As long as Poland has been a nation she has been a Catholic nation, and always she has had to fight and suffer for her Faith. She is called the Outpost of Christianity. She is the arm of Catholic Europe thrust into enemy territory, and she has had to bear the brunt of the fierce hatred that the countries which surround her direct against the Church.
The people of Poland are accustomed to affliction, but they are accustomed also to heroism and to sanctity. And they remember their saints and their heroes, the men and women who have fought in that almost single battle, for the Faith and for Poland. They remember Saint Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow, who rebuked his King for oppressing the people and was killed by the King while celebrating Mass. They remember the boy, Saint Stanislaus Kostka, taken from the world when he was eighteen, being made perfect in a short space. They remember their patroness, Saint Hedwig, and Blessed Hedwig, the Queen. They remember John Sobieski, the soldier-King, who with 76,000 men routed 300,000 Turks who were about to take Vienna and overrun Europe, and chased the remnants of their army, terrified, back into Turkey. They remember John Casimir, the King who had been a Cardinal, and who placed the country under the patronage of Our Lady of Czenstochowa. They remember Tadeusz Kosciuszko, leading the people of Warsaw, armed with clubs and hammers and scythes, in a desperate and glorious rebellion against their Russian oppressors. And they remember Saint Andrew Bobola.
The story of Saint Andrew Bobola is mainly the story of a martyrdom, a martyrdom called by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, which studied his cause for canonization, "the most cruel ever recorded." The martyrdom occurred on the sixteenth of May, 1657, and was accomplished by Russian Cossacks, at the behest of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Andrew Bobola was born in the territory of Little Poland in the year 1591. His family was of the Polish nobility, his father having been cupbearer to three monarchs and his uncle the Royal Chamberlain. When he was twenty years old, Andrew Bobola rejected the life of a Polish nobleman and entered the novitiate of the Jesuit Order in the city of Vilna. His first assignment after his ordination was in the church of Saint Casimir, in that same city. Here, the faith and eloquence of his preaching soon resulted in hundreds of conversions and made him the most sought after preacher in all of Poland. A description of Father Andrew Bobola at this time, found in the Jesuit records, says that he had a fiery temperament, which he controlled with difficulty, great impulsiveness and enthusiasm, and utter impatience toward ideas that disagreed in any way with the Faith. The description also notes that Father Bobola had a completely fascinating and irresistible personality, and was deeply loved by all the faithful.
In 1630, when he was forty years old, Andrew Bobola was appointed rector of one of the Jesuit colleges in Lithuania,. He held this position for five years, and then asked leave to resign in order to become a full-time missionary. The request was granted, and Andrew Bobola began to do the work he had wanted to do from the time he entered the Jesuit Order, the work God had meant him to do, the work at which he would spend the rest of his life.
Andrew Bobola went about his missionary labors with such fervor, and love, and wholehearted dedication that God must have found it impossible not to be delighted with him and to make his work fruitful. Never did Andrew Bobola miss an opportunity to save a soul. He would overtake travelers on the road and walk along with them, in the hope of converting them or strengthening them in their Faith. He would seek out the sick to console them, and the dying to give them the Last Sacraments. Everywhere he would spread especial devotion to Our Lady and to the Holy Eucharist, founding sodalities in Our Lady's honor. His favorite apostolate was to children, still uninfected with heresy and schism, to whom he would teach .the Faith so strongly and lovingly that they would never forget it. The number of his conversions was in the tens of thousands. At times he won from the Russian schism whole dioceses with their bishops. "The hunter of souls," he was called by those who loved him; and by the schismatics, "the robber of souls."
Now, Russia, which bordered Poland to the east, was becoming greatly disturbed at the number of schismatics who, through the efforts of Father Bobola and his fellow Jesuits, were being reunited with the Holy Father. Russia was disturbed partly for a political reason: as the home of the schismatic Orthodox Church, Moscow could demand obedience of all members of that church, regardless of what country they lived in. But Russia was disturbed mainly for a religious reason: there is no hatred of the Catholic Faith so deep, so bitter and abiding as the hatred of the schismatics, who pretend that their belief is the same as that of Catholics, except for rejecting the Pope.
