St. Brother Albert
Feast day: June 17
St. Brother Albert – Adam Chmielowski, founder of the Brothers and Sisters Serving the Poor. Adam was born on August 20, 1845 in Igołomia near Krakow, Poland.
In response to God’s calling, he abandoned his successful career as a painter to devote his entire life in serving the miserable and abandoned, whom he perceived as the suffering and maltreated Son of God.
Out of love for Christ, he turned to a beggarly lifestyle, donned a penitential habit and moved to a shelter – the center of the greatest moral and material poverty in Krakow at the end of the 19th century, to give an example of a selfless life, love, and charitable work in order to restore to God and society those who had fallen by the wayside.
Having taken the name of Brother Albert, he became the creator of shelters whose aim was to improve the financial and moral condition of the most miserable, the senile, beggars, vagrants, the elderly, and anyone who temporarily or permanently faced extreme poverty.
That was the primary task to which St. Brother Albert devoted thirty years of his life, but he was also not blind to other needs of the society at that time. He founded almshouses for the crippled and terminally ill, he sent sisters to work in military and epidemic hospitals, he opened soup kitchens, nurseries and daycares for homeless children and teenagers; he also planned to extend his help to immigrants and refugees by means of “train station care”, and to the unemployed and homeless in mining and port towns.
Realizing the insufficiency of his efforts, he gladly accepted help from people of good will who were fascinated by his lifestyle and testimony of charity and felt the need to follow him. He was joined by his first co-workers in 1888. The date is considered the origin of the Albertine Brothers.
In 1890, Anna Lubańska (later Sr. Franciszka) and her friends took over the supervision of the shelter for women and children led by Brother Albert. On January 15, 1891 the first seven sisters took the veil and the day is celebrated by the Albertine Sisters as their date of origin.
By accepting help from others, St. Brother Albert did not plan to open new congregations. All he wanted was to get help from people willing to serve others, who found themselves in far worse financial and moral conditions. Complete devotion to serving the abandoned and afflicted was perceived by the Father of the Poor as more important than any forms of organization or legal matters. St. Brother Albert, together with his Brothers and Sisters, operated as the Third Order of Saint Francis, endorsed by Prince Cardinal Albin Dunajewski and the city authorities.
Only after St. Brother Albert’s death in December 25, 1916 in Krakow, did Archbishop Stefan Sapieha, his good friend, ordered Sister Bernardina Jabłońska, the first Superior General, to write up the Constitution of the Albertine Sisters, in order to make sure his work would continue. Brother Albert was beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 22, 1983 in Krakow and canonized on November 12, 1989 in Rome.
The key relics of Saint Brother Albert are found in Krakow, Poland. In the Sanctuary Ecce Homo of Saint Brother Albert. Under the main altar.
“There is no place for grace in man’s heart that is unfeeling to our neighbor’s weakness, and indifferent to the needs of the Church and social needs.” -Saint Brother Albert
Prayer in Honor of St. Brother Albert (also a Novena Prayer)
O God of infinite love and mercy, look at the merits of Saint Brother Albert, who following the example of Your Son, became a brother of all people and by his humble service to the most abandoned and outraged, rescued their human dignity and aroused faith in Your Divine Providence. Through his intercession deign graciously to grant me the favor of …. for which I ask You with trust. Amen.
(Say one Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory be…)
Saint Brother Albert, pray for us!