150 YEARS OF THE NAZARETH SISTERS

In the footsteps of Blessed Frances Siedliska in Rome (43)

Sr. M. Beata Rudzińska, CSFN

Piazza Farnese (1879) – Antonina Zatorska

In the first months of 1879, Frances Siedliska’s community grew by four more candidates. They were: Ludwina Benisławska, who came straight from the Visitation Sisters in Versailles, which she left due to health reasons, sisters Jadwiga and Wanda Reisswitz from Warsaw, and Jadwiga Zatorska. Unfortunately, the first three did not prove to be good candidates for religious life, causing many difficulties for both the Foundress and the community.

Miss Benisławska, accepted into the postulancy on February 22, left Rome already on May 11. Sister Pia – Waleria Rudnicka, about whom the Foundress also had many doubts, also decided to leave the Congregation. Both women, who were no longer young, ended up in Nazareth on the recommendation of Father Semenenko and were under his supervision. The Reisswitz sisters even began their novitiate, receiving the names Assumpta and Immaculata, but on September 24, 1879, they returned to their family home. Mother Frances opened her doors wide to women who wanted to join the Congregation, giving each of them a chance, sometimes more than one, and accompanying them with great patience. However, she had the courage to say no clearly when she saw that they were not capable of living in a religious community.

The last candidate who arrived, Jadwiga Zatorska, turned out to be, as Maria Winowska wrote about her, “a soul exceptionally endowed by both nature and grace.” She was born in 1848 in Siedlce. Illness and death of her loved ones accompanied her from the very beginning. When she was only one year old, she lost both her parents and her eldest sister, who was eight years old. The three orphaned girls were first taken care of by their grandparents, and after their death, by their uncle and aunt. While still teenagers, her two remaining sisters also died, leaving Antonina alone at the age of 15. It was most likely at this time that she began to struggle with tuberculosis, which had previously taken her loved ones. Convinced of her miraculous healing by Mary, she left with her cousin, Mrs. Burba, for Paris. Contrary to the plans of her family, who had found her a husband, she broke off her engagement, wanting to devote herself to God. In Paris, she met Father Władysław Witkowski, a Resurrectionist, who told her about the new Congregation of Mother Siedliska. She immediately wrote to her asking to be accepted. She arrived in Rome on March 8 and immediately began her postulancy. On May 31, during the ceremony marking the beginning of her novitiate, she received the name Antonina, in honor of St. Anthony of Padua. “We called her Sister Nina for short,” writes Sister Gabriela. “How moved and happy our dear Sister was on that day.” Before Midnight Mass in 1880, she made her first profession, receiving a black veil and a professed cross. This is how we see her dressed in the only photograph that has survived.

Immediately after this event, she began to weaken, and doctors were helpless against tuberculosis, which was incurable at the time. On January 27, she received the sacrament of anointing of the sick. On April 3, in the presence of the seriously ill Foundress, she took her perpetual vows. Sister Antonina, the first Nazareth Sister, died on April 24, 1881.

At that time, the Congregation did not yet have its own tomb. The Perpetual Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament lent a place for Sister Nina’s eternal rest at Campo Verano. A later attempt to exhume her remains was unsuccessful. However, the Sisters of Nazareth remember Sister Nina by always placing a candle on the tombstone of the Sisters Adorers.

Pictures:
Sister Antonina – Jadwiga Zatorska – CSFN Archives
Excerpt from Sister Antonina’s handwritten biography