Blessed Sancja Szymkowiak

Janina Szymkowiak (10 July 1910 – 29 August 1942) - in religious Sancja - was a Polish Roman Catholic professed religious from the Daughters of the Sorrowful Mother of God. The nun studied foreign languages and literature before the outbreak that turned into World War II in which her convent was turned into a field hospital for prisoners of war as well as a place to do forced labor for the Nazi soldiers. The sainthood cause commenced under Pope Paul VI on 24 March 1968 after she became titled as a Servant of God and Pope John Paul II later named her ⁣Venerable - upon the confirmation of her heroic virtue - on 18 December 2000 while presiding over her beatification in Poland not long after on 18 August 2002. Janina Szymkowiak was born in Poland in 1910 as the last of five children to Augustine Szymkowiak and Maria Duchalska as their sole daughter. She was baptized not long after in the month of her birth. One brother was a priest named Eric. Her initial education in a school lasted from 1916 until 1919 and the family relocated in 1921 after her parents bought a house in another city. Following the successful completion of her high school education in 1929 (after passing her examinations in May 1928) she studied several languages in addition to foreign languages at college in Poznań. She became a member of the "Sodality of Mary", where she became well known amongst its members for her personal interest in aiding the poor and in aiding those who were suffering from personal problems to which she found the time to help them with. In summer 1934 she undertook a pilgrimage to Lourdes in France where she began to experience the call to the religious life and decided to entrust herself while there to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Until 1935 she spent time with the Congregation of the Oblate Sisters of the Sacred Heart at Montluçon and then returned home in 1936.