Saint Who?
Saints Whose Bodies Resisted Corruption
Saint Andrew Bobola
Priest and martyr († 1657) Feast: May 16
Andrew Bobola, apostle of Lithuania and patron of Poland, was born in 1591. He studied with the Jesuits and joined the novitiate at nineteen. Proud, impatient, and stubborn, he was not expelled, it is said, only for fear of offending his powerful family. Recognizing his need for conversion, Andrew turned to the Virgin Mary and began to attend Adoration daily. He mastered his faults, was ordained a priest, and became a zealous promoter of the faith, earning the nickname “soul hunter.”
Amidst conflicts between Catholics and Orthodox, Andrew was especially effective in promoting union with Rome. Captured by Cossack soldiers, he was cruelly butchered when he refused to renounce his Catholic faith. His mutilated body was buried in the city of Pinsk and forgotten. Forty-five years later, he appeared to the rector of the Jesuit college there and told him to look for his relics. The body was incorrupt, despite terrible wounds which ought to have hastened decay. These remained discernible after centuries had passed. Andrew was canonized in 1938 and declared a patron of Poland in 2002.
Saint John Paul II wrote, “God has allowed Saint Andrew to become a sign…a sign of what has divided and still divides, even to the point of martyrdom, but also of what will unite.”
Blessed Trinity, one in substance and undivided,
let the wounds which afflict the Church be triumphantly healed through the prayers of Saint Andrew Bobola.
