| Who was Blessed Josaphata Hordashevska?
Blessed Josaphata Michaelina Hordashevska is the co-foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate of the Byzantine-Ukrainian Catholic Church. She was proclaimed blessed by Pope John II on the 27th of June 2001 in Lviv, during his pastoral visit in Ukraine. Michaelina was born on November 20, 1869 in Lviv, Ukraine, a daughter of an artisan, hardworking family of 9 children. Michaelina was a beautiful, happy child. After completing compulsory education with honors, she was not able to continue her studies. She went to work in a glass factory to help support the large family. Gifted with a beautiful voice, she joined the church choir in the Basilian Church of St. Onufrius. When Michaelina was 18 years old she made a spiritual retreat, preach by Fr. Jeremiah Lomnytskyj, a young zealous Basalian missionary who became her spiritual director. This retreat made a profound impression on Michaelina. She heard, deep within her soul, the silent but clear call of Jesus: “Come, follow Me”. A few months later, with the permission of her spiritual director, she made a private vow of chastity for one year, and then repeated it for three years. Michaelina felt strongly drawn to religious life. But where was she to enter? Keenly aware of the crying need for spiritual and moral uplifting of her own people, she did not want to enter a Latin congregation; she wanted to consecrate her life to God in the service of her own people and in her own rite. At that time there was only one Ukrainian women’s order, the cloistered Basilian nuns. So Michaelina decided to enter there. However, in 1891 her spiritual director, Fr. Jeremiah Lomnytskyj, osbm, and reverend Kyrylo Seletskyj, an eparchial priest, agreed to found jointly the first Ukrainian religious women’s congregation of active life. Fr. Lomnytskyj proposed to Michaelina to be its founding member. He saw in her the necessary human and spiritual qualities needed to initiate religious life, and to be a leader in the new foundation. After praying for several days, Michaelina returned with a positive reply. She overcame her first fear of the unknown by considering the needs of her poor, spiritually and morally neglected people, and believing it was God’s will for her, she wholeheartedly surrendered herself to His service. Michaelina wa then 22 years old and Fr. Lomnytskyj had been her spiritual director for 4 years. She spent sometime with the Felician Sisters, to orient herself about active religious life. Michaelina was vested in her self-designed habit in the Basilian church of St. Onufrius, in Lviv, and took a religious name – Josaphata, in honour of the great Ukrainian martyr-saint. This new congregation was founding in the village of Zhuzhel, in the district of Sokal, where Reverend Seletskyj was pastor. Josaphata, as first superior, and seven village girls as postulants, laid the foundation of this new Ukrainian spiritual venture – the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate. Since this was the first religious congregation of active life in Ukraine, in the Ukrainian – Byzantine rite, the Sisters Servants were the only consecrated women in the Ukrainian missionary field. Their work was a widespread and varied: they took care of the sick in the villages, taught catechism to children, youth and adults, on Sundays and holy days read pious literature to the illiterate faithful, cared for cleanliness and order in churches, sewed church vestments. Sister Josaphat knew how to unite prayer and apostolic service and bind them into one act of love, which included God and neighbour. Josaphata wanted her sisters to be a living, spiritual light for the poor children of Ukraine. By working close to the people the sisters would uplift them spiritually and morally. They were to educate the heart of the people, and go where the need was the greatest. Thus the Sisters Servants were to unite a deep prayer life and a tireless service to their sisters and brothers – to elevate them spiritually, morally, socially and culturally. These young, brave women introduced a new way to serve in the Byzantine – Ukrainian Catholic Church. Josaphata encouraged the sisters to see the same Christ in the people whom they served, as the One they adored in the tabernacle. At the beginning the growth and development of the congregation was phenomenal. In 1902, ten years after the foundation, there were 123 sisters in 23 houses. That same year four sisters were missioned to Canada to work there for the Ukrainian immigrants. In 1906, four sisters went to Yugoslavia and in 1911 seven sisters went to Brazil. Today the Sister Servants carry out their mission, in the spirit of Blessed Josaphata, in 15 countries, the most recent in Kazakstan. The sanctity of Blessed Josaphata lies in the fact that she performed her daily tasks with love and dedication, and was in continual harmony with the Spirit of Jesus. That continual contact with Christ gave her the strength to bear peacefully her many problems: rejection, calumny, humiliation and excruciating pain towards the end of her life. She died from tuberculosis of the bone on April 7, 1919 at the age of 49. Josaphata’s spirituality could be firstly summed up as Eucharistic. She had a deep devotion to the Holy Eucharist. Through this great sacrament the riches of God’s love were transmitted to her. Often during the night, when the sisters were asleep, Josaphata would adore the Eucharist in the chapel. From the Eucharistic Christ, Josaphata went and found the same Christ in the poor villagers, the orphans, the illiterate, the sick, needy of all kinds. Secondly, Josaphata’s spirituality was Marian. Her deep and tender relationship with the Mother of God helped to focus and unite her entire life to Christ, to the Eucharistic Christ, for Mary always leads to her Son. Josaphata entrusted her every action to the Blessed Virgin to be purified of any pride or other imperfections and then offered it through Mary’s immaculate hands to Christ. Josaphata placed the future of the Congregation under the protection of the Blessed Mother, and she indelibly wrote on the hearts of the first sisters this deep childlike devotion to Mother of God, and this devotion is still very evident in today’s Sisters Servants. The story of Blessed Josapahata is a story of heroine. She was and still is an example of a consecrated woman – a woman of prayer, penance, courage, perseverance and humility with a great confidence in God, and deep, faithful devotion to the Blessed Mother. Blessed Josaphata speaks to today’s world of the need and the beauty of a radical, evangelical life, and of compassion for the needy. She teaches us to incarnate harmoniously, with equilibrium, our faith into our life, which means union with Christ and service to one’s neighbour. Dominica Slawuta SSMI
|