Just when Russia had reached the peak of her disturbance, however, relief came. It was provided by the Cossacks, those savage, mongrel people who inhabited the Ukraine between the Dnieper and Don Rivers, and whom a Polish king once described as "made up of the dregs of humanity, mingled with thieves of every kind." In 1653 the leader of the Cossacks went to Moscow and placed himself and his country under the sovereignty of the Czar. He then swore that he would wage a religious war for the purpose of destroying every Catholic-priest and layman, adult and child-in Poland. Thereupon, the Czar, counseled by the schismatic Patriarch of Moscow, made a league with Mohammedan Turkey, which bordered Poland on the south. Simultaneously, Poland was attacked by Sweden, Brandenburg, and Transylvania, the Protestant Lutheran countries that bordered her on the north. This was too much for the Outpost of Christianity. In 1655, Warsaw and Cracow fell.
Immediately, a council of all Polish Jesuits was called, and the Fathers were dispersed throughout Poland to rouse Catholics to the defense of their Faith and their country. Father Andrew Bobola was sent to Pinsk, in Polesia. This city, though it had many Catholic inhabitants, was regarded by the schismatics as their headquarters. Father Bobola was then sixty-five years old, and he knew this journey to Pinsk would probably be the last long journey he would take. As he was about to leave he wrote to a friend, "I am going forth to meet my martyrdom."
Upon his arrival in Pinsk, Father Bobola was appointed rector of the Jesuit college that had just been built there. The schismatic priests were infuriated at this invasion of their stronghold by the famous and feared "robber of souls." They knew that as long as he was alive, the schism was in danger. They decided he must be killed, but for a number of reasons they hesitated to do the job themselves. And so, in May of 1657, they encouraged an eager band of two thousand Cossack troops to make a raid on Pinsk, with the intention of capturing Father Bobola at his college and killing him.
But in this ambition the Cossacks were disappointed. For Andrew Bobola had not allowed his duties as rector to put an end to his missionary work. Whenever he could leave the college for a few days or weeks, he would go off into the remote villages and byways of the country, taking with him one companion to serve his Mass. Everywhere these missionary labors bore great fruits, and especially at Janow, a town some twelve miles from Pinsk. It was there that Father Bobola had gone a few days before the Cossacks arrived in Pinsk.
Not finding Father Bobola at his college, the Cossacks vented their rage by torturing some of his fellow priests. Then, informed of Father Bobola's whereabouts, they rode madly for Janow. But their fury exceeded all bounds when they found Father Bobola was not there either; for that very morning he had gone to the village of Poredilno, a short distance from Janow, to say Mass and to minister to the small Catholic settlement there. The Cossacks massacred as many Catholics as they quickly could find in Janow; then they rode off again in pursuit of Father Andrew Bobola.
Word that the Cossacks were coming reached Poredilno not long after Father Bobola had finished saying his Mass. Catholics from Janow, who had run all the way, burst into the church where he was still making his thanksgiving and told him the news. Reluctantly, for he had always longed and prayed for the chance to be a martyr, Father Bobola heeded the pleas of his spiritual children that he escape for their sakes. A cart was waiting outside the door, and Father Bobola got into it. The driver took the road to Janow, in the hope of reaching a certain other road, down which they might easily escape, before the Cossacks found them. But they never reached that road. They were only a short distance out of Poredilno when they were met by the Cossacks rushing toward the village. At first sight of these dreaded horsemen, the driver of the cart threw down his reins and fled into the woods; and Father Andrew Bobola was left to face the Cossacks alone.
Calmly, joyfully, Andrew Bobola got down from the cart and knelt on the ground. "Thy will be done, O my God," he prayed. Then the Cossacks, leaping from their horses with shouts of exultation at having found the "robber of souls" at last, pounced upon him. With insults, threats and blasphemies, they tried to make him give up his Catholic Faith and embrace their schismatic religion.
