My Venerable Relative:
Br. Alojzy Kosiba, The Holy Almoner
Polish American Journal, April 2019
Brother Alojzy Piotr Kosiba, a collector and distributor of funds famous for his happy spirit and huge kindness, was referred to as the “holy almoner, apostle of goodness and the poor.” He was declared venerable by Pope Francis in July 2017 for his work on behalf of poor children.
by Mark G. Dillon
It is summer of 1855 in Libusza, a small farming village on the road from Gorlice to Biecz once known as a linen weaving center. My great grandfather Walenty Dylag is a boy of 10, most likely working on the long narrow strip of farmland near the Ropa River the family had purchased few years earlier when the Austrian-Hungarian Empire brought serfdom to an end.
At Agnieszka Kosiba’s log and straw home a short walk away, a boy is born on June 29. He will be baptized Piotr (Peter) by Fr. Alojzy Haas at the wooden Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built in 1513. Agnieszka will die when Piotr is a toddler after giving birth to his second sister a few days before Christmas. His father Jan Kosiba, a farmer cultivating about seven acres, would then marry Apolonia Kosibow and Piotr will have seven more siblings, three of whom would die as infants.
Piotr grew to a humble man who would adopt the name Br. Alojzy Kosiba as a member of the Franciscans (Order of Friars Minor founded by St. Francis of Assisi in 1209). He knew poverty first-hand as a child, and would earn the nickname “The Holy Almoner” for his persistence in seeking alms using a horse-drawn cart. Br. Kosiba dedicated his life to helping children who faced hunger in areas south and east of Krakow during and after World War I, according to the testimony his fellow brothers.
“Br. Alojzy was a monk without a reproach. He prayed constantly, he respected the elderly, he loved the children. Above all, he highly valued and loved the poor,” wrote colleague Br. Blazej Ranosz in Polish in 1965.
Declared Venerable by Pope Francis two years ago, January 4th marked the 80th anniversary of Br. Kosiba’s death just before the start of World War II in 1939. He is buried in Wieliczka, a short walk from the famous salt mine at the Franciscan monastery grounds where he worked, within the monastery’s 17th century baroque Church of the Stigmata.
Within the courtyard of the church surrounded by outdoor Stations of the Cross is also a memorial to Br. Kosiba while on the street that bears his name is a life-size sculpture in sandstone depicting Br. Kosiba with several children and baskets of food. (See photos).
Who was Br. Kosiba?
He was someone who embraced a life of poverty to the point where some of his more worldly-focused fellow clergy questioned his self-sacrifice and humorous collection methods, and mocked him. Among the legends that surfaced was that an angry babcia once poured hot soup on him and chased him off her property after he asked for a donation.
In the years after his death, the ranks of Kosiba’s admirers — among them Karol Wojtyla when he was Archbishop of Krakow — grew. A Polish language movie based on Br. Kosiba’s life created by film director Andrej Baranski called Braciszek was released in 2007.
“People in Jurków and Dobre very much appreciated Br. Alojzy,” Br. Ranosz wrote as eyewitness testimony was first gathered in the 1960s for a canonization petition. “When he was not there for a long time, they inquired when he would come. Usually he arrived in the winter, from mid-January. He was sometimes [there] a month or so, until he passed all the surrounding villages. He always brought souvenirs, gifts to churches, healing herbs, pictures, crosses, rosaries; he wrote to these people for Christmas. He prayed for people, because many asked for prayers. It was said that when Brother Alojzy prays for them and qualifies them, they avoid hail and thunderstorms and have better crops and harvests.”
Addressing the Franciscan Seminary of St. Bonaventure in Krakow in January 2015, Holocaust survivor Ute Maria Frey attributed her renewed ability to walk after 16 years of paralysis to the intercession of Br. Kosiba. She had been a victim of Nazi medical experiments.
The early 1870s — when Br. Kosiba came of age — was a difficult time for many families in Libusza in the foothills of the Carpathians, even as a new oil refinery opened in the village in 1872. Large families were the norm, resulting in each succeeding generation of subsistence farmers trying to make ends meet on an ever smaller slice of family homestead.
