Thanks to the kind services of Josie Cabiglio of the SVDP we have a translation of the material on the Italian web site. She is working on the material related to the other Daughter of Charity“It is a life of sanctity that shines in so many members of the people of God, humble and often hidden from the eyes of men, to build a more simple and fascinating way on which it is given to perceive immediately the beauty of the truth, the liberating force of the love of God.” (John Paul II, in Veritatis Splendor, n. 107.)
This affirmation of the Holy Father can well be applied to the Venerable Sister Anna Marta Wiecka, who was born on January 1, 1874 at Nowy Wiec, in Poland. She was baptized on January 18 in the parochial church in Szczodrow, and was given the names: Marta and Anna.
Daughter of a rich landowner, Marcello Wiecki of Leliwa and Paolina Kamrowska, she was the third of 13 children. After finishing primary school, and after an annual preparation, Marta received the Sacraments of Confession and First Holy Communion on September 8, 1886 in the same church at Szczodrow. During her childhood, she showed a spirit of prayer and a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to St. John Nepomuceno. She also always worked in service towards others.
At age 18 she entered the convent of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul at Cracovia. In 12 years of blessed life as a Daughter, she served the sick a hospital in Leopoli from 1893 to 1893, then in Podhajce from 1894 to 1899, Bochnia from 1899 to 1902 and Sniatyn from 1902 to 1904.
She was bound toward sainthood through zealous service that complimented her duties as a nurse. The ill called her “Benefactor,” and, according to the teachings of St. Vincent de Paul, she, with great focus, cared not only for the bodies of the ill, but also for their souls. Thanks to her efforts, as witnesses to her life retold, no one in her wing died without reconciling with God. In her way of acting with the ill of different religions and nationalities, it often happened that conversions occurred.
Her virtuous life was crowned by an act of bravery of charity – the sacrifice of her lif. The Venerable, having learned that a young father, a nurse, had been given the job of disinfecting a room of a person who was ill with typhoid fever, and knowing the danger he would encounter there, volunteered to take his place to disinfect the room. She did so, and in fact contracted typhoid fever herself. Everyone prayed for her recovery, Even the Jews held a special service in their synagogue. After a brief illness, she died on May 30, 1904 in what was once Poland and later occupied first by Germany and then by the Societ Union: today the territory belongs to Ukraine.
Sr. Wiecka’s funeral was a manifestation of great pain and at the same time love, esteem and gratitude of many people of different religions: Catholic, Greek-Catholic, Orthodox and atheists.
From her death, until today, her tomb is a place of pilgrimage, showing her great fame as a holy person.
The Bishop S. Ecc. Marian Jaworski opened the Diocesan Inquiry for the beatification of Sister Marta Wiecka in the cathedral of Leopoli on June 26, 1997, and he closed it on June 30, 1998. The decree of Validity of the Diocesan Inquiry was proclaimed on April 9, 1999. In the Holy Year 2000, the Position above virtue, was discussed and approved unanimously by the Theologian’s Congress on March 11, 2004.
On October 5 of that same year, the Cardinals and Bishops reunited in an Ordinary Session, and, acknowledging that Sister Anna Marta Wiecka had exercised the cardinal theological virtues, and annexed these in an heroic manner: on December 20, 2004, in the Clementine Room of the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, in the presence of Holy Father John Paul II, a relative Decree was proclaimed.
