SAINT OF THE DAY MAY 16 ( Saint Andrew Bobola ).

Saint Andrew Bobola

Also known as

• Andrzej Bobola
• Apostle of Lithuania
• Hunter of Souls

Additional Memorials

• 21 February in Poland
• 23 May (Jesuits)

Profile

Born to the Polish nobility. Studied at the Jesuit school at Sandomierz, Poland. He joined the Jesuits on 31 July 1611 at Vilna, Lithuania. Studied and taught philosophy. Ordained on 12 March 1622. Parish priest at Vilna in 1625. Superior of the Jesuit community at Bobrinks in 1630. Worked with the sick during a plague outbreak.

Successful missionary to the Orthodox from 1636 to 1656, preaching along the roads, bringing whole villages back to Catholicism. In 1652 Prince Radziwell gave Andrew a house in Pinsk as a refuge for Jesuits hiding from the Cossacks and Tartars. He was captured just after Mass on 10 May 1657 during a Cossack raid on Pinsk. He was severely beaten, dragged by horses, tortured, hacked with knives, skinned alive, and when he tried to pray for them, they tore out his tongue and murdered him, all for being a Christian; he never surrendered his faith. Martyr.

Born

30 November 1591 at Sandomierz, Poland

Died

• beheaded at Janow on 16 May 1657 at Pinsk (in modern Belarus)
• buried at the Jesuit school in Pinsk, but his grave was forgotten when the Jesuits were forced to abandon the town
• he later appeared in visions to the rector of the school, pointing out his grave
• relics translated to Polosk in 1808
• body found incorrupt
• body later taken to Moscow, Russia by the Bolsheviks
• body taken to Rome, Italy in 1922
• currently entombed at the Jesuit church in Cracow, Poland

Venerated

9 February 1755 by Pope Benedict XIV

Beatified

30 October 1853 by Pope Blessed Pius IX

Canonized

17 April 1938 by Pope Pius XI

Patronage

• Poland
• archdiocese of Warsaw, Poland.