Blessed Angela Salawa, the youngest of ten children of Bartholomew and Eve Salawa, was born on September 9, 1881. The large family, despite owning a farm and earning an income from blacksmithing, led a very modest life, often on the verge of extreme poverty. However, they never lacked faith and piety. It was a family custom to sing religious songs together, read devotional books and attend prayers and services.
Angela could receive only the most basic education. Attending school for two years, she learned to read and write, all the while helping her parents run the farm. When she turned 16, her parents decided to marry her off. However, Angela opposed their intentions, in which she was supported by her older sisters, who worked as servants in Krakow. They brought Angela to Krakow and, in order to provide her with a source of income, found her a job. Therefore, from the late autumn of 1897, for twenty years Angela Salawa worked in Krakow as a maid, in various places and with various families. The hard work did not take her mind off religion and faith. At the age of eighteen she took a vow of chastity and also tried to attend Mass as often as possible, bringing flowers and tablecloths she embroidered to church. For some time, Angela also entertained the idea of entering one of the cloistered convents but was refused due to her poor health and lack of the required dowry.
Angela was particularly fond of two churches in Krakow: the Redemptorist Fathers and the Franciscan Fathers. She also enrolled in 1900 in the St. Zyta Association of Catholic Servants, the patron saint of servants, founded a year earlier. The association had a shelter for homeless girls, a kitchen, a hospital and a library. Membership in the Association replaced Angela’s lost family home at an early age and compensated for the lack of a home of her own.
Beginning in 1903, Angela Salawa took the Holy Communion daily. On May 15, 1912, she entered the Third Order of St. Francis, while on August 6, 1913, she was professed as a Tertiary.
After the outbreak of World War I, Angela began ministering to wounded soldiers, visiting them in lazarettes, bringing them food and a good word. She also shared her meager rations with the city’s poorest residents. The strenuous work and meager nutrition undermined Angela’s not-so-strong health. Her previous ailments intensified, and she also fell ill with stomach ailments and multiple sclerosis. Since she appeared to be a healthy and robust person, she was quickly discharged from the hospital.
She lived her last years in extreme poverty, living in a tiny cell in a basement. Abandoned by people who feared contagion, and increasingly gravely ill, she remained faithful to the love of Jesus to the end. Four days before her death, she was transferred to a hospital, where, after receiving the sacrament of the sick, she died on March 12, 1922.
The cause for Salawa’s beatification was opened on 7 July 1949. As part of this process, her remains were enshrined in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Kraków. Pope John Paul II declared Salawa’s heroic virtue on 23 October 1987.
Source: https://www.sanktuarium-siepraw.katolicki.eu/index.php/sanktuarium/bl-aniela-salawa