Saint Stanislaus Kostka

Saint Stanislaus Kostka was a Polish novice of the Society of Jesus. He died in Rome in the tenth month of his novitiate, before he turned eighteen. He is a patron of Poland and of young people. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on August 15, the day of his death; in Poland his feast is celebrated on September 18.

He was born in 1550 at Rostkowo in Mazovia and was baptized in nearby Przasnysz. He was the son of Jan Kostka, castellan of Zakroczym and senator of the Kingdom of Poland, and of Małgorzata Kryska. In 1564 he went to Vienna with his elder brother Paul and a tutor to study at the Jesuit college.

In Vienna he stood out for his piety, which irritated Paul; his brother treated him harshly and even beat him. When the Jesuit boarding house was closed, the brothers moved into the house of a Lutheran. There Stanislaus fell gravely ill, and the owner would not let a Catholic priest into the house. As he later confided to his tutor and to a fellow Jesuit, Saint Barbara, to whom he had commended himself, came to him with two angels and brought him Holy Communion. According to the bull of canonization, Our Lady then placed the Child Jesus in his arms; he recovered and resolved to enter the Society of Jesus.

The Jesuits in Vienna, fearing his father’s anger, would not receive him. So in August 1567 Stanislaus fled in secret, exchanged a nobleman’s clothes for those of a poor pilgrim, and set out on foot. The same bull relates that Paul pursued him on horseback but did not recognize him. At Dillingen the provincial, Peter Canisius, now a saint and Doctor of the Church, tested him by giving him service in the boarding school, and then sent him to Rome. There, on October 28, 1567, the Superior General, Saint Francis Borgia, admitted him to the novitiate at the church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale.

The master of novices saw in him a model of religious life. Stanislaus gladly did the humblest work and had a special devotion to Our Lady. The words “Ad maiora natus sum,” “I was born for greater things,” are regarded as his motto. In August 1568 he fell ill, and in a letter to Our Lady he asked to be allowed to celebrate the feast of the Assumption with her in heaven. He died in the first hours of August 15, 1568, on that very feast, as he had foretold. He rests in the church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale.

Pope Paul V beatified him in 1605, and Benedict XIII canonized him on December 31, 1726, together with Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. John Paul II recalled that as a student in Rome he came almost every day to pray at his tomb; in 1988 he compared his short life, which began at Rostkowo and led through Vienna to Rome, to a great race toward holiness. In 2018, on the 450th anniversary of his death, Pope Francis wished that his motto would inspire young people.