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Łucja Szewczyk was born into a Polish family sometime around 1828 in Szepetówka, Khmelnytskyi, in now part of western Ukraine. Though both her parents died when she was a child, her older half-sister made sure she was well cared for and received the Sacraments of Initiation in the Catholic Church.
In 1848, when she was around 20 years old, Łucja entered the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi. However, due to the political situation in those days, she was not able to formally join a religious order.
In 1870, Łucja made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In Jerusalem, she worked at St. Joseph Hospital with French religious sisters. Although Łucja had always had a strong religious bent, her experience caring for the sick made a profound impact on her and helped her focus more specifically on how to put her religious orientation into action. In fact, it helped Łucja come to the conclusion that God was calling her to serve God by caring for those most in need, including the sick and the poor. While in the Holy Land, Łucja developed a devotion to St. Mary under the title of Our Lady of Sorrows. Łucja decided she would live the rest of her life “for the glory of God and for the good of suffering humanity.”
After returning from the Holy Land and making a pilgrimage to Loreto, Italy, Łucja settled in Zakroczym near Warsaw. There, she made friends with a Capuchin Franciscan friar, Fr. Honorat Koźmiński (now a Blessed) and chose him as her spiritual director.
With Fr. Honorat’s blessing, Łucja put her passion for helping those in need into action. But because Poland was at that time under the control of the Russian emperor who had decreed that charitable or church activities were forbidden, Łucja had to do her charity work in secret. She began her work by inviting two poor, sick, elderly women into her apartment. In her memoirs, she wrote that she carried them on her back to her apartment.
Soon, other women were attracted to her work and joined her. On the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, April 8, 1881, Łucja formally founded a new religious order of Sisters. Initially, the order was named the Sisters of the Poor, but later, it was changed to the Daughters of Our Lady of Sorrows, more commonly known as the “Seraphic Sisters.” Łucja took the name Małgorzata in religious life and was known as Mother Malgorzata.
As time went on, the Sisters founded a wide variety of installations to help those in need in various cities, including an orphanage, a shelter for sick and abandoned men, a tailoring and embroidery workshop for girls. As the order grew, the Sisters found themselves working in hospital ministry, teaching ministry, and a whatever ministry was needed to help others.
In 1904, twenty-three years after founding her order, Mother Małgorzata devoted herself to the needy through prayer and service. In fact, in the community where she spent her last days, Nieszawa, she was known as “an Angel of Kindness.” Mother Małgorzata died on June 5, 1905.
Mother Małgorzata was beatified on June 9, 2013 in Krakow. Today, the Seraphic Sisters are part of the Franciscan Capuchin family and continue their work serving God by serving others.
