Angela Truszkowska

Who was Angela Truszkowska?

Angela Truszkowska was an unusually pious Polish nun who has been beatified by the Roman Catholic Church.

The first of Joseph and Josephine Truszkowska’s seven children, Sophia Camille Truszkowska was born in 1825 in Kalisz, Poland. As a young child, the two dominant threads of Sophia’s life rapidly took shape—a deep spirituality and an abiding interest in serving the underprivileged and marginalized. These threads would become seamlessly interwoven throughout the fabric of her life, ultimately shaping her life and the community she founded.Her days as a young student were characterized by schoolwork and reading, as well as daily Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and nightly prayer vigils. At the same time, her compassion for the underprivileged grew as she gained invaluable insight into the social ills and issues of her time from her father, a juvenile court judge.

At one point, Sophia had considered joining a cloistered community of Sisters, but her zeal for reaching out to the poor and marginalized could not be contained. She soon began ministering as a lay woman to the abandoned children and homeless on the streets of Warsaw.