Celine Chludzińska Borzęcka was born on 29 October 1833 at Antowil near Orsha (then Polish lands, now Belarus) to Ignacy and Petronella Chludziński, wealthy landowners steeped in Catholic and patriotic tradition. Educated at home according to her station, she early asked God what He willed for her life. After a retreat in Vilnius in 1853 she longed for the convent, yet her parents opposed the plan. In obedience to them and to her confessor she married Józef Borzęcki in Vilnius Cathedral at about twenty, still inwardly convinced that her life was not meant to end in an ordinary way.
Deeply loved by her husband, she was an affectionate and exemplary wife who shared the care of the estate and showed special concern for the poor. Four children were born; two died in infancy. She regarded the two surviving daughters as gifts entrusted to her by God. In her "Memoirs for my daughters" she strove to form their relationship with God as Creator and loving Father, urging self-mastery and service of neighbor while respecting each girl's unique vocation.
In 1869 Józef suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed. Celine moved the family to Vienna for the best medical care and for five years was his spiritual and moral support and devoted nurse, while continuing to educate her daughters. After his death she went with them to Rome in 1875, seeking wider spiritual and cultural horizons and clearer light on God's will. In the church of San Claudio she met Fr. Piotr Semenenko, co-founder of the Resurrectionists, who had long desired a women's branch of the Congregation of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. She became his penitent and was introduced to a spirituality centered on the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Later she would express her path to holiness in the motto inscribed on the profession cross of every Sister of the Resurrection: Per crucem et mortem ad resurrectionem et gloriam.
In 1882 Celine, her younger daughter Jadwiga (Hedwig), and other women began community life in Rome under Fr. Semenenko's direction. After his sudden death in Paris in 1886 she faced intrigue from those who opposed the new foundation and tried to absorb it into existing institutes. She felt ever more strongly the call to found a community of women dedicated to the Mystery of the Resurrection—living consciously the personal, communal, and apostolic dimensions of life by the power that comes from the Risen Jesus. She would never abandon the specific spirit, style, or name of her community: the Sisters of the Resurrection.
In 1887, aided by faithful friends, she opened her first afternoon school for girls in Rome; Msgr. Giacomo Della Chiesa, the future Pope Benedict XV, whose parents lived next door, served as chaplain and catechist. After years of trial, on 6 January 1891 Celine and Jadwiga, co-foundress, made religious profession as Sisters of the Resurrection before Cardinal Lucido Parocchi, Vicar General of Rome, officially beginning the new Congregation. That autumn she opened the first house on Polish soil at Kęty near Wadowice, chiefly as the novitiate. As the number of sisters grew she pursued her dream of a Congregation that would renew society especially through education. Invited by the Resurrectionists she founded an ecumenical mission at Malko Tarnovo in Bulgaria (then under the Ottoman Empire). Foundations followed at Częstochowa, Warsaw, and Chicago, where the sisters worked among Polish immigrant parishes.
In 1904 Mother Celine chose the Prati district of Rome to build the Mother House in the shadow of the Vatican. Working hard with her daughter, she rejoiced in 1905 at the Decretum Laudis granted to the Congregation. After Jadwiga's sudden death at forty-three, Celine convened the first general chapter in 1911 and was elected superior general for life. She spent her last years visiting the houses and corresponding widely with the sisters, forming them in the founding spirit.
As death approached she repeatedly told the sisters, "Be holy." Unable to speak, she wrote on a scrap of paper before dying: "In God there is happiness forever." Mother Celine Borzęcka died on 26 October 1913 in a simple apartment in Kraków while on a canonical visitation. Encouraged by Pope Pius XII, her cause was opened in Rome in 1944; the decree on heroic virtue was promulgated on 11 February 1982 and the miracle for beatification approved on 16 December 2006. She was beatified on 27 October 2007. Blessed Celine belonged to that rare company of women who lived successive states of life—wife, mother, widow, religious, and foundress—yet wrote with simplicity and humility: "God did not call me to do extraordinary things… perhaps because He did not want me to become proud. My vocation is to fulfill the will of God faithfully and with love."
May Blessed Celine obtain for us the grace to fulfill God's will faithfully and with love in whatever state of life He gives us.
