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The first-ever lay nurse to be beatified is a model of how to give of oneself for the good of others.
Fr Pawel Galuszka has been involved with Hanna Chrzanowska’s canonisation cause.
He said the Polish nurse “teaches us how important it is to make a sincere gift of oneself, even sacrifice, for the good of the other”.
She will be beatified in Krakow on Saturday.
“The laity know well the reality of everyday life,” Galuszka said.
“Hanna, as a nurse, knew in person and from experience the problems of the sick, alone, abandoned and disabled.”
Besides being a nurse, Chrzanowska was an oblate with the Ursuline Sisters of St Benedict.
Galuszka noted that St John Paul II, then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, knew Chrzanowska during her life.
When he presided over her funeral Wojtyla said:
“We thank you, Miss Hanna, for having been among us… a particular incarnation of Christ’s blessings from the Sermon on the Mount, above all that he said ‘blessed [are] the merciful.’”
Galuszka noted St John Paul II “had no doubt that Hanna in a heroic way fulfilled the commandment of love of neighbour.”
With the help of nuns, seminarians, priests, doctors, professors and students, Chrzanowska organised retreats for her patients.
These brought back joy and gave them the strength to face everyday life.
“Thanks to her efforts, the tradition of celebrating Holy Mass in the homes of the sick, and going to visit patients during pastoral visits, spread,” Galuszka said.
Galuszka said that the miracle which paved the way for Chrzanowska’s beatification was the healing of a 66-year-old woman.
The woman had suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage and mild heart attack.
She was paralysed in both legs and in one hand and was considered to have no chance of surviving.
While in a coma, she had a dream that Hanna Chrzanowska appeared to her and said, “Everything will be fine.”
Waking soon after, she surprised the doctors, because not only could she speak normally, but she could move her limbs.
It was later discovered that on the same day she was miraculously healed, the woman’s friend, a nurse, had attended a Mass and prayed to Chrzanowska for her healing.
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