Blessed Bernardina Jabłońska

Blessed Bernardina Jabłońska was a spiritual daughter and co-worker of Saint Albert Chmielowski, co-foundress of the Albertine Sisters and their superior general until her death. She gave her life to the poor, the homeless and the sick. The Church commemorates her on September 23.

Maria Jabłońska was born on August 5, 1878, in Pizuny near Narol, the daughter of Grzegorz and Maria née Roman, and was baptized the next day in Lipsko. When she was fifteen, her mother died. The girl then sought silence, prayed for long hours before the Blessed Sacrament, read the lives of the saints and longed for religious life.

On June 13, 1896, at the feast of Saint Anthony in Horyniec, she met Brother Albert and asked to be admitted to his community. Her father opposed it, so in August she secretly left home and was received at the Albertine sisters’ hermitage in Bruśno. She was sent to work in Krakow, where for the first time she came face to face with human misery. On June 3, 1897, she received the habit and the name Bernardina.

Her first years brought a hard inner struggle. She dreamed of a contemplative life in silence, even wanted to leave, and was tormented by doubts and scruples. Brother Albert drafted for her an act of self-offering to Jesus: in it she offered herself for all doubts, dryness and sufferings, wanting nothing in return, neither now nor after death. She signed it on Holy Saturday, April 1, 1899, and from then on gave herself wholly to Christ and to the service of the poor.

On April 7, 1902, Brother Albert appointed Bernardina, not yet twenty-four, as “elder sister,” that is, superior general. That same year the superior’s residence and the novitiate were moved to the hermitage at Kalatówki near Zakopane. Together with Brother Albert she founded shelters for the sick and for people left homeless by war. After his death in 1916 she wrote down his instructions as a rule and drew up the constitutions, which the Archbishop of Krakow approved in 1926. The general chapters elected her superior until her death.

Her motto was the words “To give, eternally to give,” and she often repeated: “My neighbor’s suffering is my suffering.” She taught the sisters to be kind, forbearing and merciful toward the poor, the sick and children, and to care for their souls as well. She drew strength from adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, at times late into the night, and from devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For many years she was seriously ill.

She died in Krakow on September 23, 1940, during the German occupation. Her last instruction to the sisters was the words “Do good to everyone.” She was buried in Rakowicki Cemetery, and in 1985 her remains were moved to the Ecce Homo church beside the Albertine Sisters’ general house in Krakow. John Paul II beatified her on June 6, 1997, in Zakopane, together with Maria Karłowska, and called her a saint of Zakopane, because it was here, at Kalatówki, that she grew toward holiness.