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 "The real happiness in this
valley of tears is doing God's Will in everything. Only
a person who seeks happiness in this way - avoiding all
worry about the difficulties, sorrows and sufferings
with which one may be afflicted (or even about life
itself, should God require that sacrifice of us) - will
find that pleasure.”
INTRODUCTION
This year 2007, the
Carmelite Order (in a special way – Poland) celebrates
the centenary of the death of Saint Raphael Kalinowski,
a Polish Discalced Carmelite Friar. He was beatified by
Pope John Paul II in 1983, in Krakow, in front of a
crowd of over two million people. In 1991, Pope John
Paul declared his boyhood hero a Saint. Raphael
was the first friar to have been sainted in the Order of
the Discalced Carmelites, since co-founder Saint John of
the Cross (1542-1591).
More than just a star in
the firmament of the Carmelite Saints, St. Raphael
Kalinowski’s life is very relevant to our modern times.
His life before joining the order as well as his life in
the Garden of Carmel are like beacon lights that could
guide both the lay person with a restless yearning to
find meaning in life as well as the Carmelite friar or
nun eager to offer more of himself or herself to the
Lord through a life of prayer and penance totally
dedicated to the Church and God’s People.
HIS BIRTH and FAMILY
St Raphael was born Joseph
Kalinowski at Vilna in present day Lithuania on
September 1, 1835, the second son of deeply religious
parents, Andrew and Josephine. His mother died the same
year that he was born. Three years later his father
married his mother’s sister of whom were born Charles,
Emily and Gabriel. The Kalinowskis prayed fervently for
the union of the Eastern Church with Rome. This union
and the conversion of Russia were constant petitions of
Joseph throughout his life and he would invite any one
ready to join him in praying for these petitions.
The sanctuary of Our Lady of Mercy that still
stands over the gate of the city wall at Vilna attracts
many devotees. Joseph and his family too were ardent
devotees of this Lady known under the Polish title of
Our Lady of Ostra Brama (Gate of Defense). He
always carried this picture with him all through his
adventurous life.
Youth and Education
As a
young boy Joseph inherited his father’s brilliance and
excelled academically at the Institute of Nobles in
Vilna. Here he was also grounded in fervent Polish
patriotism. While still in school the persecution
against the Catholic Church, the Poles and Lithuanians
began. Thus for his higher education he had to go to a
Russian University.
MILITARY ENGINEER
Joseph enrolled at the Military School of
Engineering in 1853 where three years later, he finished
with the rank of Lieutenant Engineer. These were sad
years for him. Being an expatriate he had to endure
heavy military discipline and ruthlessness from the
upperclassmen and the Russians. He faced this with his
natural mildness and tolerance for both his fellow
students and his professors. Joseph continued to do very
well. He kept getting promoted from Lt. Engineer to
Engineer Superintendent and later in 1860 Captain of the
General Staff. He was also named Assistant of
Mathematics at the Academy itself.
This period in
Joseph’s life marked the growth of an intense spiritual
life. He was drawn to an apostolate to the poor,
especially the young, and he opened a Sunday school for
poor youth. His longing for the union of the Eastern
Church with Rome grew stronger.
He must have
understood here what it meant to be a true Christian for
later he said, "A Religious,
when being faithful to his vows, is only a Christian
standing closest to Christ."
PATRIOT
Three years later in 1863, the Polish
insurgency erupted against Russia. A fervent patriot
though he was his keen intellect saw the fatality of the
situation as is evidenced in this remark against the
revolt: "Poland needs to
work, not to shed blood.” He added,
"It was too
obvious to the mind's eye what the struggle of the
people without arms would be against the force of the
Russian government which possessed an enormous and
strong army.”
Joseph resigned his
rank and commissions and left for Warsaw. Despite his
desire to retire and stay out of politics he was asked
to be Minister of the war against Russia for the region
of Vilna. He foresaw the damaging results of this option
and yet accepted the offer out of love for his country
on the condition that he would never have to pronounce a
death sentence against anyone. Joseph left for Vilna and
established the headquarters of the rebellion in his own
home, unknown to his own relatives. His inner life grew
even amid these formidable circumstances. Joseph visited
the Vilna churches, especially that of Our Lady of
Ostra Brama, every day. This served a dual purpose.
