Blessed Zdenka Cecília Schelingová

Cecília Schelingová (24 December 1916 – 31 July 1955), also known as Zdenka Schelingová, was a Slovak Roman Catholic religious sister of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Holy Cross and a victim of communist persecution in the former Czechoslovakia. Schelingová worked for the most part in the hospital at Bratislava before her arrest and aided priests fleeing persecution from the totalitarian communist regime in her home nation. The beatification was celebrated on 14 September 2003 on the occasion of Pope John Paul II visiting Slovakia. Cecília Schelingová was born at Krivá na Orave as the tenth of eleven children to Pavol Scheling and Zuzana Pániková on 24 December 1916 and was baptized right after her birth. Her initial studies spanned from 1922 until 1930 and her call to the religious life began to blossom in 1929 when the Sisters of Charity of the Holy Cross arrived in her hometown to teach there. On 6 July 1931, with her mother going with her to the motherhouse, she requested to join the congregation. The congregation requested that she completed a nursing course as well as a radiological course before entering. The postulant then commenced her novitiate on 28 January 1936. She made her first vows on 30 January 1937 while assuming the religious name Zdenka. Since 1937, Schelingová worked at a hospital in Humenné in Eastnern Slovakia, before relocating to a hospital in Bratislava in 1942, where she worked in the radiological department. She made her solemn profession on 28 January 1943. In 1952 she began to serve in the x-ray area. Following the February 1948 Communist coup d'état, mass persecution of religious and priest alike commenced with countless arrested and tortured, with many requiring medical attention.