If you were asked to name some people who carried the wounds of Christ, known as stigmatists, you’d likely come up with the most famous who are also canonized saints -- Padre Pio, St. Francis, etc.
Surprising facts about stigmatists were shared by Paul Kengor in September 2024 with the National Catholic Register just before TAN Books released his book The Stigmatists.
The book was published on the 800th anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata. He is commonly considered the first to receive them, although some claim St. Paul the Apostle might have, based on Galatians 6:17: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”
Kengor’s book states that, since St. Francis, there have been between 400 to 500 cases of stigmata. He notes that, interestingly, almost all have been women, and seven in 10 have been Italian.
Among the ranks of those uniquely privileged to bear the marks of Christ’s Passion is a Polish immigrant who lived and died near Cleveland, Ohio. April 26 is the 100th anniversary of Helena Pelczar’s death. She was a member of St. John Cantius Church in Tremont, a parish founded in 1888 to serve the area’s Polish immigrants. The parish proudly claims her association with their historic church.
The pastor, Fr. James Roach, told Aleteia that the actual image of Our Lady of Sorrows that Helena would pray with is now displayed at St. John Cantius. Copies of her biography, Helen Pelczar, a Forgotten Stigmatic, by Rev. Dr. Bernard F. Jarzembowski, are available for purchase in either English or Polish for $10 by contacting the parish online or in person.
Who is she?
Helena was born on Christmas Day, 1888, in the small southwestern Polish town Korczyna, the second of her poor peasant parents’ eight children. Raised in very challenging circumstances, without money for shoes and daily meals, Helena is said to have never complained even though her legs had been frostbitten at age 7. Her only reading primer was a prayer book.
She received the miraculous healing of a stomach ulcer after visiting St. Mary of the Assumption’s Sanctuary in Stara Wies with her parents who prayed for her healing. When she was 9 and preparing for her First Communion, Helena was distraught by her parents’ inability to purchase the required white dress for the ceremony. Her school principal lent her a white dress and her “fervent desire to receive Jesus in Holy Communion came true.”
“However, her happiness didn’t last very long, because soon afterwards her young mother passed from this life, leaving Helena and her family heartbroken.” Her father reluctantly asked his young daughter to go into service to help her family financially. She did farm work and was hired for domestic service and as a shepherdess by neighbors.
Helena was described as “silent and calm,” with a certain sorrow that added “particular dignity to her appearance.” Her “striking and edifying” devotion was noticed, as well as the great joy she found in prayer and devotion to Jesus and Mary. Her favorite prayers were the Rosary and Way of the Cross.
On Easter Sunday 1910, as she later confided to an aunt and cousin, Helena suffered a strange phenomenon, an ecstasy that lasted for three days and nights. During this period she was unconscious but her eyes were open and unresponsive to light. She reported that in this state she saw Our Lord, the Virgin Mary, and angels and saints.
Similar experiences continued after her arrival to Ohio, once lasting for more than 10 days. “When she finaly regained consciousness, she was exhausted and felt pain all over her body. She especially felt immense pain in her right side which was all bruised in appearance,” the website states. With a few hours of rest after the ecstatic episodes, “she would feel quite well and would immediately get back to work.”
A Christmas gift
Helena received the stigmata in 1917, on Christmas Eve. Returning home after Vespers she felt strong pains in her hands and feet. Days later, “dark round stigmas appeared on both her hands and feet. She also felt pain in her right side, all the way through to her back …” Her aunt called the doctor to examine her, after which he claimed that her condition could not be medically explained.
While those initial stigmata only lasted for three days, they returned the following February, 1918. After days of intense pain, Jesus appeared to her, telling Helena she would be blessed “with a special gift by which you will be able to recognize sinners, for whom you should bear the sufferings I will send upon you.”
On February 15, the first Friday of Lent, around noon, the stigmata appeared again with the wounds opening gradually, with the wound in her right side beginning to bleed at 3 p.m. The doctor again recorded a report of the occurrence. At 5 in the evening the bleeding stopped and the blood “created a dark red crust around the injuries.” Throughout this, Helena was again unconscious, in ecstasy, but her face “indicated that she was suffering the greatest of agony.”
The stigmatic ecstasy would return every Friday in the same way. Helena being “chosen” to be an intercessor with Jesus, “called to suffer in union with him to convert sinner, participating in a special way in the work of salvation.”
Helena’s parish priest, Fr. Francis Duda, observed the young woman’s experiences during 1917 to 1918. He would bring her Holy Communion when the sufferings made her incapable of going to church. As the website relates, “He testified that on numerous occasions he had seen the wounds on her hands and feet and how they were bleeding, however out of purity and chastity he did not see the wound in her right side.”
On Friday evenings, when she was confined to bed with the stigmatic sufferings, she would know at which moment the priest was praying the Consecration prayers for the 7 p.m. Mass.
“Up to the very moment of Consecration, her hands, feet and right side would become deeply red. When the priest raised the Host, her wounds opened immediately, as if someone had pierced them with a sharp object, and started bleeding,” until the distribution of Holy Communion. If, however, Helena, was able to attend that Mass, the wounds would not open.
A vision of her mom
During one vision of the Blessed Mother, Our Lady was accompanied by Helena’s mother (who had been dead for 25 years). Her mother encouraged her “to embrace her suffering with love” and told her they would soon be reunited.
Helena experienced other painful and intense visions after which she would record the words of Jesus and Mary. One day, the website states, “Helena’s Guardian Angel told her that her mystical sufferings could be removed if she would not be willing to suffer together with Jesus, but as long as she willingly accepts to suffer out of love for Jesus and sinners …” no earthly doctor could help ease the pain.
Of the eight doctors from Cleveland who observed Helena’s wounds, “the root cause of Helena’s ‘illness’ remained a mystery to all of them.”
There are accounts of one time that Helena bi-located to the deathbed of a young woman, and of “visits to purgatory accompanied by her Guardian Angel … Helen was touched with this painful sight [people of different walks of life including priests and nuns], which gave her a renewed desire to sacrifice, suffer and pray…”
On another occasion, Helena was given a prophetic vision of the “Miracle of Vistula” — two years before it occurred — during which the Bolshevik Revolution, after pushing into Poland, was unbelievably counter-attacked by the Polish under order of General Pilsudski. Days before, Pope Benedict XV had exhorted prayers for God’s mercy as the Poles' pleas for Western assistance were responded with advice to surrender to the Soviets. The tide of battle turned on August 15, Feast of the Assumption.
Two months before her death Helena had a vision of Jesus and Angels that made clear she would “soon unite with her Heavenly Bridegroom.” Desiring to be buried as a Third Order Franciscan, the Franciscan nuns from her parish prepared a habit which Helena received with great joy. She put the conventual veil on her head, “as if is was the most precious treasure in the world.”
Helena died on April 26, then the Marian feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (now liturgically celebrated on June 27). Her funeral was celebrated on May 1, the first Saturday of the month dedicated to Mary, and was buried in Cleveland’s Calvary Cemetery where her body remains today.
In November 2024, in a post on the website for the “Polish Genealogical Society of Greater Cleveland” by Ben Kman, president of the organization and friend of the local historian from Helena’s hometown in Poland, requested anyone having experienced a miracle through the intercession of Helena Pelczar, to contact St. John Cantius Church.
Through correspondence with Aleteia, Ben informed of his awareness that research efforts from the U.S. were being made with the intent to start a beatification process.
