Ludwika Szczęsna

In 1885, during a spiritual retreat in Zakroczym preached by the Blessed Capuchin Honorat Koźmiński, Ludwika discerned her vocation. Under his spiritual direction, she entered the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus (Zgromadzenie Sług Jezusa), a clandestine religious institute he had founded. Indeed, the Russian authorities then occupying this part of Poland forbade any new official religious foundations. She began her novitiate in Warsaw on December 8, 1886, and took her first vows on December 8, 1889, under the name Sister Honorata.

Sent to Lublin to manage a sewing workshop serving as a cover for the clandestine apostolate among young domestic servants, she was forced to leave the city after a search by the Tsarist police. Back in Warsaw, her spiritual director, Father Antoni Nojszewski, and Father Józef Sebastian Pelczar (future saint) directed her toward Krakow. In 1893, she took charge of a home for young homeless domestic servants and workers opened by Father Pelczar.

On April 15, 1894, noting the immense spiritual and material needs of these young women, Ludwika Szczęsna founded with Father Józef Sebastian Pelczar a new religious family: the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (Sercanki). She then took the name Sister Klara (Clara) and became the first superior general of the institute. On July 2, 1895, she took her perpetual vows.

Under her energetic and maternal leadership, the congregation developed rapidly. Mother Klara opened more than thirty religious houses in Galicia and as far as Alsace. The sisters expanded their mission: beyond welcoming domestic servants and workers, they dedicated themselves to the care of the sick at home and in hospitals, opened schools, orphanages, organized sewing classes, and provided catechesis in isolated villages. The institute received the decree of praise from the Holy See on February 15, 1909, and its definitive approval on March 19, 1912.

Mother Klara Szczęsna led the congregation for twenty-two years with deep humility, a spirit of poverty, and boundless charity. Afflicted with lung cancer, she endured the illness with heroic patience, refusing to have others pray for her recovery but asking instead that the holy will of God be accomplished. She passed away in the odor of sanctity in Krakow on February 7, 1916, at the age of 52.

Initially buried in the Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow, her remains were transferred on January 23, 1995, to a side chapel of the Sacred Heart Church, the motherhouse of the congregation in Krakow.

Her beatification process opened at the diocesan level in Krakow on March 25, 1994, under the aegis of Cardinal Franciszek Macharski. The diocesan process concluded on April 15, 1996, and the file was transmitted to Rome. On December 20, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI signed the decree recognizing the heroic nature of her virtues, declaring her venerable.

On June 5, 2015, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of the decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Klara Szczęsna. This miracle concerns the medically inexplicable healing of a young Polish boy, a victim of a serious road accident in 2001, who had suffered severe brain injuries and was in a desperate condition.

The beatification ceremony was celebrated on September 27, 2015, at the Saint John Paul II Sanctuary in Krakow. The solemn Mass was presided over, in the name of Pope Francis, by Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Her liturgical feast is set for February 7, the day of her birth into Heaven.

The spirituality of Blessed Klara Szczęsna is entirely centered on reparatory love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus, summarized by her life motto: "Everything for the Heart of Jesus!" (Wszystko dla Serca Jezusowego!). She knew how to combine a life of intense contemplation, drawn from the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, with active and humble service to the most destitute, particularly young girls from the countryside who came to look for work in the city and were exposed to numerous moral and material dangers.

Today, the Sisters Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus continue the work of their co-founder in Poland and in several countries around the world (notably in France, Italy, the United States, Bolivia, and Jamaica), bearing witness to the mercy and love of the Heart of God through education, the care of the sick, and aid to marginalized people.