My own family was an example. My great grandfather Walenty would grow up to marry Angieszka Kosiba’s sister Tekla’s daughter Agata in 1872, and have 12 children. One child was my grandfather Maciej Dylag, a blacksmith who emigrated to the United States in 1905. Two of Maciej’s siblings would also marry relatives of Jan Kosiba’s mother Katarzyna, whose maiden surname was Przybylowicz.
Br. Kosiba initially decided on cobbling shoes for people rather than horses for a living. Unable to further a high-school level education for financial reasons, he earned his shoemaker trade certificate in Biecz, and then for two years worked at a shoe factory in Tarnow to support his brothers and sisters back in Libusza.
His calling.
Working with “souls” rather than “soles” became a greater calling. Br. Kosiba first met the Franciscans while in Biecz, and eventually decided that religious life was a better fit after visiting the Wieliczka monastery. He formally joined the Franciscans in 1878, was initially stationed at Jaroslaw but then got transferred back to Wieliczka and assigned as the order’s shoemaker, and repair man for monks’ belts.
It was during the bleak winter of 1915-1916 that Br. Kosiba took on the role that would make him famous. On Christmas Day 1915, Archbishop of Krakow Adam Sapieha sent out a global call for aid to civilian Poles affected by World War I. Archibishop Sapieha’s Ksiazeco-Niskupi Komitet and a supporting letter from then Pope Benedict XV became the catalyst for fundraising around the world, including many benefit events organized by the Polish diaspora in the United States.
The backdrop was that agriculture in Galicia and the Russian partition had been devastated, first by the invading Russians in the autumn of 1914, then in the Gorlice-Tarnow counterattack in May 1915 by Germany and Austria-Hungary and again by the retreating Russians whose scorched-earth policy including burning farms and barns.
Instead of assisting the reconquered Galicia and Russian partitions, the victorious Germans expropriated remaining resources. By mid-1916, for example, the German military was taking 40,000 tons of potatoes per month from former Russian-occupied areas of Poland, cutting the supply available for civilians in half.
Meanwhile, at the Franciscan monastery, the task of answering the bishop’s call was assigned to Br. Kosiba on Jan. 27, 1916. He embraced it wholeheartedly even as local resources were already stretched thin.
According to the monastery’s website (franciszkaniewieliczka.pl) Br. Kosiba’s ministering journeys, largely on horse drawn carts for months at a time, included Wieliczka, Dobczyce (20 km), Mszana Dolna (40 km), Myślenice (30 km), Rabka (55 km), Nowy Targ (80 km), Zakopane (100 km), Bochnia (25 km), Brzesko (38 km), Limanowa, Lipnica Murowana, Tymbark, Stary and Nowy Sącz (80 km).”
In May Br. Kosiba “went for poultry, chicken, duck, goose, but he did not collect, he only wrote who promised and only in June and at the beginning of July he took and transported,” the monastery’s website says. The yield: 300 to 400 chickens and 50 to 60 ducks.
Helping the poor and sick.
After World War I through the end of 1938, Br. Kosiba continued his ministry to the poor, becoming what today would be considered a home health aide. “To the best of his abilities, Br. Alojzy looked after the deserted and ill in the houses in Wieliczka, which he had previously invested in, and also brought a doctor who, at his request, provided the poor with free medical care,” wrote colleague Br. Zefiryn Pyzik. “Drugs that the doctor prescribed for the poor, Br. Alojzy would deliver with the help of a Wieliczka pharmacist.”
Shortly after Christmas 1938, after setting out on a trip to Niegowić eight miles away, Br. Kosiba, then 83, returned the next day and learned he had contracted pneumonia. He died Jan. 4, 1939. Coincidentally, Niegowić parish — Church of the Assumption of Our Lady — was the first pastoral assignment for a young Fr. Karol Wojtyla from July 1948 to August 1949.
