Is it possible for someone to become the author of a book despite serious difficulties with writing? Is it possible for someone who did not finish elementary school to become a teacher, even of the learned? Or is it possible to live one’s whole life in a small hamlet and yet win goodwill in the Philippines and Italy, in England and Rwanda, in the United States and the Netherlands—not to mention Poland? With God, yes—most certainly, it is possible! Kunegunda Siwiec proved that, and this article is about her and her spiritual legacy.
If any school-age young people are reading this text, then perhaps one hope should be dispelled at once: you still have to go to school, and you still have to study. Kunegunda was born in 1876, about sixty years before Stryszawa, where she lived her entire life, had its first elementary school. She lived in a small settlement—a hamlet—named Siwcówka after her ancestors’ surname, administratively part of Stryszawa. The hardships of life in the foothills left little room for educating children. Kunegunda learned to write only a little, but she could read and enjoyed reading. She grew up in a large, devout family: she had three brothers and seven sisters, though she never knew little Teresa, who lived for only four months. Shortly after crossing the threshold of adulthood, she discovered a vocation to give her life wholly to the service of God. She did not, however, seek a place for herself in a religious order; she wanted to serve God right where she lived. At her local parish, she joined the Apostleship of Prayer, where she grew in devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She later joined the Sidziniarki, a group of women among whom she attended catechetical courses so that she could use her knowledge to serve the highlanders. Attending these courses required considerable sacrifice: she would walk along mountain paths and tracks to Chochołów, more than fifty kilometers away.
Kunegunda’s favorite saint was Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. This stirring of her heart surely grew into a desire to come to know her holy friend ever better. Together with other women from Stryszawa, she regularly made pilgrimages to Wadowice, where, at the monastery of the Discalced Carmelite friars, they would take part in Holy Mass, pray, and also listen to teachings on the little way of spiritual childhood that Saint Thérèse had lived. She joined the Confraternity of the Infant Jesus of Prague, received the Carmelite scapular, and became a lay Carmelite. The richness of her spiritual life found expression not only in preparing children and highlanders to receive the holy sacraments. Kunegunda, together with her family and her friends, the Czernecki family, initiated the construction of a small convent in Siwcówka, where the Sisters of the Resurrection agreed to serve. The chapel built at the convent was placed under the patronage of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus.
Kunegunda followed the path she had chosen in her youth throughout her entire life. But how difficult that life was! The First World War—every so often, soldiers would come and take whatever they could for the war effort. Kunegunda’s brother Ignacy was conscripted into the army, only to be left to die somewhere far away in a foreign land. Over the years after Poland regained independence, through painstaking work, a certain rhythm of life may have been recovered—only for another war to come, one still more terrible. Would they be taken away to a camp or not? Would they be driven from their homes or not? Kunegunda was not spared illness either. After suffering from trachoma, she could see only with her left eye. In time, joint pain set in and grew steadily worse, until at last it confined Kunegunda to bed for nearly seven years—a bed which, as the local priest, Father Bronisław Bartkowski, wrote, “was becoming more and more the wood of the Cross.” She died on June 27, 1955, the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
Where, then, was May in this life?! Let us listen to the words of Kunegunda’s biographer, as well as those of witnesses—and then to Kunegunda’s own words:
“She suffered, she prayed—all in union with the suffering of Christ. […] Yet the inner joy expressed in her gentle smile never left her face and drew people to her. […] Her prayers of thanksgiving after Holy Communion grew ever deeper and longer. At times she would be found so immersed in the love of Jesus that she radiated it.”
“She never spoke about her suffering unless someone asked. She always smiled. I never saw her gloomy, nor did she ever show that she was in pain.”
“She lived Jesus. Literally. And so directly, so naturally in everyday life, that it almost seems strange that one can relate to God in such a simple, trusting, and childlike way. […] I dare say that Kunegunda was never old. Although she lived to be eighty, the signs of spiritual aging were unknown to her. There was always a certain freshness about her, an enthusiasm for all that is good, an almost childlike naïveté—the admirable naïveté of a person who, despite painful life experiences, does not lose faith in others and believes in goodness, even when it is often deeply hidden.”
According to Sister Danuta Jarco, CR, Kunegunda herself said:
It is worth suffering for the Lord Jesus. Our suffering is nothing compared with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus repays each of our sufferings with graces. He repays even the smallest suffering with graces. He is never in our debt.
