The discussion of saints' transfigurations similar to the Transfiguration on the Mountain [in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9] should include saints' apparitions, as the figures of Moses and Elias suggest. But since visions are discussed so often in Parallels to the New Testament, it would be too much to devote a special chapter to the topic. It is true that it is difficult to explain much of what happens in visions. But it is equally true that a miraculous healing, when a fact, shows that the vision itself was a reality - whatever its makeup.

In what follows I would like, nevertheless, to present an apparition which, in my opinion, permits, above and beyond the foregoing, a more careful consideration of the very numerous reports of the finding of the mortal remains of saints - findings said to have occurred after an apparition of the respective saint. These findings are rejected by modern hagiography [the study of saints], in the majority of cases undoubtedly with justice. But always? It seems to me that what, in the case I have translated, was real in modern times, may also have been so at other times. It also seems to me that witnesses who should be taken seriously cannot be rejected merely because they speak of post-dream findings in the same way as the many witnesses here do of the finding of the body of Saint Andreas Bobola. The finding of relics in antiquity is treated by H. Delehaye in Les Origines du cultes des Martyrs, 2nd ed., Brussels, 1933, pp. 73-90. The author goes into the most important cases in detail: the finding of the archmartyr (first martyr) St. Stephen, and of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, under the direction of St. Ambrose in Milan. (The relevant texts can be found in the volume by Ilona Opelt, Das Leben des heiligen Ambrosius, of the series Heilige der ungeteilten Christenheit, dargestellt von den Zeugen ihres Lebens, Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf, Germany, 1967.)

God is a God of the living Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Luke 20,27-38). In the apparition of Moses and Elias, moreover, the Church has always seen the proof that they are alive. Similarly, the apparition of Saint Andreas Bobola, slowly and diabolically tortured to death at Janów on 16 May 1656, provides proof: the dead live. [Translator's note: "Janów" = modern Janów Lubelski, Poland.]

The saint was born in the principality of Sandomierz (today in Poland) in 1592. In 1611 he entered the novitiate of the Jesuits in Vilnius (today in Lithuania) and worked as a preacher and leader of Marian Congregations. In those days the Marian Congregations were the base groups for the apostolate of the Jesuits. For his last twenty years he worked as a missionary among the people of Pinsk (in the half of Poland today incorporated into Russia), where he was also buried. During a Cossack raid he was captured and tortured to death by the Cossacks [on 16 May 1656] In 1701 his completely undecomposed corpse was found. Because of the amputated limbs, the flayed skin, the burn wounds and the wood slivers driven underneath the fingernails, the body could be undeniably identified as his. And its incorruption made the strongest of impressions precisely on the [Russian] Orthodox, who see in it a special proof of holiness.

After the death of the martyr the college at Pinsk was pillaged and burnt several times. Thus it happened that no one any longer knew where his body was buried. The coffin, as is clear from the texts, had originally been set apart to the side in the burial cellar. But after more than a hundred coffins had been placed in the cellar, it had gotten pressed down into the obviously moist earth. The other coffins were more or less rotted and their corpses completely decomposed.

According to the Positio super martyrio, Rome 1739, Father Jacob Starzewski, S.J., 55 years old, testified at the Apostolic Hearing of Vilnius:

At that time I was at the college of Pinsk. I had the job of taking care, as I recall, of the room of Fr. Godebski, the rector of the Pinsk college. I heard from him these express words: "I was thinking about whom to choose as the guardian patron of my college in my troubles (the Swedish War, insurrections) during the time of my rectorate. At that point the honorable Fr. Bobola appeared to me and said: 'Why are you looking for other patrons? I am Andreas Bobola. I was once killed by Cossacks. I will be the guardian of your college. Look for me among the confreres'." This apparition took place, as I recall, in the bedroom of Fr. Rector Godebski. Father Rector was a dignified and scholarly man, a doctor of sacred theology, and a rational person....

Fr. Ignatius Chrzanowski, S.J., 41 years old:

I heard from the mouth of the honorable Fr. Martin Godebski, my first spiritual teacher, when he was my novice master, that - whether in sleep or in waking, I don't know - the honorable servant of God appeared to him and told him, "You are looking for a protecting patron for the college. You have me: I am your confrere, Andreas Bobola, who was killed by Cossacks on account of the faith. Look for my body. It is God's will, namely, that you should separate me from the others." I heard the same thing from the mouth of his brother, the standard-bearer [in the army] Peter Godebski in Pinsk, who called his brother, Fr. Godebski, nothing less than a saint because of this revelation, saying that his brother was a saint because he spoke with saints. Because of his virtues Fr. Martin Godebski had the reputation of being a saint. It has now already been twenty years that he has been resting in the common burial site of the novitiate of Vilnius.

God's servant, however, appeared in the garb of the Society of Jesus, and with a certain radiance and great friendliness. I heard from the lips of Father Rector, after he had seen the discovered corpse, that it was that of the same one who had appeared to him.

