Submitted by Sean Pilcher
The first builders and parishioners of All Saints included many saints in the windows of the church, some well-known to us, and some more elusive and obscure. Their Polish heritage informed some of their choices, while devotion was the motive for others. At any rate, saints are for the whole Church, and these particular saints look down on us as we offer our prayers.
The founders of the parish chose to give a rather obscure Blessed a special place of honour in the church building. In the niche to the right side (next to the baptismal font), directly over the altar, is a window of Blessed Bronislava, a thirteenth century nun and mystic. She deterred invading Tartars and the plague by holding up the Cross. She gave such comfort to the sick and the troubled that she was called the ‘angel of consolation.’
Our parish has recently been gifted a relic of Bl Bronislava for veneration by the Premonstratensian Postulator General in Rome. Just as we aim to ‘restore the sacred’ in our love of the Mass and the Tradition of the Church, we can also restore a devotion traditionally practiced at the parish, and experience a mighty intercessor with a deep local tie to our church. The relic will be exposed by her image for prayer and petitions. Her feast is 30 August.