Sources
www.akosiba.blogspot.com and franciszkaniewieliczka.pl
International Encyclopedia of the Great War, Occupation during and after the War, Oct. 8, 2014
National Catholic Register, May 14, 2017
www.ofm.krakow.pl/wsd/rocznica-smierci-slugi-bozego-br-alojzego-kosiby-ofm
bratalojzy.com.pl
by Mark G. Dillon
It is summer of 1855 in Libusza, a small farming village on the road from Gorlice to Biecz once known as a linen weaving center. My great grandfather Walenty Dylag is a boy of 10, most likely working on the long narrow strip of farmland near the Ropa River the family had purchased few years earlier when the Austrian-Hungarian Empire brought serfdom to an end.
At Agnieszka Kosiba’s log and straw home a short walk away, a boy is born on June 29. He will be baptized Piotr (Peter) by Fr. Alojzy Haas at the wooden Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built in 1513. Agnieszka will die when Piotr is a toddler after giving birth to his second sister a few days before Christmas. His father Jan Kosiba, a farmer cultivating about seven acres, would then marry Apolonia Kosibow and Piotr will have seven more siblings, three of whom would die as infants.
Piotr grew to a humble man who would adopt the name Br. Alojzy Kosiba as a member of the Franciscans (Order of Friars Minor founded by St. Francis of Assisi in 1209). He knew poverty first-hand as a child, and would earn the nickname “The Holy Almoner” for his persistence in seeking alms using a horse-drawn cart. Br. Kosiba dedicated his life to helping children who faced hunger in areas south and east of Krakow during and after World War I, according to the testimony his fellow brothers.
“Br. Alojzy was a monk without a reproach. He prayed constantly, he respected the elderly, he loved the children. Above all, he highly valued and loved the poor,” wrote colleague Br. Blazej Ranosz in Polish in 1965.
Declared Venerable by Pope Francis two years ago, January 4th marked the 80th anniversary of Br. Kosiba’s death just before the start of World War II in 1939. He is buried in Wieliczka, a short walk from the famous salt mine at the Franciscan monastery grounds where he worked, within the monastery’s 17th century baroque Church of the Stigmata.
Within the courtyard of the church surrounded by outdoor Stations of the Cross is also a memorial to Br. Kosiba while on the street that bears his name is a life-size sculpture in sandstone depicting Br. Kosiba with several children and baskets of food. (See photos).
Who was Br. Kosiba?
He was someone who embraced a life of poverty to the point where some of his more worldly-focused fellow clergy questioned his self-sacrifice and humorous collection methods, and mocked him. Among the legends that surfaced was that an angry babcia once poured hot soup on him and chased him off her property after he asked for a donation.
In the years after his death, the ranks of Kosiba’s admirers — among them Karol Wojtyla when he was Archbishop of Krakow — grew. A Polish language movie based on Br. Kosiba’s life created by film director Andrej Baranski called Braciszek was released in 2007.
“People in Jurków and Dobre very much appreciated Br. Alojzy,” Br. Ranosz wrote as eyewitness testimony was first gathered in the 1960s for a canonization petition. “When he was not there for a long time, they inquired when he would come. Usually he arrived in the winter, from mid-January. He was sometimes [there] a month or so, until he passed all the surrounding villages. He always brought souvenirs, gifts to churches, healing herbs, pictures, crosses, rosaries; he wrote to these people for Christmas. He prayed for people, because many asked for prayers. It was said that when Brother Alojzy prays for them and qualifies them, they avoid hail and thunderstorms and have better crops and harvests.”
Addressing the Franciscan Seminary of St. Bonaventure in Krakow in January 2015, Holocaust survivor Ute Maria Frey attributed her renewed ability to walk after 16 years of paralysis to the intercession of Br. Kosiba. She had been a victim of Nazi medical experiments.
The early 1870s — when Br. Kosiba came of age — was a difficult time for many families in Libusza in the foothills of the Carpathians, even as a new oil refinery opened in the village in 1872. Large families were the norm, resulting in each succeeding generation of subsistence farmers trying to make ends meet on an ever smaller slice of family homestead.
