"
When we fall in love with God, He works His will through us, sending us to people that are in need, especially
the ones who have spiritual struggles... I Need to Be Strong So I Can Help Others" (Grace Bigas)
A Report by Robert R. Schwarz
( originally published March 2018, re-edited later )
My wife Mary Alice , who a few years ago was recovering from a shoulder replacement, asked her rehab trainer if he could recommend a cleaning lady for our home. He did, and then added, " But you should know that she's very religious." A week later, Grace rang our doorbell . At her side was a vacuum cleaner and her 29-year-old daughter holding a red plastic bucket full of cleaning supplies. "Good morning, " Grace said cheerfully in broken English, "I am cleaning lady, this is daughter Monica. " I knew she was Polish , and wanting both women to feel at ease, replied "dobrze" (meaning "good" ) , one of maybe five words I know in Polish. Grace and Monica smiled and entered our home and, within a minute, began setting up for three hours of cleaning that would satisfy a West Point cadet trainer. Often she was on her mobile phone talking to a family friend in Poland while cleaning our bathroom. The religious dimension of Grace's skills would soon be seen ,with her daughter translating some of her mother's words.
I In the beginning...it began with a "Hello, America! "
On
April l3 , 1999,
Grace stepped off the jet after a 14-hour flight from her
native Poland . As the custom official stamped her visa, Grace had a fleeting thought of her ill husband and
12-year-old daughter Monica, both left behind in the family's home in Jaroslow ( a
90-minute drive from Krakow, home of
Pope Saint John Paul II). She retrieved
her luggage and remained tense about what lay ahead: learning English and, most important, saving enough money for a return trip to Poland to complete reconstruction of their family home there. She would , a decade later, tell my wife and me that her chief concern had been " just to get by day to day," she told me in one of our interviews.
 |
| Grace being blessed at the Jordan River in Israel |
Her cousin's friends found Grace a job at a large Polish cleaning service. Here, she was assigned the most difficult work, like cleaning out dimly lit basements, scrubbing toilets that hadn't been cleaned in weeks, and eliminating rivulets of dust in obscure corners behind heavy appliances.
Six months later and now quite discouraged , Grace returned to her husband and daughter in Poland , only to realize that what money she had frugally saved was not enough to finish the re-building of their home there. So, on January13, 2000 , Grace returned to America , this time to Chicago . There, she answered a help-wanted ad in a Polish newspaper and once more went to work as a cleaning lady for a house-cleaning service. " I had very good boss and customers, " she said. " A few years later I bought used car and slowly got more independent. I found customers on my own, sent money to Poland for work on my home. It was very hard. I missed family and my homeland a lot. I had struggles with my marriage . "
Six months later and now quite discouraged , Grace returned to her husband and daughter in Poland , only to realize that what money she had frugally saved was not enough to finish the re-building of their home there. So, on January13, 2000 , Grace returned to America , this time to Chicago . There, she answered a help-wanted ad in a Polish newspaper and once more went to work as a cleaning lady for a house-cleaning service. " I had very good boss and customers, " she said. " A few years later I bought used car and slowly got more independent. I found customers on my own, sent money to Poland for work on my home. It was very hard. I missed family and my homeland a lot. I had struggles with my marriage . "
 |
| In her home with figure of the Virgin Mary she often puts on loan to clients today |
" It was horrible , and not being spiritually close to God did not help either . "
To cheer herself, she thought often of
the farm on which her parents raised her
. "My parents were farmers , and they
worked very hard and taught me
and my sisters responsibility and to
appreciate what we had," she recalled . "My father was in church ministry. From a very early age we were taught
respect for God , for Saint Mary and for all of God's creations ."
"I put my trust in Jesus "
Grace's spirits lifted when she decided to send for her daughter to come live with her. Her husband would remain in Poland indefinitely.
