150 YEARS OF THE NAZARETH SISTERS

In the footsteps of Blessed Frances Siedliska in Rome (11)

Sr. M. Beata Rudzińska, CSFN

More about the Jesuits

Why did Francis direct her first steps in Rome to the Jesuits’ church, and not, for example, the Capuchins, who were Fr. Leander and Br. Stefan? Unfortunately, no Francis’ letters or notes from that time, where we could find the answer, have been preserved. At most, we can guess by looking at various facts from her life and reading excerpts from her later writings.

“From childhood, I had a natural affection for the Jesuits,” Francis writes in her Autobiography. She knew them from Warsaw, from Lyon, from Montpellier and from Metz, where her brother Adam studied at their college. And although she did not quite find her way into their spirituality in her youth, and even became intensely estranged from one of them during her stay in Interlaken (Switzerland) in 1861, the role of the Jesuits, especially in her early years as a foundress, is very important.

After leaving Rome in 1873, she travels to France, where she meets Fr. François-Xavier Gautrelet SJ, founder of the now world-famous Apostolate of Prayer and initiator of the Eucharistic Youth Movement. She may have met him earlier, perhaps even during her first stay in Lyon in 1862. According to Fr. Ricciardi, postulator of the beatification cause, it was Fr. Laurençot who directed her there, wanting Francis, who must have made a “good” impression on him, to join or perhaps even head a new community of sisters whose spiritual director was Fr. Gautrelet. Fortunately, Francis did not find herself in this role, and various circumstances made it necessary for her to quickly return to Zdzary. Fr. Ricciardi even writes that Francis was sadly surprised by the calculations of the Jesuits, who wanted her person to support the nascent congregation. Even so, this fact did not prevent the young Foundress, in a moment of inner darkness, to go in 1879 to the 30-day Spiritual Exercises celebrated precisely under the direction of Fr. Gautrelet. This retreat was a turning point in her life and the beginning of the “spring of Nazareth.” Perhaps mindful of this experience, to which we will return someday, she wrote at the end of her life: “Retreats either of our Father (Fr. A. Lechert) or of St. Ignatius – the Sisters should not use others, unless of some saints of the Lord.”

Francis also maintained contact with Fr. Laurençot. In the chronicle of the Roman House, under the date of April 4, 1880, we find the following note: “on this day Fr. Laurençot was with us as our extraordinary confessor. After the confession he gave us a teaching”

Through the life of the Foundress of the Nazareth Sisters there will be many more significant people from various orders and congregations. But about that, of course, in the next episodes…

Picture: Pope Paul III (1468-1549), Receiving the Rule of the Society of Jesus, 1540 – C. Malloy Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France/ bridgemanimages.com