli with the crowds in St. Peter’s Square. «We thank God for the witness of this apostle of the sick and let us make an effort to imitate her example.»
The ceremony was attended by, among others: Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, Cracow bishops, postulator of the beatification process of Fr. Monsignor Mieczysław Niepsuj, postulator of the Polish stage of the Helena Matoga process, a blessed student, nuns, nurses’ milieus, people with disabilities.
In his homily, the Krakow Metropolitan emphasized that the day’s Mass readings give us a clear answer to the question of how to be a saint, pointing to the three basic criteria of holiness. The first of these is to be associated with Christ:
«If we want to live God’s love, true and authentic, we must be implanted in Christ – the vine, with all our strength of spirit and draw from it the holiness that transforms us internally, but which also gives the blessed fruit to the world and the whole world. You can not live with love, being disconnected from this Source, from this Divine Wine Vine, which is love.»
The Archbishop also quoted a fragment of the notes of Blessed Hannah Chrzanowska, in which she wrote that in order to truly serve the sick and the needy, «withdraw yourself and let go to the wide waters of love.» Metropolitan, developing these words, said:
«Free yourself from the crust of your own ego, from narrow selfishness, love only to yourself, to stare at yourself, to open yourself to Christ’s love, it is only a way to be able to serve the sick, the poor and the abandoned with all my heart penetrated by sacrificial and unselfish love.»
The second criterion of holiness contained in today’s readings is to receive God’s word and live according to him. And God’s word, as the archbishop emphasized, cleanses us, which is sometimes a very painful but necessary process.:
«Be able to understand that God is a blessed sculptor and submit to His chisel. To be able to trust that the suffering we sometimes feel very severely leads us to even greater love, to an even deeper love of the One who loved us to the end, to so ennoble our interior that the other person will be our sister and our brother.»
In this context, the Metropolitan invoked another fragment of the notes of Blessed Hanna Chrzanowska, in which he writes about his great suffering, but also about the fact that just at the time when she experienced it dawned in her head the thought of taking care of the sick people based on the Church, and he was it is the beginning of her great work, which God called her:
«She got to know God’s will, was cleansed for a work destined for her by God, so she went to poor, sick, abandoned people in Krakow attics and basements.»
The last of the criteria of sainthood that the Metropolitan of Krakow spoke about is the actualization of God’s truth with all his life. In this context, he also quoted the words of a blessed Polish nurse, in which she clearly states that all the unknown appearing in our lives must be substituted with the voice of God and His word:
«The world can overcome this God’s voice and give it distant from Christ’s meanings, and therefore it is necessary to be faithful and constantly listen to what Christ says, separating from the noise and murmurs of this world, to know what to really enter into various unknowns, under various kinds of words located in our lives. There are many of them, but you have to write only two words: active love and faithfulness. Love that transforms the world and faithfulness that makes every day bring us closer to the Divine Master.»
At the end, the Archbishop once again emphasized that Blessed Hanna Chrzanowska is a great gift for us for the present time because he is very close to us.
«Thank God for her. So close to us in time, so close when it comes to a lot of challenges and problems of the modern world. So unambiguous in these words about the unknowns of our lives, which are basically very simple answers that we have to give to God and to other people.»
At the end of the ceremony, the priests and the faithful prayed at the new sarcophagus of the world’s first blessed nurse, which is located in the right nave of the church of St. Wojciech at ul. Copernicus in Krakow.
