One or two seemingly random encounters can make all the difference in a person’s life. Sister Paulina Porczynska, OP, who teaches pre-kindergarten students at Gahanna St. Matthew the Apostle School, said a couple of conversations on pilgrimages about 23 years ago helped direct her from a punk rock lifestyle to a lifetime of service to God and children.
Sister Paulina grew up in the Polish town of Zary, near the German border, as the youngest of three sisters. Poland is an overwhelmingly Catholic nation, but her family wasn’t involved in church activities.
“My parents and older sisters didn’t practice the faith,” she said. “No one told me anything about Jesus or how to pray. When my sisters were in their teens, they just stopped going to church. Two or three years later, I was a seventh-grader and one Sunday, I announced it was the last time I was going to church. No one objected.
“At that point, things started getting really crazy for me. At the beginning of high school, I met some pretty crazy people and became what you would call a punk. I stayed that way almost until the end of high school.”
Thousands of Poles go on walking pilgrimages every summer to the shrine of the icon of the “Black Madonna,” Our Lady of Czestochowa, the patroness of Poland. One summer when she was in her late teens, Sister Paulina and some friends decided to make the walk even though they were not practicing Catholics.
“To walk from my hometown to Czestochowa is a round trip of about 350 miles and takes two weeks, with people walking, singing and praying the whole way,” Sister Paulina said.
“It’s amazing to see. But the pilgrimage was a little difficult for me because I didn’t pray. I had no relationship with Jesus. I was not happy and knew I was looking for something but didn’t know what.
‘The first three days of the pilgrimage were really tough because I didn’t understand why so many people were smiling. On the Thursday of that week on the way to the shrine, I felt so angry I decided to talk with a Franciscan priest who was among the pilgrims,” she said.
“After talking to him for a while, he asked, ‘Do you want to go to Confession?’ and I told him ‘I don’t know if I want to, but I know I can’t live like this any longer. Besides, I haven’t gone to Confession for years.’ So I made my confession, with him as the priest, and it was the most beautiful experience I’ve ever had. It’s been about 23 years since then and I still don’t know how to put my feelings at that moment into words.
“I decided at that point to change my lifestyle and to start praying,” she said. “But when I came back home, I realized that to try to live my old life and to be with Jesus at the same time was impossible. I had to choose Jesus or my old life and I chose Jesus.”
The following summer, she went on the pilgrimage again. “On the same day and in the same place (where she encountered the priest the previous year), I was standing in front of the church and I knew something was going on in my heart,” she said. “A friend approached and asked, ‘Are you OK?’ I told him, ‘Physically I feel well, but something is going on and I don’t know what.’
“He stared at me for a moment or two, then asked, ‘Do you want to be a sister?’ ‘Are you crazy?’ I said. When he asked me that, I was scared, but deep in my heart, I knew he was right. This was the first time I thought of being a sister and the thought never left me.
“When I came home, I found a spiritual director and told him what had happened. He said my faith was not strong enough (to enter a convent) yet and recommended that I get a college degree, get done with my studies, then join a congregation,” Sister Paulina said.
“I started working on a degree in early education and the first two or three months were OK. But God was giving me a lot of signs and I felt inside that He was showing me this was not the way.
“I remember one time when I was talking to a professor after a class with him and he said, ‘When I look at you, I think you’d be a great sister.’ I barely knew him, so I felt that was a sign, and there were other signs telling me I would be really blind not to see what God wanted from me.
“Every day in my heart, I felt I wasn’t in the right place. After two years, I gave up my will and said ‘Yes’ to God,” she said.
“At about this time, a Dominican sister invited me to a retreat. On the first night of the retreat, I was praying in front of a painting of Mother Mary handing the Rosary to St. Dominic. I looked at my rosary and saw it was the same type as in the painting. I realized at that moment that God was calling me not just to be a sister but to be a Dominican sister.
“After two years in college, I took a break, then told my mom about my decision. It wasn’t easy for her to agree to my decision, but she did, and I went to Krakow to start my formation. Now after 18 years as a Dominican sister, here I am!”
Sister Paulina is a member of the Dominican Sisters, Immaculate Conception Province, who have their provincial house in Justice, Illinois and serve there and in Columbus; Mountain Home, Arkansas and Calgary, Alberta, as well as locations in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Siberia, Italy and Cameroon.
Two other members of her congregation serve in the Diocese of Columbus and live in a convent at 2575 E. Livingston Ave. on Columbus’ east side. Sister Andrea Andrzejewska, OP, is employed in the diocesan Office of Catholic Schools and Sister Marta Gawron, OP, is the religious education director at Columbus St. Patrick Church.
Sister Paulina took her first vows as a Dominican sister in 2007. In Poland, she was a teacher, worked with children with disabilities for five years and spent one year serving at a day care center.
She came to the United States after taking her final vows in 2014 and has been in Columbus since then, serving for two years as a teacher’s assistant at St. Mary School in Columbus’ German Village and for the past nine years at the St. Matthew pre-kindergarten.
“I love everything about children that age,” she said. “They are open, loving and joyful. They remind me of the beauty and importance of simple things in daily life. I enjoy preparing them for kindergarten, but most of all, I love teaching them about Jesus. Praying with them, attending Mass or adoring Jesus in the Eucharist are very special moments for me.
“In this service, I feel that I receive more than I give. I feel God’s love for me through them. It is difficult for me to imagine doing something else.”
Related to: Sister Annie Killian professes perpetual vows – Catholic Times: Read Catholic News & Stories