He fulfilled his duty as Minister of War by encouraging,
counseling and above all, trying to prevent the worst
for his fellow countrymen, and he grew closer to JESUS
and Our Lady. This yearning to be more and more a true
Christian – someone
“standing closest to Christ” kept growing in
him.
imprisonment
As he had predicted, a year later here’s
what is recorded in his Memoirs:
"At midnight,
between the 12th and 13th of March, 1864, a voice
awakened me; it was the head of the city police… 'I'm
sorry, I have to arrest you.' I bowed without saying a
word. The Lord God in His goodness, did not deprive me
of tranquility of mind.”
He was then locked up
in the Dominican prison. For Joseph, this ‘tranquility
of mind attended him all through the years of his
imprisonment and exile – proof of a soul at rest in God.
There is no record that Joseph showed any outward
feelings during his imprisonment. He organized his life
on the model of the religious. He notes in his Memoirs:
"I made
myself an horarium for the whole day; I got up at 5:00
in the morning. My first thought was that of prayer,
then meditation, and when I obtained books of meditation
I had great consolation. I could hear Mass every day,
but from a distance, although distinctly enough. The
window of my cell opened on the courtyard which was in
the form of a quadrangle, and at one side of which was
the Church of the Holy Spirit, where Mass was sung early
in the morning. I opened a little wicket of the window
and thus could enjoy Holy Mass from beginning to end."
This is still the
record of Joseph while out in the world. One cannot help
feeling that he was being powerfully and yet secretly
guided by the Holy Spirit.
EXILE
After
three months of house arrest, Joseph was condemned to
death on June 2, 1864. However, for many reasons,
especially the high moral esteem in which even the
Russians held him, the Governor of Vilna substituted his
death sentence to exile, so he would not become a martyr
to the people. Yet intentionally Joseph had accepted the
sentence even when he first took up the post as director
of the insurrection. His death penalty was changed to
ten years of forced labor in Siberia. Before leaving,
his close friends gave him a copy of the Gospels, the
"Imitation of Christ" and a Crucifix. He also met his
spiritual director, Father Antoniewicz, with whom he
corresponded throughout his exile. The date of his
deportation was July 29, 1864. He describes it in his
Memoirs as follows:
"It
looked like a funeral…! Among us there were persons of
all states and conditions of life: proprietors, doctors,
contractors, workers, peasants, married women, young
girls; it was like a flood that poured its water toward
the far East. No priest accompanied us. We took a place
in the railway cars, where we were piled one on top of
the other. When the train left, moving alongside the
heights that overlooked the station, flowers were
dropped down on it, as at the cemetery on the tombs of
the dead."
One does get an insight into how ominous this experience
may have been for Joseph.
The troop train
traveled through St. Petersberg and Moscow to Nizni-Novgorod
where the prisoners boarded boats on the Volga River for
the clearing center of Perm. At Perm, Joseph discovered
his brother Gabriel among the deportees. In September,
they crossed the Ural Mountains, either on foot or in a
kibitka (a cart drawn by horses). The Siberian winter
was beginning. Many died, exhausted and frozen. They
were buried by the roadside or in the snow. Joseph's
Memoirs describe this exodus:
"....The
city of Perm was a gathering point from where the
condemned were dispersed eastward. Perm and the immense
plains below the Urals and behind the Urals became a
limitless cemetery of thousands of victims thrown out of
the Motherland... In the prison a terrible typhus raged;
without the aid of proper medication, without the
salvation of the sacraments, piled up in the hospitals,
our companions departed from the world."
Once again his memoirs show us the heart of this young
man of about 29 years of age, an accomplished civil
engineer who loved his people and who loved God; who
knew of how the sacraments could have been the salvation
that his people were deprived of. The survivors marched
for ten months, finally arriving at Ussole, near Lake
Bahkel. Joseph describes the last stretch of the way
thus: "The weather was
rainy, the road muddy, full of holes. A good part of the
way we went on foot, going along the bank and on the
ice, which was already thawing and breaking into pieces;
starved, weary and frozen, we arrived at the barracks of
the Ussole prison."