When the Cossacks saw that Andrew Bobola remained firm in his Faith through all their words, they began their torture of him-an agonizing, terrible torture which was to be, deliberately yet mystically, a replica of the Passion of Jesus Christ. First they stripped the upper part of Andrew Bobola's body, tied him to a tree, and scourged him, competing with one another in tearing his flesh. Then they struck his face with their fists, so that they knocked out some of his teeth. Then, taking young oak boughs, they plaited a crown for him to wear, wetting it first in a brook, so that as it dried it contracted, and pressed deeper and deeper into his head.
After this, they tied his hands together, and, fastening him between two horses, they led Andrew Bobola the two miles to Janow. And along the way, whenever he fell, they beat him with their whips and swords till he was on his feet again. Twice with their swords they inflicted deep wounds in his shoulders. As they approached Janow, the Cossacks galloped the horses to which Andrew Bobola was tied, and pointing in triumph to the old man who was their prize, they shouted to their comrades who had remained in the town, "See! the robber of souls! Bobolal Bobola!"
It was about noon of this warm spriog day that Father Andrew Bobola, sixty-six years old, his hair white and his body weary, entered for the last time the village of Janow, dragged behind two horses. Across the great green plain on whose edge the village was set, there could be seen the tall spires of distant churches, forming a backdrop. The bright spring sun made the village, with its myriad ponds and streams, glisten like a jewel. This was the setting God had arranged for the great and awful event about to take place.
Loosening Andrew Bobola from the horses, the Cossacks brought him before their chief, to be questioned by him. "Who are you?" asked the chief, pretending not to know. "And why have you come here? Are you a Latin priest?"
"I am a Latin priest," Father Bobola replied, "and I have come here to preserve the Catholic Faith in this country; to reclaim to the true Church those who have abandoned her."
"Papist dog I I will wrench the Catholic Faith from your heart, or else I will wrench out your heart."
"My Faith is the true Faith; it is the right Faith; it is the Faith that leads to Heaven. I was born in that Faith, and in that Faith I mean to die. I will never renounce my Faith. But you-you be converted and do penance; give up your schism and submit to our Holy Father; or you will never save your soul."
Enraged at this boldness, the Cossack chief lifted his sword to cut off Andrew Bobola's head. Instinctively, Father Bobola put up his arm as a shield; the blow cut off three of his fingers, but missed his head. The Cossack chief struck a second time, but Father Bobola fell to the ground and the blow gashed his foot, again missing his head. Then, as Father Bobola lay patiently at the feet of his tormentors, one of the Cossacks, seeing that he raised his eyes toward Heaven, feared that he might be invoking vengeance upon them, and with the point of his saber he pushed out one of Father Bobola's eyes. At this Father Bobola prayed more earnestly than ever, beseeching Heaven, not for vengeance, but for the grace of final perseverance, that his faith might not falter in the midst of such horrible torments.
Suddenly the Cossacks hit upon a new scheme. Grabbing Andrew Bobola by one leg, they dragged him between two rows of terrified people to the butcher shop at the end of the street. They took him inside, locked the door, and stretched him on the butcher's table. Unknown to the Cossacks, some young boys, part of Father Bobola's flock, had sneaked into the butcher shop ahead of them and had hidden there, in sight and hearing of all that was to take place. It is from their report that we know the details of what happened.
When Andrew Bobola had been stretched on the butcher's table, the Cossacks took flaming brands and charred his breast and sides. "Give up your Faith," they said, holding the flames close to his body, "or you shall suffer more than this." But Andrew Bobola said, "You may put my courage to the test, but if you do you shall see what wonders God will work in my body this day. I believe and I confess that just as there is only one true God, so there is only one true Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and only one true Faith, the Catholic Faith, which Jesus Christ revealed and the Apostles preached. For that Faith I will gladly die, as the Apostles and so many martyrs have died before me."
