Blessed Maria Karłowska

Blessed Maria Karłowska was a religious sister, the foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Shepherd of Divine Providence. She devoted her life to women and girls whom prostitution had pushed to the margins of society, and she helped them regain their dignity. The Roman Martyrology commemorates her on March 24, the day of her death; in Poland her memorial is kept on June 6.

She was born on September 4, 1865, in Słupówka, today Karłowo, near Kcynia. She was the eleventh and youngest child of Mateusz Karłowski and Eugenia née Dembińska. She grew up in Poznań, where the family had moved. In 1882 she made a vow of chastity. In the same year she lost both her parents.

After a course in tailoring and sewing in Berlin she worked in a workshop in Poznań run by her older sister. She gave her free time to the sick and the poor. In November 1892 she met by chance a prostitute who told her about her situation. Maria understood this encounter as a call from God. From then on, in the evenings after work, she sought out such women and encouraged them to change their lives. This brought criticism upon her, also from relatives.

In 1894 she opened in Poznań the Good Shepherd Home for the women in her care. A year later she moved it to a house in the village of Winiary near Poznań, which Countess Aniela Potulicka had bought for this purpose. With a group of helpers she began the Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Shepherd of Divine Providence. In 1896 she received the habit, and on June 20, 1902, together with seven sisters, she made her vows and bound herself forever to work for women who had gone morally astray. She was superior general until her death.

In her houses the women found care, catechesis, and training for work in workshops and on farms, so that they could earn an honest living. Mother Maria treated them like daughters and patiently encouraged them to persevere. From 1920 the sisters also nursed women with venereal diseases in a hospital in Toruń, and later in Łódź. Further houses were founded, among others near Lublin, in Pniewite, and in Jabłonowo Pomorskie. In 1928 the foundress received the Gold Cross of Merit for her social work.

She drew strength from prayer, the Eucharist, and devotion to the Heart of Jesus. She set this goal for the sisters: “We must proclaim the Heart of Jesus, that is, so to live from him, in him and for him, as to become like him and that in our lives he may be more visible than we ourselves.” She died on March 24, 1935, in Pniewite near Chełmno. She rests in Jabłonowo Pomorskie, in the generalate of the congregation, where her shrine is today.

In 1995 John Paul II recognized her heroic virtues, and on June 6, 1997, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, he declared her blessed in Zakopane, together with Bernardyna Jabłońska. He said then that Maria Karłowska restored the light of Christ to many souls and helped them regain their lost dignity.