World

SAINT PROFILE: URSULA LEDOCHOWSKA

1865-1939; Feast: May 29

By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE     6/1/2016

Born into a distinguished Polish family in Austria, Julia Maria entered an Ursuline convent in Poland at age 21, taking the name Maria Ursula of Jesus. She taught in a girls’ school for 20 years, and in 1907 went to St. Petersburg to supervise a new school. Expelled from Russia at the beginning of World War I, she spent the war in Sweden and returned to Poland in 1920. In 1923, she founded the Ursulines of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus, known as Grey Ursulines. As the order expanded, the Vatican asked her to live in Rome, where she died. Grey Ursulines now minister in 12 countries. Ursula was canonized in 2003; her older sister, Blessed Maria Theresa Ledochowska, is also a foundress.