Saint of the day December 16, 2024

Blessed Honorat was born on October 16, 1829 in Biala Podlaska (Poland). He was the son of Stefan Kozminski and Aleksandra Kahlowa and at baptism, was given the name of Wenceslaus. At the age of 11, Wenceslaus began his secondary school education and it was during this time that he lost his faith. He graduated in 1844 and enrolled in the Department of Architecture at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts.

In 1845, he lost his father and in April 1846, he was arrested and sent to prison with his friends for conspiring against the Russians, who at the time occupied Poland. In a prison cell, Wenceslaus experienced a spiritual upheaval. His faith was renewed and in a mysterious way, as he will say, a divine order was introduced into his soul. "The Mother of God," he wrote in his spiritual journal, "having been moved by the prayers of my mother… interceded for me with the Lord; thus it was that He came to me in my prison cell and gently led me to the faith." After eleven months of imprisonment, Wenceslaus was freed and to the great surprise of those who knew him, in 1848 he entered the Capuchin Order, taking the name Honoratus.

He was ordained a priest after professing vows and finishing his philosophical and theological studies. As a priest, he began an enthusiastic and zealous apostolic activity in Warsaw. He was an indefatigable confessor and preacher. In his pastoral work, he strongly promoted the Third Order of St. Francis and the circles of the "Living Rosary." A real test came to him and those with him on the night of November 27, 1864, when the persecutors shut down the Capuchin friary in Warsaw. The failed 1864 revolt against Czar Alexander III led to the suppression of all religious Orders in Poland. The friars were given a choice: either freely depart from the Polish territory occupied by Russians or remain there without any prospects of public activity or development. Father Honorat's decision was clear: "It is here that God wishes to have us…therefore it is here that we shall work." The Capuchins were expelled from Warsaw and forced to live in Zakroczym, where Honoratus continued his ministry and began founding twenty-six male and female religious congregations, whose members took vows but wore no religious habits and did not live in the community. They operated much as today’s secular institutes do. Seventeen of these groups still exist as religious congregations.

In 1867, Father Honorat offered himself to Christ through the hands of Mary as her "slave," giving himself over to her completely as an instrument for her hands. From that moment forward, the motto of his life was contained in a sentence expressing limitless trust: "Mary, I am completely Yours---Tuus totus." Between the years 1874-1895, Father Honorat was a "prisoner of the Confessional." In this short time, he founded a mysterious network of apostolic communities covering the lands of the Kingdom of Poland. This great evangelical tree continued to branch out and at the end of the 19th century, twenty-five different religious Congregations started by Father Honorat counted thousands of brothers and sisters.

He died on December 16, 1916. He was one of the most inspired figures in the most difficult times of Poland's history. It is not any surprise therefore that on September 1, 1988, the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, presided over the ceremony of his beatification.

Reflection

Father Honoratus realized the religious communities he’d founded were not truly his. When ordered by Church officials to relinquish control, he instructed the communities to be obedient to the Church. He could have become bitter or combative, but instead, he accepted his fate with religious submission and realized that the gifts of the religious were to be gifts to the larger community. He learned to let go.
In briefly reviewing his life, we find in Brother Honoratus a man caught up in political struggles—many of which endangered his life. When confronted with an obstacle to practicing his faith, he found another way to live and preach the Christian life. When the world handed him disheartening news, he reacted with joy in obedience. In this holy man, we find an indomitable spirit of perseverance and love for the Lord—a message we could all take a lesson from!