SAINTS WHO WERE NURSES

Last Sunday Pope Francis canonized  Nazania Mesa  who was a nurse. As  I have written in past Blogs, one of my favorite saints is St. Marianne of Molokai (Cope) (see Blog  10/21/12), who was also a trained nurse.  This prompted me to find other saints who were nurses in modern times.  From what I can find there are many, from various countries, who are unknown outside their area.

A few of the  saints who were nurses we wrote of in past Blogs:   Bl. Maria Troncatti  (Blog 11/23/12) "Mammacita of the Andes",  Ven. Leonella  Sgorbati (Blog 11/11/17) murdered in Somalia,  and the Polish Benedictine Oblate, Bl. Hanna Chrzonauska  (Blog 4/6/18).

Two who were martyred by the Nazis are:

BL. CECILIA ( ZDENKA)  SCHELINGOVA

One of ten children born in Slovakia in 1916 she studied nursing and radiology. Known as a pious child, she early felt a call to religious life. At age 15 she requested entry to the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Holy Cross, and made her first vows on 30 January 1937.

  

While she was assigned to Bratislava, the Communists seized power and began a systematic persecution of the Church and its members. Many were arrested and tortured for their faith, and some of these were brought to Bl. Cecilia’s hospital for treatment. In early 1952 she helped a condemned priest escape from certain death in Siberia. Later she tried to help three priests and three seminarians escape, but she failed, and was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to twelve years in prison and ten years of loss of civil rights.

For the next three years she was shipped from prison to prison, regularly beaten and tortured; some of her wounds were never permitted to heal. She was released from prison in 1955, nine years early, so that she would not die on the government’s hands. Due to police harassment, she was turned away from her congregation’s motherhouse, and from the hospital where she used to work. She died a few months later, her health broken by the abuse, but never losing her faith.

Considered a martyr, she was beatified in 2003 by St. John Paul II.  Her feast is November 23.

BL.  MARY RESTITUTA KAFKA  was the sixth daughter of a shoemaker. Born in Brno, Czechoslovakia she grew up in Vienna, and was a trained surgical nurse. She joined the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity in 1914, taking the name Restituta after an early Church martyr.  She was known as a protector of the poor and oppressed and was a vocal opponent of the Nazis after Anschluss, the German take over of Austria. Sister was tough  and people called her “Sr. Resolute” because of her stubbornness. Mostly, however, she was easy-going and funny. 

Sister Restituta hung a crucifix in every room of a new hospital wing. The Nazis ordered them removed. Refusing this, she was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942. She was sentenced to death on 28 October 1942 for “aiding and abetting the enemy in the betrayal of the fatherland and for plotting high treason”.

She spent her time in prison caring for other prisoners.  Even the Communist prisoners spoke well of her. She was offered her freedom if she would abandon her religious community, which she declined and was beheaded. her last words were, “I have lived for Christ; I want to die for Christ.”

She was beatified by St. John Paul II  June 1998. Her feast is March 30.