25/11/2023
Happy Name Day to me!
K A T A R Z Y N A K A S I A 🫶
Name day is the feast day of the patron saint. In some places it was the custom to name a baby according to whose day it was when they were born.
Each first name is assigned to one day in the calendar, based on religious traditions, historical events, the birthday of a famous person who had the same first name.
St. Katarzyna was born in Zabrzez, Poland, was an orphan at the age of 5 and was raised by pious relatives who had no children of their own. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate in 1930 and served as a kindergarten teacher and catechist. After World War II started, she led the religious house, ran an orphanage and helped the poor. In 1943 on the feast of the Epiphany, she was arrested by the Gestapo, charged with conspiracy against the N***s and was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. There she was assigned to dig ditches, though she praised God in her suffering. There she developed typhoid fever and tuberculosis. Since she had completed the First Fridays devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she believed she would not die without Holy Communion, promised by Our Lord. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, on the 8th of December 1943, a priest brought secretly the Holy Communion and she received it as viaticum. She prayed on a rosary made of bread and offered her sufferings for the conversion of a priest who had fallen away from the Church. He later returned to the Faith. On Easter morning, she died and is recognised as one of the 108 beatified Polish Catholic Martyrs martyred during World War II by the N**i Germans.