Hearing this defiance, the Cossacks beat him with blows on the mouth and applied the flames till his flesh fell off in pieces.
And now the Cossacks began the last and the cruelest phase of their tortures. They began to mock Father Bobola's priesthood-a priesthood which they, as Orthodox schismatics, at other times pretended to reverence and to share. Forcing splinters of wood under Father Bobola's fingernails, they said, "With these hands you hold God, but we will treat you better than Jesus was treated." And again, "With these hands you turn over the pages of the Missal, but we will turn over their skin." And they pulled the skin off his hands and scraped away the flesh down to the bone. "Now what have you to say for your Pope?" they asked. Then, with a sharp knife, they drew a circle on the top of his head and pulled off his scalp, saying, "Your tonsure is too small; we will give you a larger one." Next they put him face down upon the table and little by little pulled all the skin off his back, saying, "Now that he is a priest we must give him a chasuble"; and they rubbed straw and chaff into the large wound. Then they cut off his lips and his nose and threw him upon the ground.
All this while Andrew Bobola uttered not one word or murmur of complaint. But constantly he kept repeating the holy names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and urging his torturers to be converted to the one true Church so that they might be saved. The love and zeal of the hunter of souls had not been dimmed even by such tortures, even toward such torturers. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, help me," he kept saying. And to the Cossacks, "My dear children, repent and be converted, or you will surely lose your souls."
The Cossacks feared the tongue of this man. There was a dangerous charity, and sweetness, and persuasiveness in his words. But there was one way to quiet him. Seizing that tongue which had for so long caused them so much trouble, they cut it off at the root and pulled it out through a hole in his neck. Even then Andrew Bobola made one last effort to say the holy name of Jesus.
Thinking now that he was dead, the Cossacks took the body of Andrew Bobola and cast it upon a dunghill near by. But the Cossack chief coming up saw that he still breathed, and taking his saber he ran it through the martyr's side. Suddenly, the whole sky shone with a strange light; the Cossacks fled in terror. Then the Catholics of Janow came out of their hiding places and, taking the body of their saint, carried it off to the church.
Andrew Bobola's Cause for Beatification was introduced soon, after his death, but more than a century later he had still not been beatified. Then, at a time of great crisis in Poland, he appeared to a holy priest and told him that he, Andrew Bobola, would be the protector of his country and would some day be known as its principal patron.
It was then decided to bury Andrew Bobola in a more honored place, and when his tomb was opened, his body was found to be incorrupt. There were no signs of decay; the wounds looked as fresh as though they had just been inflicted, and a sweet odor came from them. This led to Andrew Bobola's beatification, by Pope Pius IX, in 1853, and to his canonization, by Pope Pius XI, on Easter Sunday, 1938 [*]. He was designated as one of Poland's great patron saints, and his feast day is celebrated on May 21, five days after the day on which he died.
It is significant that Russian hatred of Saint Andrew Bobola was so great, that even after they had killed him, the Russians would not leave him undisturbed. When he was beatified, they ripped the pages containing his Office from the Breviaries. And as recently as 1922, Russian Communists, carrying on the tradition of the schismatics, opened the saint's sealed tomb and desecrated his body, then shipped it off to a medical museum in Moscow, to keep the Poles from venerating it.
However, that very year, 1922, a great famine began in Russia; and the following year the Vatican, which had been pouring tons of food into the country, persuaded the Communists to allow the removal of Saint Andrew Bobola's body to Rome. There it remained till his canonization, after which it was returned, finally and in triumph, to Poland. It rests today in the great Jesuit church in Warsaw. And as long as Poland shall be a Catholic nation, the people of Poland will remember Andrew Bobola, the hunter of souls, who, one spring day in the year 1657, proved his love for Jesus Christ.
[* New Advent states that Andrew Bobola was canonized by Pope Pius XII with his encyclical "Invicti Athletae" promulgated on May 16, 1957. However, the Jesuits website agrees with this story from the book.]
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From Saints to Know and Love
by The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (© 1954)
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