Stanislaus Kostka
Stanislaus Kostka (Polish Stanisław Kostka ; born October 28, 1550 at Rostkowo Castle, Mazovia , † August 15, 1568 in Rome ) was a Polish Jesuit and is a saint of the Catholic Church .
Life
Stanislaus Kostka came from a family of the coat of arms of the Dąbrowa within the Polish nobility . On his 17th birthday he entered the Jesuit novitiate . Before that, he attended the Jesuit college in Vienna . He was said to be deeply pious and kind. Early on, he wanted to join the Jesuits. But since Stanislaus was noble and the order feared the intervention of his parents, he was refused admission. So he fled school overnight and wandered to Rome on foot. In the meantime he lived for a month in the Jesuit center in Dillingen on the Danube . There he found a benevolent supporter in St. Peter Canisius , who recognized his vocation to religious life. In October 1567 he arrived in Rome and was accepted into the order. Only a year later he died of a fever attack on the feast of the Assumption of Mary, the patronage of the Jesuit Church in Vienna.
Stanislaus Kostka was beatified in 1605 . On December 31, 1726 he was together with another Jesuit novice, Aloysius Gonzaga , by Pope Benedict XIII. canonized. His feast day is November 13th.
He is often depicted in a boy's robe or as a Jesuit with a lily, a baby Jesus and a pilgrim's staff . The most common picture of him was created by Pierre Legros in 1702–1703 . It is a multi-colored marble sculpture that shows the life-size young man on his deathbed at the moment of his passing. The figure was - and is to this day - placed in his death room in the novitiate building of the Jesuits of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale in Rome .
Stanislaus Kostka is a national patron of Poland and patron of the student youth as well as patron of acolytes and novice Jesuits.
His apartment in Vienna ( Innere Stadt , Kurrentgasse 2) was soon (1582) converted into a chapel, which after his canonization was lavishly furnished in the Rococo style . It is open to visitors on November 13 and the week after.
The Paraguayan city of San Estanislao is named after him, as is the Canadian municipality of Saint-Stanislas-de-Kostka in the province of Québec .
literature
- Johannes Madey : Kostka, Stanislaus. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 554-556.
- Christina Jetter: The Jesuit saints Stanislaus Kostka and Aloysius von Gonzaga. Patrons of the student youth - models of the Catholic elite. Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-429-03062-9 .
- Christina Jetter: "The Divine Love fishes in the ocean of the world ...": Saints Aloysius von Gonzaga and Stanislaus Kostka as leading figures at the Jesuit grammar school in Ellwangen. In: Franz Brendle / Anselm Grupp / Fabian Fechner (ed.): Jesuits in Ellwangen - Upper German Province, Pilgrimage, World Mission. (Publications of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg B 189), Stuttgart 2012, pp. 187–209.
See also
- Stanislaus Kostka Church , churches named after Stanislaus Kostka
Web links
- Literature by and about Stanislaus Kostka in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kostka, Stanislaus |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Saint of the Catholic Church |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 28, 1550 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rostkowo Castle, Mazovia, Poland |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 15, 1568 |
| Place of death | Rome |