Monica , then, 18, arrived in Chicago in 2005 to live with her mother in a small third-floor apartment in a suburb west of the city. " It was a great challenge to make everything work out here , especially financially for my daughter's schools she was attending here as well as her struggles for independence, " Grace said. " God had a plan for me but I did not understand that back then. I wanted to be happy and have a happy family. I thought maybe I could have a fresh start with my daughter here and create a new family. But that wasn’t the way , I found out. I slowly started growing closer to God and began realizing that this is what makes me very happy, brings peace to my heart and helps me overcome all challenges . "
 |
| Daughter Monica |
God now stepped in with amazing grace,
Grace told me. One day in Chicago's Holy
Trinity Church, she met Fr. Witko, a visiting priest from Poland
whose apostolate ( religious work )
was praying to heal people with various afflictions . He
prayed that day for Grace. " I was
touched by Jesus for the first time, " Grace said . " I was healed from whatever
was broken inside me. I felt close to God and put my trust in Jesus. I knew He would guide me in the right way."
Before
leaving church that day, Grace
prayed to the Virgin Mary
that she would lead her
closer to Jesus. Grace daily offered up this prayer for 33 consecutive days. "Today
I know that Saint Mary was the one that snapped me out of my old life and started
creating a new path for me, opening my eyes to mistakes that I made and preparing my heart for this
spiritual change," she said.
Bringing to mind that day she
went to a priest for reconciliation (confession ) , she said , "I was
so happy to be in church that day and receive the Body of the Christ with a pure heart. That was the very beginning of my
life changed , to my conversion . I was starting to fall in love with Jesus Christ.
When my faith deepened in Jesus , I let
Saint Mary take over my path in life to start
working wonderful things for me . She showed me how I could help families, sick people, and people in need. "
But this cleaning lady would soon face
a major crisis : Was she to obey her God-called mission to stay in America helping people or follow her
heart , which was aslso beckoning her back to Poland ?
II Grace's profile
On the first day of our interview Grace was then in her sixties... I see her as a sturdy, tall woman of high energy with a face that invites people to connect with her. Given an opening , she will tell you that her favorite saint was Pope Paul John II, followed by saints Joseph and Mary , and fellow countryman and Auschwitz martyr, Maximilian Kolbe . She describes her hair color (with a heavy Polish accent ) as "burgundy" brown. Her green eyes twinkled when she humorously referred to anyone who loves God a lot as a "hot Catholic." Yet with conviction, she labels herself a "cleaning lady"--and a meticulous one , my wife and I discovered .
Prior to the covid pandemic, Grace usually cleaned three
homes each day except on Sunday. Grace's day usually begins at 5:30 a.m. After morning Mass, there is often breakfast of an omelet made by Monica. Sometimes lunch is a sandwich eaten in Grace's car on the way to a cleaning job. For dinner, she will likely cook a Polish croquet dish or her favorite, red borscht soup .
Unlike any cleaning lady I have known, Grace tidies
up my sloppy medicine chest and picks up and folds clothes which a homeowner like me may have tossed carelessly
on the bedroom floor. "Mom does a little of everything," her daughter said. "She sews, stitches, cooks." Monica , who has been a part-time student here and an aspiring design architect , continues to help her mother clean homes. Like her mother, she too is wired with cheerful energy . Asked once if she has a boyfriend, the daughter gave a modest yes.
Grace will also go
to her knees in prayer while in a home she is cleaning for a very ill or distressed client, regardless of her client's religious denomination. "It doesn’t matter who they are," she said . Are Grace's prayers answered? Yes, of course, Monica told me, and briefly mentioned three instances: her mother's answered prayer for a childless mother who, for years , wanted to become pregnant--and then did; another prayer answered was for a young woman who badly needed a job and got it after Monica prayed for her . And there was answered prayer for a Polish priest from Russia who had passionately desired to come to America to give lectures during Lent but was prevented by the pandemic's many restrictions . After Grace's prayer group went to their knees for him , the priest surprisingly found a way to travel here .
The walls in Grace's living room
have run out of space to hang her array of painted, sketched, and photographed renditions of saints ,
Biblical prophets , and an enormous portrait of Jesus. There is also a picture
of Jesus which Grace
found next to a neighborhood garbage can . And often snoozing on Grace's couch is the family cat Pluszka ("Fluffy " in Polish).
