She says saints must be crazy, Sister Małgorzata Chmielewska. Because only crazy people know how to live the Gospel to the fullest. She is definitely a woman who breaks the mold. She is a nun, but she smokes, she sometimes says bad words, and on top of that she is also a mother and grandmother. When she was young she was cheerful, carefree, loved to take long walks with her dog. She started asking questions about the meaning of life in college, where she was studying biology. She began reading Christian mystics and especially the Gospel, a book that was hard to find in communist Poland.
When he finally opened it, he realized he had the answer. Christ exists and is love, so it is not worth wasting time on other loves. After a period of reflection she also realized that she wanted to be a saint, but a saint in jeans – a normal person. Having made up her mind, she stopped drinking and started going to church every day. In the face of these changes, her family and friends said, there you go, it’s given her a brainwave. But she moved on. First she contacted the Little Sisters of Jesus, but she was not satisfied because yes, the sisters live close to the poor, offer friendship and support, but they do not change their lives.
Continuing to search, by pure chance she discovered the existence of the French Bread of Life community and founded the first home for the homeless (today there are 7 of them), in the countryside where an occupation could easily be secured for each inhabitant – there is chopping wood, tending the garden, making.
Sister Małgorzata never calls them assisted: they are brothers and sisters. She has created a method that is studied by governments and other institutions. She does not ask for European funds because, she argues, only 20 percent of that money goes to those in need; the rest goes to the people and companies that carry out the projects. She finds this unethical. That’s it, take it or leave it.
And now Artur enters the picture. At the home run by Sister Małgorzata, his mother, a homeless woman, arrives first. She tells of having a 3-year-old son in the care of an orphanage; she picks him up and they spend some time in Sister Małgorzata’s home. The woman says she wants to start over. The child seems ill, but it is impossible to tell what is wrong with him. Then one day they both disappear. The nun and her collaborators find them in a house where alcohol is illegally sold. The woman is drunk; the son shares a bed with a man, also drunk, both covered in his vomit. The room is freezing cold; someone has tried to dry the child’s clothes on the heater, now turned off, but burned them.
Artur is terrified, hungry and cold. The policeman accompanying Sister Małgorzata is so shaken that she entrusts him to her without a word. She takes him home, holds him the whole time, when she tries to put him down he sticks to her. The inhabitants of the house immediately love him, there is no question of sending him back to the orphanage. ‘If you give me a hand,’ says the nun, ‘I’ll see if I can get him to stay. He tracks down his birth mother, but when Artur sees her he runs away terrified. And so she, the nun, becomes his foster mother.
Over the years the nun has tried to balance commitments and duties but, as she says, all mothers do it without anyone calling them heroines
Although four more children were added later, Artur remains the “most son of all.” Sister Małgorzata says she cannot imagine life without him because he is part of her. She says God put him on her path so that she could learn to love a person as he is. Artur has epilepsy and has autism. His mother has had to use all her imagination and intelligence to get through to him, and she has not always succeeded. His life – full of things to do, decide and plan – requires good organization. Artur needs constant care and presence; he is different from other children who grew up to be independent.
There were tensions in the house, it was not always easy to strike a balance between those who wanted her always available and the needs of her children, Artur in particular. Sister Małgorzata walked a tightrope, trying to balance commitments and duties. But – she says – all mothers do that, and no one calls them heroines. She knows she has made mistakes, but that is also what life is about. Fortunately, the community is a kind of tribe, the house is teeming with people, so she always had help. There was, for example, Mrs. Jolanda, a real cook, who prepared delicious things for the children. She was a warm and friendly person, but unfortunately she was also an alcoholic: when she was assigned a house, she drank so much to celebrate that she died.
Although he is a difficult boy, Artur is the ward of the house. He loves lighters, he collects them and puts them in empty bottles: everyone has one in his pocket to give him because it makes him happy. He is also very religious, talks to God and loves Pope Francis. Today he is 30 years old.
