Blessed Maria Teresia Ledóchowska

Mary Theresa Ledóchowska, SSPC; 29 April 1863 – 6 July 1922), was a Polish Catholic religious sister who founded the Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver, dedicated to spreading Catholicism in Africa. She was beatified in 1975. Mary Theresa was the eldest of seven children. Members of the Polish nobility, she and her siblings – including Wlodimir Ledóchowski, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, and St. Ursula Ledóchowska – were born in Loosdorf, the Lower Austrian estate that belonged to their parents, Count Antoni Halka-Ledóchowski and Countess Josephine Salis-Zizers. As a young girl, Ledóchowska exhibited a great love of the arts and displayed talent as a writer. She loved society life and would dress in her finest attire to attend the balls which were part of her family's social life. She was educated by the Sisters of Loreto in Sankt Pölten and displayed a strong Catholic piety, as was typical in her family. Her social life continued until both she and father contracted smallpox in 1885. She was nursed back to health, but her father succumbed to the disease. After his death, their uncle, Cardinal Mieczysław Halka Ledóchowski, took charge of their care. From 1885 to 1890, in order to help her family, which had fallen into economic difficulties, she obtained the position of lady-in-waiting to Princess Alice of Parma, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, at the imperial palace in Salzburg. While living at court, she attended concerts and balls often. At the same time, she remained strictly committed to her faith. Under the guidance of a Franciscan friar who served as spiritual director to both the princess and her, she was admitted to the Third Order of St. Francis, following its spirituality and its emphasis on venerating the Passion of Christ. Shortly after her arrival, two members of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary came to the court seeking financial help for their missionary work.