|
Saint
Stanislaus Kostka, SJ |

Stanislaus was born of a noble Polish family and attended the Jesuit College in Vienna. After a serious illness and a vision that seemed to call him to the Society of Jesus, he walked from Vienna to Augsburg and then to Rome seeking admittance. St. Peter Canisius had recommended him to St. Francis Borgia, the head of the order at the time. After a brief stay at the Church of the Gesu and the Roman College, Stanislaus entered the novitiate of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, where he died after only about 10 months. Though he was in the Society only for a brief while, his sanctity was widely recognized, and he was canonized in 1726.

POLAND, 2000, a postal card for the 450th anniversary of his birth in
2000, Fischer 1071
The card features Pierre Le Gros the Younger's multicolored marble work, The
Death of St. Stanislaus Kostka (1705), in Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, Rome,
and also a portrait of the saint from 1568, the year of his death.

POLAND, 1995, Postal card featuring the popular priest Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko,
Fischer 1091
and the Warsaw Church named in honor of St. Stanislaus Kostka (though it is
not a Jesuit church)
GREAT BRITAIN - In 1953 Fawley
Court near Henley-on-Thames was purchased by the Congregation of Marian
Fathers, to be used as a school, Divine Mercy College, for Polish boys, mostly
the children of Poles displaced during the Second World War who had found refuge
in Britain. The school closed in 1986. But on 2 June 1968 the 400th anniversary
of the death of the Polish saint Stanislaus Kosta, SJ was celebrated there and
the event was commemorated with this special cancel featuring the arms (horseshoe
and crosses) of the Kostka family.

AUSTRIA, 1990, show cancel for the 450th anniversary
of the Jesuits and the 500th of Ignatius' birth

CANADA, 1988, Circular Date Stamp and Roller Bar cancel for Saint-Stanlislaus-de-Kosta,
Province of Quebec, Canada,
named in honor of the Jesuit saint.