Joseph’s years in exile testify to his strength
of soul.
The prisoners lived on
an islet in one huge barrack where everything was done
in common. The Siberian winter reached 30o-45o
below zero. There was much illness. All through his
years of exile, Joseph served his fellow prisoners as
well as he could. Through his charity and especially by
his prayer life, he became dear to them and was thought
to be holy to such an extent that it is recorded as a
noteworthy detail that the prisoners even added to their
prayers, "Through the prayers of Joseph Kalinowski,
deliver us, O Lord!"
Four years later, in
July, 1868, Joseph was transferred to Irkutsk where he
remained until 1874. Apparently, difficulties were not
as great here, and he was apparently able to continue
his scientific studies as well as to begin to study
theology.
TUTOR
After
nine and a half years of exile, Joseph was repatriated.
However, he was forbidden to settle in Lithuania. On
April 10, 1874, he saw his family in Vilna and then left
them for the last time. Joseph then went to Warsaw,
living near his brother Gabriel. From his window he
could see the church and convent of the Discalced
Carmelite Friars. That the Lord was drawing Joseph more
and more to Himself is strikingly clear and this detail
of his window overlooking the Convent seems like another
intervention of Divine Providence.
A friend in his exile,
Alessandro Oskierko, offered Joseph an advantaged
position of tutor to the young prince, Augustus
Czartoryski. He discovered that his pupil possessed
great interior richness but was of fragile health. As
well as teacher, Joseph was friend, spiritual director
and nurse to "Gucio," as young Augustus was called in
Paris. During this time Joseph met the Discalced
Carmelite, Father Augustine Mary of the Blessed
Sacrament (Hermann Cohen, the celebrated Jewish pianist
and convert who began the night adoration in honour of
the Blessed Sacrament). Joseph admired his great musical
talent but, above all, his profound spirituality which
left a mark on him.
Throughout this time,
Joseph's thirst for God grew. He felt as if he did not
belong in his surroundings. Finally, his last tie with
Gucio was broken, as the young prince was due to be
introduced into society and above all, entrusted to the
care of a priest. Gucio also was feeling the call to
spiritual perfection. At a last retreat among the
mountains of Davos in Switzerland, both teacher and
pupil were touched by the Lord. The life of St Aloysius
Gonzaga that Joseph gave Augustus opened the way for him
to a more simple union with God. Meanwhile, Joseph had
been thoroughly reading the works of St. John of the
Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. It was after this retreat
at Davos, Switzerland that Joseph resolutely decided to
enter Carmel. Joseph and Augustus parted in July of
1877. After the premature death of Augustus in 1893,
having been a novice with the Salesians, the Cause of
his Beatification was initiated by the Church. Though it
cannot be stated categorically but there is the
possibility that the life of his tutor and friend did
have a very salutary influence on the young prince.
CARMELITE AND PRIEST
Soon after the retreat, Joseph left for
the Carmel of Linz. In a letter to an aunt of Augustus,
Joseph said he was urged on
by one desire - to do penance. On July 15,
1877 he left for the convent of Graz. Four years later
on November 27, 1881 Joseph made his solemn profession
before the Father General of the Order. He had chosen
the name ‘Raphael of St. Joseph.’ He was then
transferred to Poland to the only Carmelite convent of
friars the Order had succeeded in keeping alive in the
ancient hermitage of Czerna. There, he received the
various Sacred Orders. He was ordained a priest by the
Archbishop of Cracow. Soon, he was appointed Vice-Master
of Novices and, in 1883, Prior of the convent of Czerna
which office he occupied almost continually, alternating
with that of Provincial Councilor.
Due to Father
Raphael's zeal, the Polish Carmel began to thrive.
Monasteries were founded at Premislia in 1884 and at
Leopoli in 1888 in the Ukraine. The Monastery of
Premislia was a center for devotion to the Holy Infant
of Prague. The offices he held speak of a life that
exemplifies. And as it is said only a great love for God
brings forth true zeal. The zeal with which St Raphael
lived his Carmelite life speaks amply of this truth.
