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PROFILE OF THE LITTLE MOTHER

    Feliksa Magdalena Kozłowska, monastic names Maria Franciszka (1862-1921) was the founder mariavite congregations. Among mariavites she is known as the Little Mother or the Foundress. She was born in Wieliczna near Węgrów (approx. 75 km to the East from Warsaw). Her father died in the January Uprising in 1863. She graduated from a high school in Warsaw. When she was 21, she became a lay sister in the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Afflicin Warsaw. In 1887, following an instruction of blessed Honorat Koźmiński, the founder of numerous unfrocked congregations in the Russian partition of Poland, she founded the congregation of Impecunious Sisters of Saint Mother Klara. The congregation was later transformed into the Congregation of Mariavite Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of Appeasement.

Feliksa Magdalena Kozłowska /1862-1921/ The Little Mother surrounded by the first members of the congregation

    On August 2, 1893 the Little Mother was given revelation which presented a vision of a general depravation of the world and the clergy, as well as the act of Grace in which God had given to the world "the adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament and the help of Mary as the ultimate salvation".
    As a result of that revelation, Feliksa Kozłowska founded the Congregation of Mariavite Priests. Father Jan Kowalski was appointed one of first order superiors (Minister General). In 1902 Feliksa Kozłowska and mariavite priests sought recognition of their congregation with three local bishops, and next year with the Pope Pius X. In following years there were other delegations of clergymen and the worshippers, who solicited at the Holy See. However, in 1906 Pius X excommunicated F. Kozłowska and father Jan Kowalski.
    The mariavities submitted to the spiritual superiority of Felicja Kozłowska with great trust and engagement as she stressed strongly the love to neighbors, modesty, humility, helping the miserable and the necessity to unify Christian churches. When dealing with people, she was open and simple, people trusted her, she released frankness and devotion. She died at the age of 59.
    Her revelations were written down and published for the first time in the book called "The Work of Great Mercy". In the Mariavite Church Feliksa Kozłowska is recognised as saint.     On the 50th anniversary of the Little Mother’s death (1971), the Commission for Dialogue of the Conference of the Polish Roman Catholic Episcopate addressed the mariavites with a letter in which they begged for the absolution of sins that had been committed towards the mariavities by the Roman Catholics in the past.

Stanisław Rybak

References:

  • W. S. Ginter „Błogosławiona Maria Franciszka Kozłowska (Szkic do portretu psychologicznego postaci)”, "Notatki Płockie", Towarzystwo Naukowe Płockie 2000, Issue 1 and 2
  • "Mariawita" 1962, Issue 3