Sr. Wanda Boniszewska

Beatification Process of Sr. Wanda Boniszewska has Started in Poland

Led by Archdiocese of Warsaw

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The beatification process of Sr. Wanda Boniszewska – mystic and stigmatist from the Congregation of the Sisters of the Angels has begun. On November 9, 2020, there was a solemn session in the Chapel of the Archbishops of Warsaw, during which Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz has sworn the Tribunal to carry out this trial at the diocesan stage. Sr. Boniszewska spent the last years of her life in a religious house in Konstancin-Jeziorna, in the Archdiocese of Warsaw, according to the Polish Bishops’ Conference.

The metropolitan of Warsaw recalled today that “holiness is nothing else than constant union with the holiness of God.” He also asked the gathered people not to doubt the holiness of the Church. – The Church consists of weak and sinful people who strive for holiness. Our path to holiness is a response to everything that is weak and sinful in the Church, he emphasized.

The beatification process of Sr. Wanda Boniszewska begins 17 years after her death in the opinion of sanctity. It was initiated by her sisters from the Congregation of the Sisters of the Angels and will be led by the Archdiocese of Warsaw, where the candidate for the altar has died.

The delegate of the Metropolitan of Warsaw at the Tribunal will be Fr. Dr. Jacek Wiliński. The promoter of justice – Fr. Michał Turkowski, notary public, Fr. Dr. Bartłomiej Pergoł and Sr. Aleksandra Więcek CSA as an auxiliary notary.

The postulator in this process will be Fr. Dr. Michał Siennicki SAC, canon lawyer, graduate of the University of Santa Croce in Rome, and a study for the postulators of the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

“The process starting today aims to show that heroism is possible even in the most difficult circumstances of life. Wanda Boniszewska, despite the unjust sentencing to years of Soviet prison, remained heroically in front of Christ, witnessing to him and bearing the wounds of Christ on her body and sacrificing her sufferings, the priests said during the first session of the trial” Fr. Siennicki said. He also added that during the trial the “gift of stigmas” and the message that Christ entrusted to Sister Boniszewska will also be examined.

The postulator also recalled the words of John Paul II, who at the beginning of the third millennium of Christianity said “We must rediscover the mystery of the universal call to holiness” and stressed that it concerns all Christians, not only some baptized. – Such a lifestyle and such a desire for holiness were appropriate for Wanda Boniszewska – added Cardinal Kazimierz.

The Tribunal established today in the beatification process will examine the heroic virtues of the Servant of God, verify the evidence and fame of her holiness.

At the end of the first, solemn session in the beatification process, Card. Nycz led the prayer through the intercession of Sr. Wanda Boniszewska.

Sister Wanda Boniszewska from the Congregation of the Sisters of the Angels died in the opinion of holiness on March 2, 2003, at the age of 96 in Konstancin-Jeziorna, after 76 years of religious life. In 2016, her “Spiritual Diary” was published in book form, including notebooks from 1921-1980, which contained her notes written at the behest of her confessor. They revealed – as he wrote in the edict of Cardinal Nycz – “what during her life was hidden from the world a secret”.

A special trait of Sister Wanda Boniszewska’s spirituality was her making compensatory suffering, most often offered for priests. According to theologians, she appears to be an exemplary “apostle of rewarding penance” and her attitude teaches the extraordinary value of mystical life and passionate spirituality.

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