Suggest an Edit — Polish Confessor Stanislaus Kostka

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Biography

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Stanislaus Kostka (Polish: Stanisław Kostka) was born on 28 October 1550 at Rostkowo in Mazovia, in the Kingdom of Poland, the second son of the nobleman Jan Kostka, later castellan of Zakroczym and a senator of the realm, and of Małgorzata Kryska of the Kryski family. Raised among the Polish szlachta in a Catholic household, he showed from childhood a marked piety, love of prayer, and inclination to austerity. In 1564 he and his elder brother Paweł were sent to Vienna to study at the Jesuit college, then a leading centre of Catholic education in the Habsburg lands. The brothers lodged in a private house rather than in a Jesuit residence.

In Vienna Stanislaus was known for regularity of life, frequent reception of the sacraments, and devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Companions, including his brother, often ridiculed these practices. In late 1565 he fell gravely ill; the Lutheran landlord would not admit a Catholic priest with the Eucharist. According to the Jesuit hagiographical tradition he commended himself to Saint Barbara and received Holy Communion from angels; after recovering he reported a vision of the Virgin Mary, who placed the Child Jesus in his arms and urged him to enter the Society of Jesus. His family intended a secular career for him, and the Vienna Jesuits hesitated to accept a high-born Polish youth against his father's will, fearing political repercussions.

In August 1567 Stanislaus left Vienna on foot, travelling in the guise of a pilgrim to evade pursuit. He made his way through Bavaria to Dillingen, where he presented himself to Peter Canisius, provincial of the Upper German Jesuit province. Canisius, after testing his resolve, sent him on to Rome with a letter of recommendation. The long journey on foot brought him to the city in October 1567. There he was received into the novitiate by the Superior General, Francis Borgia, and assigned to the house of Sant'Andrea on the Quirinal.

As a novice he was noted for humility, exact observance, and a spirit of mortification that superiors sometimes had to restrain. He remained in the novitiate less than a year. In early August 1568 he spoke of dying on the feast of the Assumption. He contracted an acute fever, generally identified as malaria, and died at dawn on 15 August 1568, not yet eighteen. He was buried in the church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, later the site of a well-known marble group by Pierre Legros the Younger marking his tomb.

A cult arose quickly among the Jesuits and in Poland. He was beatified by Pope Paul V in 1605 and canonized by Pope Benedict XIII on 31 December 1726. His feast is kept on 13 November, August 15 being occupied by the Assumption. Stanislaus Kostka is venerated as a patron of Poland, of youth and students, and of Jesuit novices, and is invoked in connection with the last sacraments. He remains one of the most popular saints of the Polish Catholic tradition and a classic model of youthful holiness in the Counter-Reformation Church.

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