Saint Zygmunt Gorazdowski

Zygmunt Gorazdowski (1 November 1845 – 1 January 1920) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. Gorazdowski suffered from tuberculosis during his childhood which impeded his studies for the priesthood and which required him to take time off in order to recover before he could be ordained. Once he was ordained he served in various parishes while setting up homes for orphans and single mothers as well as hospices and other establishments for a range of people; he was a prolific writer of catechism and other religious notes for the benefit of his flock. The cause for his canonization opened on 1 June 1989 and he became titled as a Servant of God at the onset of the cause; the confirmation of his model life of heroic virtue allowed for him to be titled as Venerable while Pope John Paul II beatified him on his visit to Ukraine on 26 June 2001. Pope Benedict XVI later canonized him as a saint on 23 October 2005 in Saint Peter's Square. Zygmunt Gorazdowski was born on 1 November 1845 in Sanok to the politician Szczęsny Gorazdowski (c.1813-May 1903) and Aleksandra Łazowska; his parents had married in 1843 and his paternal grandparents were Szymon Gorazdowski and Maria Dobrzańskich. He was baptized on 9 November 1845 at a Franciscan church. In his childhood he suffered a lung ailment that became tuberculosis; this did not prevent him from considering the needs of others and offering his help wherever he could. He almost died in 1846 during the Galician slaughter that saw peasants revolt against serfdom and he managed to survive when his parents hid him under a mill's wheel. In 1863, he joined the uprising against the Russian occupation. Once he completed his high school studies in Przemyśl in 1864, he enrolled in law in Lviv at the college.