He continually reminded his religious:
"In Carmel our principal
duty is to converse with God in all our actions."
He stressed continual communion with God.
In 1899, Father
Raphael was named Visitator and Vicar Provincial of all
of these monasteries. He also made a great contribution
to the Order by his research of the convents' archives
which had been dispersed during the suppressions. He
found many documents on the history of individual Polish
Carmelite convents; with the help of the Carmelite nuns,
he published the Carmelite Chronicles of the monasteries
and convents of Vilna, Warsaw, Leopoli and Cracow.
It was Father Raphael
who arranged for the first translation into Polish of
‘The Story of a Soul,’ the autobiography of St. Thérèse
of Lisieux, a testament to his patriotism as well as his
love for the little way. He wrote,
"I keep my eyes fixed on
eternity and in this way I obtain
constancy...freedom...and a merry heart."
He also wrote the biography of his friend from his Paris
days, the musically gifted Hermann Cohen, Father
Augustine of the Blessed Sacrament.
True to his rich Polish
heritage and tradition, St. Raphael was an ardent
devotee of Our Lady. He wrote,
"For Carmelite friars and nuns,
honouring the Most Holy Virgin is of prime importance.
And we love her if we endeavour to imitate her virtues,
especially humility and recollection in prayer. Our gaze
ought to be constantly turned to her, our affections
directed to her, ever keeping in mind the remembrance of
her benefits and trying always to be faithful to her.”
True to
this devotion, he wrote several booklets
on Our Lady: Mary Always and in Everything, Cracow 1901;
and The Cult of the Mother of God in the Polish Carmel,
Leopoli-Warsaw 1905.
THE LAST YEARS
Like
our
holy founders Father Raphael used all his gifts in the
service of God. Thus he made use of his professional
skills as an engineer to build a junior college or
vocational seminary for young men which he built in
Wadowice. He began most humbly and with great
difficulties, but vocations soon began to flow. Seven
years after completing his first building, Father
Raphael built a larger college in Wadowice and a
beautiful church of St. Joseph.
Father Raphael spent
his last years at this seminary where he dedicated
himself to the education and formation of young men to
religious life. He became noted as confessor and
spiritual director. He kept praying for the conversion
of Russia and union of the Eastern and Western Churches,
offering his suffering and mortifications for this and
inviting others to imitate him. In 1904, by order of his
superiors, he began to write his Memoirs. In 1906, he
was reelected prior of Wadowice. But this was to be his
last year. On November 15, 1907 the day the Carmelite
Order celebrates All Souls Day of their Order, Our Lord
called him home. His reputation of sanctity that began
during his exile in Siberia now grew and continued to
spread. Pilgrims came to pray at his tomb.
14 years later, Karol Wojtyła, Pope John Paul
II, the one who would canonize Father Raphael was born
in the same town.
His parting message to his
fellow Carmelites and to every Christian would be, "I
would like to find (in your daily schedule) at least a
few moments spent in doing good to others out of love
for God. These few moments, almost unnoticeably used,
send forth something like rays of light and comfort.
They unite us with people and with God by a pure feeling
mixed with tender sweetness." And the words
he wrote to his sister as recorded by John Paul II in
his beatification address:
'God gave
Himself completely for us, and we must sacrifice
ourselves to God.'
CONCLUSION
“Holiness,
in fact, consists in love. It is based on the
commandment of love....Holiness, therefore, is a
particular likeness to Christ. A likeness through love.
We abide in Christ through love, just as He abides in
his Father through love. Holiness is likeness to Christ
that touches the mystery of his union with the Father in
the Holy Spirit; his union with the Father through
love....From his earliest years. Father Raphael
understood this truth: that love consists of giving
one's soul; that in love one has to give one's self; in
fact, as Christ said to the Apostles, one must 'give
one's life.’” These are the words of Pope John Paul II
on June 22, 1983, during his trip to Poland, while
performing the solemn rite of Beatification.
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This Biography has been prepared by the sisters
of the Cloistered Carmel in Baroda, Gujarat -
India |
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