Saint Who?
Saints Who Promoted Eucharistic Devotion
Saint Józef Bilczewski
Bishop († 1923) Feast: March 20
“Totally sacrifice oneself for the holy Church.” Józef Bilczewski was born to a family of Polish peasants in 1860. Very bright and a hard worker, he studied at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, one of the most venerable schools in Europe. After his ordination at the age of twenty-four, he spent some years studying theology in Vienna and Rome.
After returning to Poland, he became a professor at the University of Lviv (in what is now Ukraine) and was soon promoted to positions of leadership. He was considered a leading intellectual light. One of his main objects of study was the Eucharist in “light of the oldest written, iconographic, and epigraphic monuments.” At the suggestion of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, Józef was appointed Archbishop of Lviv. He was forty years old.
It was an office demanding great prudence, and the new bishop turned to the Blessed Sacrament. He carefully cultivated priestly vocations, forming his priests in love of the Eucharist which would flow out in paternal care for the faithful. He encouraged them to participate in Adoration, attend retreats, and join priestly associations to increase their love for the sacrament. During the Bolshevik revolution, his diocese lost 120 priests, but he persevered until his final illness. Józef died in 1923 and was canonized in 2005.
All-wise Father, through the prayers and example of your bishop Saint Józef Bilczewski, give us courage and perseverance through the power of the Eucharist.