My own family was an example. My great grandfather Walenty would grow up to marry Angieszka Kosiba’s sister Tekla’s daughter Agata in 1872, and have 12 children. One child was my grandfather Maciej Dylag, a blacksmith who emigrated to the United States in 1905. Two of Maciej’s siblings would also marry relatives of Jan Kosiba’s mother Katarzyna, whose maiden surname was Przybylowicz.
Br. Kosiba initially decided on cobbling shoes for people rather than horses for a living. Unable to further a high-school level education for financial reasons, he earned his shoemaker trade certificate in Biecz, and then for two years worked at a shoe factory in Tarnow to support his brothers and sisters back in Libusza.
His calling.
Working with “souls” rather than “soles” became a greater calling. Br. Kosiba first met the Franciscans while in Biecz, and eventually decided that religious life was a better fit after visiting the Wieliczka monastery. He formally joined the Franciscans in 1878, was initially stationed at Jaroslaw but then got transferred back to Wieliczka and assigned as the order’s shoemaker, and repair man for monks’ belts.
It was during the bleak winter of 1915-1916 that Br. Kosiba took on the role that would make him famous. On Christmas Day 1915, Archbishop of Krakow Adam Sapieha sent out a global call for aid to civilian Poles affected by World War I. Archibishop Sapieha’s Ksiazeco-Niskupi Komitet and a supporting letter from then Pope Benedict XV became the catalyst for fundraising around the world, including many benefit events organized by the Polish diaspora in the United States.
The backdrop was that agriculture in Galicia and the Russian partition had been devastated, first by the invading Russians in the autumn of 1914, then in the Gorlice-Tarnow counterattack in May 1915 by Germany and Austria-Hungary and again by the retreating Russians whose scorched-earth policy including burning farms and barns.
Instead of assisting the reconquered Galicia and Russian partitions, the victorious Germans expropriated remaining resources. By mid-1916, for example, the German military was taking 40,000 tons of potatoes per month from former Russian-occupied areas of Poland, cutting the supply available for civilians in half.
Meanwhile, at the Franciscan monastery, the task of answering the bishop’s call was assigned to Br. Kosiba on Jan. 27, 1916. He embraced it wholeheartedly even as local resources were already stretched thin.
According to the monastery’s website (franciszkaniewieliczka.pl) Br. Kosiba’s ministering journeys, largely on horse drawn carts for months at a time, included Wieliczka, Dobczyce (20 km), Mszana Dolna (40 km), Myślenice (30 km), Rabka (55 km), Nowy Targ (80 km), Zakopane (100 km), Bochnia (25 km), Brzesko (38 km), Limanowa, Lipnica Murowana, Tymbark, Stary and Nowy Sącz (80 km).”
In May Br. Kosiba “went for poultry, chicken, duck, goose, but he did not collect, he only wrote who promised and only in June and at the beginning of July he took and transported,” the monastery’s website says. The yield: 300 to 400 chickens and 50 to 60 ducks.
Helping the poor and sick.
After World War I through the end of 1938, Br. Kosiba continued his ministry to the poor, becoming what today would be considered a home health aide. “To the best of his abilities, Br. Alojzy looked after the deserted and ill in the houses in Wieliczka, which he had previously invested in, and also brought a doctor who, at his request, provided the poor with free medical care,” wrote colleague Br. Zefiryn Pyzik. “Drugs that the doctor prescribed for the poor, Br. Alojzy would deliver with the help of a Wieliczka pharmacist.”
Shortly after Christmas 1938, after setting out on a trip to Niegowić eight miles away, Br. Kosiba, then 83, returned the next day and learned he had contracted pneumonia. He died Jan. 4, 1939. Coincidentally, Niegowić parish — Church of the Assumption of Our Lady — was the first pastoral assignment for a young Fr. Karol Wojtyla from July 1948 to August 1949.
Sources
www.akosiba.blogspot.com and franciszkaniewieliczka.pl
International Encyclopedia of the Great War, Occupation during and after the War, Oct. 8, 2014
National Catholic Register, May 14, 2017
www.ofm.krakow.pl/wsd/rocznica-smierci-slugi-bozego-br-alojzego-kosiby-ofm
bratalojzy.com.pl
