Blessed Jolenta of Poland
Nun
Abbess of the Poor Clares in Gniezno, duchess of Greater Poland, wife and mother
Blessed Jolenta was a Hungarian princess, the wife of Duke Bolesław the Pious and the mother of three daughters, and as a widow a Poor Clare at Stary Sącz and at Gniezno. The Roman Martyrology commemorates her on June 11.
She was the daughter of Béla IV, king of Hungary of the Árpád dynasty, and of Maria Laskaris. Her sisters were Saint Kinga and Saint Margaret of Hungary, and her aunt was Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. The year of her birth is not certain. As a little girl she came to Krakow, to the court of Kinga, the wife of Duke Bolesław the Chaste, and was brought up there. John Paul II, when he canonized Kinga in 1999, named her among those who formed a special environment of faith in the Krakow of that time. The Poles also called her Helena.
In the second half of the 1250s she married Bolesław, duke of Kalisz and of Greater Poland, known as the Pious. She bore him three daughters; two of them were later given in marriage. As duchess she combined the duties of a wife and mother with help for the poor and the sick, and she supported her husband’s church foundations.
Bolesław died in 1279. In the same year Kinga was widowed too, and she entered the monastery of Poor Clares she had founded at Stary Sącz. Jolenta renounced worldly goods and joined her sister, and according to the Roman Martyrology she embraced the religious life in the Order of Saint Clare together with her daughter. After Kinga’s death in 1292, because of the threat of war, she moved to the monastery of Poor Clares at Gniezno.
The Roman Martyrology calls her an abbess. According to tradition the sisters elected her as their superior against her will, although it is not known for certain whether she actually held that office. She died at Gniezno with a reputation for holiness. The year most often given is 1298, but the sources do not agree on the day or the year of her death.
Devotion to her has survived above all in Poland. Pope Leo XII confirmed her cult in 1827, which is equivalent to beatification. In Poland her liturgical memorial falls on June 15.