Father Rector had the body searched for. I was one of those watching the search with his own eyes. With others I looked through the burial cellar window facing the school on my way to classes. But I heard that it was not found until the third day under many coffins, already covered with earth. That was what the lay church attendants said, who were searching there.... (p. 73).

At the hearing at Luck [or Lutsk, today in Ukraine on the Styr river 85 miles northeast of the now Russian town of Lvov] (Positio super introductione, Rome 1728, pp. 12f) in 1718, Mr. Procopius Lukaszewicz, 40 years old, testified:

From Fr. Godebski, S.J., the then rector in Pinsk, I heard tell how, after he had lain down after evening prayers and was worrying, a priest of the Society appeared to him. Frightened by this, he asked him who he was. The latter answered, "I am Andreas Bobola, a confrere of yours who was killed for the faith by Cossacks. Look for my body and get it out from among the others." With this news Father Rector came into the sacristy where I was sacristan in those days and told me to look for the coffin with his body. On the day after the apparition I took some other college personnel along with me and we went into the burial cellar where the bodies of the Jesuit fathers rest. We shifted every single coffin aside, but couldn't find that of Fr. Andreas Bobola. So we stopped searching further on that day and returned. The next day we searched again in the same way. We even dug into the earth and found more coffins, but not his, so we returned after working in vain. On the third night this Fr. Andreas Bobola appeared to me in a dream and spoke these words: "My body is lying on the left side in the corner beneath the earth. Look there and you'll find it."

So after Mass we went to the burial area with the college personnel. We dug where told to and found a coffin with a corpse. The casket was unpainted. On it stood written in black lettering: "Pater Andreas Bobola." There were two priests along with us, instructors at the college. So we opened the coffin to see the body. We found it dressed in alb and chasuble, and we placed it to the side under the window in the burial cellar. This became known and everyone rushed to see it. It has been about 18 years since we dug and searched for the body....

Fr. Valerian Kuczynski, 57 years old, declared (Positio super martyrio, pp. 70f.):

While I was still in the lay world and was church custodian at the Jesuit church of Pinsk, God's servant, Andreas Bobola, appeared to the Father Rector .... Father Rector Godebski related this to us in the sacristy and ordered us to search for the body. We searched one day, two days, and found nothing. But on the third day, as soon as we searched in the earth among the coffins in the corner, we knew from the inscription on a casket lid which read "Pater Andreas Bobola Societatis Jesu" that his body lay here and nowhere else. We dug two spades deep and dug out the coffin whose lid had stuck only partly out of the ground. And after we had dug it out, we set in on sawhorses under the window of the burial cellar. We opened the casket and found the body completely undecomposed, and disfigured by the tortures, just as it looks now. And when we had cleaned it of dirt we also cleaned the casket and laid the corpse back in it. And we held the undisintegrated state of his body to be a singular grace of God and a very special miracle, after his having lain that way for so many years. And we were sure that he had earned it by his martyrdom which he had suffered for the Catholic faith. We also discovered absolutely no smell from it; as a matter of fact, the body was exactly as if it had just then been buried...."

Mr. Eustachius Lomanowicz, 71 years old (p. 72):

Father Rector, awakened from sleep by the dream apparition, went to his confessor and spoke with him about this vision. It then immediately became known throughout the college, and even I heard about it. It was undersacristan Procopius, as he himself told me, who, together with other church assistants, found the body in its casket....

Mr. Johannes Karzanowski, 44 years old, testified (p. 71) that the Father [Novice-]Master had in class spoken of the apparition to the Father rector, and had urged all the students to pray so that the body of the saint would be found.

"With God's help," he said, "you can have him for a guardian." Sacristan Procopius and the instructors had searched for the body but had not been able to find it. The servant of God appeared once more, this time to the sacristan - I heard this from the people, the students, the teachers, and from the sacristan himself. The novice master, Fr. Kociett, told us about the continuation of the search, and once more urged us on to prayer....

The vice provost, Josef Tokarzewski, 65 years old, testified (pp. 75f.):

I was studying in Pinsk, and I saw the exhumed corpse. The body of God's servant was clothed with an old linen alb and a black chasuble, both of which were rotted and disintegrating, and turned to dust at a touch of the fingers. I touched it and rubbed it with my hand. A sure sign that the body of God's servant had been found was the inscription with his name on the casket lid. And no one doubted that it was really the body of God's servant, because the inscription on the casket proved it and you could see the wounds and mutilations on his body which - together with the inscription - even I saw with my own eyes.

Fr. Ignatius Chrzanowski had also seen the body and the inscription.

No one doubted that it was the body of the honorable martyr because of the copious, coagulated blood with which his garments were quite soaked, and also because of the wounds and mutilations whose blood was almost fresh, since it was red, even if coagulated. (p. 74)

The reverend Mr. Johannes Walkowski, 37 years old, testified:

In those days I was studying in Pinsk when the venerable servant of God appeared to Fr. Godebski one night. When the body at first could not be found, the fathers recommended us students to pray to God, so that it would be found. Then when, after renewed work, it was found and brought up out of the ground, it was given a separate resting place in the common crypt.

