Raphael Kalinowski

Józef Melchior Kalinowski was born on 1 September 1835 in Vilnius, then a city of the Russian Empire, into a Polish Catholic family. His father, Andrzej Kalinowski, taught mathematics at the Institute of Nobles in Vilnius. His mother, Józefa née Połońska, died a few months after his birth, and Andrzej later remarried. Józef was educated at home and at the Institute of Nobles, then studied at an agricultural school before entering the Nicholas Engineering Academy in Saint Petersburg. He was commissioned a lieutenant in the Imperial Russian Engineering Corps and in the late 1850s and early 1860s worked on fortifications and railway construction in the western provinces of the empire, including projects connected with the fortress at Brest.

When the January Uprising of 1863 broke out against Russian rule, Kalinowski left the imperial army and became minister of war for the Vilnius region under the Polish National Government. He tried to give some military organization to poorly armed insurgents while restraining needless violence. After the revolt collapsed he was arrested in 1864, tried, and sentenced to death; the sentence was commuted to ten years of hard labor in Siberia. He was sent to the salt mines of Usolye and other penal sites in the Irkutsk region. During nearly a decade of exile he taught, assisted fellow prisoners, and led a life of prayer. Released in 1873 and forbidden to live in Lithuania, he stayed briefly in Warsaw and then went to Paris.

In Paris from 1874 he served as tutor and companion to the young Prince August Czartoryski, whose poor health required travel in Europe. Contact with Carmelite spirituality confirmed his desire for religious life. In 1877, at the age of forty-two, he entered the Discalced Carmelite novitiate at Graz in Austria, taking the name Raphael of Saint Joseph. After profession and theological studies in Hungary and Galicia he was ordained a priest on 15 January 1882 at the monastery of Czerna near Kraków. He then worked to restore the Discalced Carmelites in Polish lands, where the order had been almost extinguished by earlier suppressions. He served several terms as prior of Czerna, founded houses at Wadowice, Przemyśl and Lwów, and became a widely sought confessor and spiritual director. He also promoted reunion between Eastern and Latin Christians and wrote on Carmelite history and spirituality.

Raphael of Saint Joseph Kalinowski died on 15 November 1907 at the Carmelite monastery in Wadowice, then in Austrian Galicia. His remains were later enshrined at Czerna. Pope John Paul II, who was born in Wadowice, beatified him in Kraków on 22 June 1983 and canonized him in Rome on 17 November 1991. The Church observes his feast on 19 November.