Someone might say: What a pity I was never given the chance to know her; she could have taught me so much. Indeed, such is earthly life that even when a person lives by the wisdom received from God, faithfully puts it into practice day by day, and that wisdom, by God’s grace, grows within him, nevertheless, with that person’s death, this treasure becomes, as it were, scattered. For although it is true that the spiritual warmth a person manages to share during his lifetime remains present in others, remains present in the Church, and exerts a significant influence, it is no longer quite so “tangible.” It is one thing to drink from the spring, and another to drink from a watering can, to paraphrase Saint Brother Albert. It is one thing to hear about a person; it is another to come to know the treasures of his soul directly.
The story in question, however, unfolded quite differently. Some time after Kunegunda’s death, Father Bronisław Bartkowski told his bishop that this simple village woman had the gift of hearing in her soul the voice of the Lord Jesus and the voices of the saints. She experienced this grace for at least a dozen years. She shared her gift with Father Bronisław almost by chance, and he began faithfully writing down the words she reported hearing, keeping their content in strict confidence. The text that had taken shape in this way was typed up only after Kunegunda’s passing, and in 1957 it was submitted for an informal assessment of its conformity with the teaching of the Church. Later, copies of the typescript—rather few in number—were made available to various trusted individuals. This informal circulation of the notes continued for nearly forty years. In 1995, about nine years after Father Bronisław’s death, the first book-length edition of the notes appeared under the title The Place of My Mercy and Rest. Interest in this spiritual legacy gradually spread in ever wider circles, and this in turn led, in 2007, to the opening of a diocesan inquiry into Kunegunda’s life, virtues, and reputation for holiness. The painstaking work of those involved in this growing effort culminated in February 2025 with Pope Francis’s signature. Since then, Kunegunda has borne the title Venerable Servant of God. The next necessary step on the path toward beatification is a miracle obtained through her intercession.
Nearly three years ago, it was decided to prepare a new edition of Kunegunda’s spiritual conversations, with the aim of conducting an even more thorough analysis of a broad range of source materials. In time, the book then taking shape began to assume a form increasingly different from that of its predecessor. Moreover, the words conveyed by Kunegunda came to be viewed in a somewhat different light. Ultimately, it was decided collectively that the new book would bear the title The Joyful Eyes of Love and the subtitle Conversation. Alongside this work, an analytical and systematic study was being prepared, documenting the editorial process. It was titled The Spiritual Conversations of Kunegunda Siwiec: Analysis of the Sources and Establishment of the Text. Among other things, it presents a comparison between the new wording of each dictated utterance and the corresponding source record. This means that the source record and the version published in the new book are not identical. This results from certain chronological irregularities in the sources, shifts in the meaning of some words, and linguistic corrections, for example in grammar and punctuation. These differences are not substantial, but they are there. In the analytical study, they are presented and justified in considerable detail. Ultimately, the priority in this work was to reflect the source meaning as faithfully as possible. In short: the book The Joyful Eyes of Love is like a dish served in a restaurant, while the second book sets out the culinary details.
With regard to the conversations themselves, it is worth asking: to what extent were these words addressed only to Kunegunda, and to what extent are they, in a sense, meant for us, reading them seventy or eighty years later? Father Jerzy Zieliński, OCD, author of Kunegunda’s biography Beauty Hidden in Simplicity, shared the following reflection:
Kunegunda did not treat the teachings conveyed to her by Christ as her own possession. Although she made careful use of them, she regarded herself only as an instrument in his hands.
In support of this view, Father Zieliński cited the following recollection by Sister Blanka Skorupińska, CR:
Father Bartkowski said that when he was ill and could not come to Kundusia [the diminutive used by the residents of Siwcówka for Kunegunda—Ed.]—sometimes for several days—Kundusia remembered everything, even a whole week’s worth. She remembered until the priest had written everything down. But once he had done so and wanted to speak with her about it, Kundusia no longer remembered the details. It seemed as though the words conveyed no longer belonged to her.
The title of this article is drawn from words conveyed by Kunegunda as having been heard from Our Lady. The full utterance in which these words occur is presented in The Joyful Eyes of Love as follows (note 158e):
I remain with you always, though May is coming to an end. May your life always be May, so that when the last day comes, you may say: I have accomplished everything.
Sources
Note: English renderings of Polish-language book titles are supplied for the reader’s convenience.
- Siwiec, Kunegunda. Uradowane oczy Miłości. Rozmowa [The Joyful Eyes of Love: Conversation]. Prepared by Przemysław Zieliński. Kraków: OddM, 2026.
- Stańczyk, Helena Faustyna. Kundusia z Siwcówki. 2nd ed. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Karmelitów Bosych, 2025.
- Zieliński, Jerzy. Piękno ukryte w prostocie [Beauty Hidden in Simplicity]. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Karmelitów Bosych, 2010.
- Holy See Press Office. “Promulgazione di Decreti del Dicastero delle Cause dei Santi.” February 25, 2025. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2025/02/25/0152/00313.html