To the question as to how he knew this, he replied,

With other students I visited and looked at the discovered body. I visited the grave of God's servant very often and saw the wounds which had been inflicted on him by the Cossacks. (pp. 75f.)

Fr. Casimir Brzozowski, S.J., 44 years old:

Fr. Martin Godebski, of blessed memory, was rector in Pinsk at that time. He was very much occupied with the question of which saint he ought to choose as protector of the college in those troubled times. Thereupon a member of the Society appeared to him in visible form during half-sleep - and almost while he was still awake - and said, "I am Fr. Andreas Bobola, the missionary of Janów, a member of this college who was killed by Cossacks out of hate for the Faith. Why are you looking for some other patron when you have me? Look for me, then, among the confreres and place me apart until the further will of God takes effect." - This, according to an excerpt from the archives of the Lithuanian province of the order, and according to the way I heard it from important fathers.... (pp. 74f.)

The body was then sheltered in a new casket under the window of the burial cellar. The saint became greatly venerated as a miracle worker. The many answers to prayers led to an official opening of the coffin in 1719. The martyr was found completely undecomposed: except for the wounds, the body was fully intact; it was pliable, the flesh soft. Under oath five physicians and pharmacists testified to this fact, and that no preservatives had been applied. In 1920 the Bolsheviks put the body in a museum in Moscow. Pius XI managed to get it out. It now reposes in Rome. Fr. Jacob Staszewski, S.J., 55 years old:

In my presence the body of God's servant was found in the common burial cellar of the Society at Pinsk. It had been pressed deeper into the earth by the other bodies. This was, as I recall, before or after the year 1700. (p. 77)

Fr Nikolaus Czarzasty, S.J., 51 years old:

In those days I was studying philosophy at the college of Pinsk, and I heard from various people of our Society that God's servant had appeared to Fr. Godebski in his sleep. Those were the days of the struggles with Sweden. The order to search for the body was given. On the third day after the apparition it was found in my presence. It was found by Brother Kevienski, who is now a Franciscan, and by Procopius Lukaszewicz; I no longer remember the others of our group. It was found by this sacristan and others of our people in the common crypt of the priests of the college of Pinsk. It had been pressed into the earth by the weight of the coffins placed on top of it, and the inscription on the casket read: "P. Andreas Bobola Societatis Jesu," written in black, as I myself saw.... (pp. 77f.)

Fr. Peter Arciszewski, S.J., 63 years old, knows from hearsay that God's servant had been transported to Pinsk clothed only with a shirt. But he must then have been buried in the garb of the order, for that was the way he was found. The searching went on for about three hours on the forenoon of the third day. After the body had been found in a rotted casket of which only the uppermost board with the inscription had remained intact - even the biretta was rotted - they put the body of God's servant in another, intact coffin and placed it on two sawhorses.

We immediately went to see it. I was there even before the noon meal. There were a great many of us. Immediately the alb and chasuble of God's servant were changed. I saw the body right after its discovery. I don't think there was anyone still alive at that time who knew where it had been buried. That's why they searched twice and moved the caskets all around; and no one any longer believed that anyone from so long before then could still be made out. (pp. 78f.)

Fr. Sebastian Rybaltowski, S.J., 59 years old:

I heard from Fr. Godebski himself how he said, "I asked the Lord God during the celebration of holy mass to give me a protecting patron through whose intercession I might be able to carry out successfully the office of rectorate committed to my care by the order. Then Fr. Andreas Bobola appeared to me and said...." On the following morning he had the sacristan, Lorenz Kosman, Anton Kamienski, Peter Arciszewski, and other members of the order search in the common crypt right away. But they found nothing that day, as Brother Arciszewski and others told me. I no longer know how long they searched, although I was in Pinsk at that time and though I reclothed the body of God's servant two years later. Undersacristan Sezerbicki told me himself that God's servant had said to him in a dream, "Look for me in such and such a place." The undersacristan was a thoroughly sensible man. When they then searched once more, the body of God's servant was found in precisely the place which had been revealed to the undersacristan. Not only the latter, but also Brothers Arciszewski, Kamienski and others, too, searched, as they themselves told me right after the finding. I saw for myself the casket lid with the inscription. (p. 80)

Mr. Anton Moczydowski, 36 years old:

I saw them, Jesuits and laymen, searching, after he had appeared to the Father Rector. When his body was found on the third day, it was made known to us right away. I was attending high school in Pinsk at that time. Right after the finding I was in the grave with a candle. I saw the undecomposed body which was so disfigured by torture. The coffin was rotted, and I heard from various people that those who had known him and seen him after his martyrdom by the Cossacks, had recognized him by the wounds on his hands and his cut-off nose.

On an old sheet of paper, which the bishop of Luck ordered the notary to place in the files, the first burials of 1640-1665 are recorded. There, twelfth on the list, is registered: