I've been piecing together tons of different pieces of information about my great uncle. Multiple books, biographies in different languages, and even several photographs from the mid-1800s.

Evidently he was a huge deal in Poland, even before he was sainted. For example, after his death, so many pilgrims would visit his gravesite and take handfuls of earth, that the convent had to regularly replace dirt and plants in the area. Then when his body was moved to a different tomb, the visiting pilgrims would literally scrape bits of plaster off the wall, just to have some relic to take with them. I've got a pic of this on the website, showing the holes that were being worn through the plaster.

And as another link between my uncle and the current pope's funeral -- It turns out that my uncle founded a monastery in Wadowice, Poland. He died there in 1907, and then 14 years later, the Pope, aka Karol Wojtyla, was born in the same town. So the pope grew up listening to stories about my great uncle. When Pope John Paul II beatified him in Krakow, in 1983, it was in front of a crowd of over two million people.

So if anyone would like to see the webpage I've created about what I've learned so far (with official Carmelite approval, no less), here's the link!

Elonka :)

Elonka's webpage about Saint Raphael Kalinowski