Church of St Joseph of the Bernardine Sisters

Kraków · Polen · Church

Night after night Katarzyna Jaworska scrubs the stone floor of the sisters' church. The brush is heard, but nobody sees the water move.

Behind the wall at Poselska 21 stands the convent church of the Bernardine sisters, built between 1694 and 1703 and among the most enclosed church interiors in Krakow. The legend attached to it concerns Katarzyna Jaworska, a woman of the city so striking that Krakow called her la belle Gabrielle, and who by the telling did not live as a pious woman was supposed to. Her penance was handed down without an end date: every night she returns to the church and scrubs the same stone floor, bent over her bucket, until dawn takes her away. Generations of sisters have described the sound of a brush on stone coming from an empty nave, and a floor that is sometimes wet in the morning although nobody washed it. She disturbs no one, she never interrupts, and she never finishes.

FAQ

Hvor ligger Church of St Joseph of the Bernardine Sisters?

Church of St Joseph of the Bernardine Sisters ligger i Kraków, Polen.