(ANS – Rome) – Yesterday, 29 January, the hundredth anniversary of the death of Blessed Fr Bronislao Markiewicz a Jubilee Year of Thanksgiving for the gift of his charism began with celebrations by the Congregation of Saint Michael the Archangel (CSMA) and the Sisters of Saint Michael the Archangel (CSSMA), founded by the Polish priest.

Born on 13 July 1842 at Pruchnik, Poland, on 15 September 1867 he was ordained priest. After eighteen years of zealous and fruitful priestly service in the diocese of Przemysl, in 1885 he entered the Salesian Congregation as a disciple of Don Bosco. In 1897 he founded the Congregations of the Michaelite Sisters and the Michaelite Fathers.

Full of love for God and his neighbour, and working with the spirit of “work and temperance” he devoted all his life to orphans forgotten and rejected, to poor children  and to abandoned youth and morally at risk. He died on 29 January 1912 and was beatified in Warsaw on 19 June 2005.

In a message sent for the occasion Pope Benedict XVI expresses the hope that the Jubilee Year may be  “an suitable occasion to once again study his charism, to rediscover the ideals of the religious life and to examine one’s own apostolate in the perspective of the new evangelisation and in the light of current needs.”

The Rector Major, Fr Pascual Chávez, has been invited to preside in June at one of the more significant events in this commemorative year.

Published 30/01/2012