St Stan Illustrated Story

I t was mid-May in the year 1631. Sophia had been shopping in Stary Sacz and was hurrying back to Podegrodzie to her many household duties. She had had so many things to settle in town that she was only able to stop for a brief visit at the Convent of the Sisters of St. Clare, to pray at the tomb of Blessed Cunegunda [Blessed kinga]. It was getting late, and her sense of urgency was further in- creased by the heavy, dark threatening clouds approaching from the slopes of the Beskidy Mountains. When she reached the bank of the Dunajec River, the ferryman was waiting to take her across. She could see her home on the opposite side, and felt sure that she could reach it before the downpour. But they were barely halfway across when a sudden gust of wind from the mountains began to churn up the water and toss the boat about like a feather. Sophia had always had deep faith and great piety. We can picture her on her knees at his dangerous moment. As the ferryman strained at the oars in his attempt to keep the boat on its course towards the opposite shore, she prayed, with all the fervor of her young heart, for her own safety and that of the oarsman, and above all, for the child whom she carried in her womb. It was at this moment of anxiety for the unborn child that she offered him unreservedly to Jesus and Mary. A sudden squall threw both oarsman and passenger into the swirling waters of the river. Fortunately, they were already close enough to the bank to be able to find their feet. Tradition has always attributed this deliverance of Fr. Papczynski’s mother from the waters of the Dunajec to a miraculous intervention on the part of Divine Prov- idence. Shortly after this incident, Sophia gave birth to her child – the future Blessed Stanislaus “of Jesus and Mary” Papczynski. 17