Along with her vacuum cleaner
and an assortment of dusters and detergents which Grace
brings into a client's home , is a gift, such as rosary beads, a papal encyclical (or testimony about the Blessed Mother), a framed picture of a Biblical scene , a portrait of Jesus , and a prayer book. She admits to suspecting that some of her clients put their gift in a closet as
soon as she leaves for the day, but then places it back in obvious view for Grace to see when a serious family problem or illness develops.
One of those gifts always travels with Grace: It's
a three-foot-high , artfully shaped figurine of the Mother of Jesus. Grace brings it into the home of any client who requests it as a blessing for their family when going through a trial. When Grace returns to the home, she retrieves the figurine for another home. "It changes peoples' lives ," Grace said. Monica added , " Someone is always calling Mom with the name of someone who needs Mary in their home. "
Grace calls it the "pilgrim statue " , for it was brought to America decades ago by Fr. Emil Cudak, a priest ( now deceased ) who had been placing this same Mary in homes in Poland. He prayed with the poor, sick, and elderly . In America, Fr. Cudak and Grace became friends which , Monica told me, greatly influenced her mother's religious mission . The Mary figurine , when not currently in someone's home, sits prominently in Grace's living room.
Grace calls it the "pilgrim statue " , for it was brought to America decades ago by Fr. Emil Cudak, a priest ( now deceased ) who had been placing this same Mary in homes in Poland. He prayed with the poor, sick, and elderly . In America, Fr. Cudak and Grace became friends which , Monica told me, greatly influenced her mother's religious mission . The Mary figurine , when not currently in someone's home, sits prominently in Grace's living room.
 |
| Monica at a younger age at a Mass in Holy Trinity Church in Chicago |
Fr.
Herbert and I conversed on the phone: "Grace is not ashamed or afraid," he told me, " as some are today, to speak
up about God . We need people like her
, especially today . I am grateful for
her dedication. She cares for people ,
for those who often are overlooked.
Grace goes into hospitals to comfort and pray for the dying, the very sick . She'll
text me to pray for those whom she knows
suffer from addiction, illness, or the need for confession. She is strong and devoted and prays in many
ways, especially for peace for all. "
I asked Grace how often she and
Monica themselves go to confession , and Monica
replied, "As often as possible, often weekly. "
III Grace's conflict: Stay in America or return home ?
Do
mother and daughter make time for fun? I asked . The two looked at each with a grin that asked what fun? Television, a movie now and
then ? "We don't care for that", Monica said flatly . " But a friend
calls us from Poland , sometimes twice a
day with news from Poland. " The
friend telephones from Częstochowa , a city known world-wide for its famous monastery of Jasna Góra, home of the Black Madonna painting . Every year, millions of pilgrims come to see it and the Virgin Mary shrine there .
 |
| Pointing to her Best Friend |
Does Grace , our cleaning lady too, claim to have seen an apparition
or vision or heard a voice of the Virgin Mother. "No, not me , " Grace quickly replied. Monica chimed in: " But whenever we need an answer to a direction to take in life, we
pray and go to the Bible . You'd be surprised how many times we get an answer
what to do ! "
Being
so far from her family year after year prompts Grace to telephone her mother on holidays and to
pray often that her family there be
"peaceful and happy ." Monica worries that her mother's heavy work schedule
is damaging her mother's health, especially when her mother does a 12-hour day of
cleaning, then takes twenty minutes to change
clothes to dash off to pray with
someone . All this is followed by her mother attending her 1
a.m group prayer meeting on Saturday in the nearby
suburb of Elmhurst.
Determined to give her mother a therapeutic vacation , Monica saved enough money to send her to Israel and soon after that, to Colorado for a church pilgrimage
. Last September, Grace flew to Poland to
visit her 92-year-old mother who was
recovering from a serious illness.
Talking to Grace one day in our home, I discerned she was weighed down with a
grave, persisting dilemma: should she remain in
America or return to friends, family and her native country. It begged for
resolution. I had to ask: "
Grace, if you had the money, would you next week return to
Poland to stay permanently ? "
Mother and daughter talked
in Polish for a few minutes. Monica
, now quite serious, said, " Family
is the most important thing, not finances. "
" Could your family come here ? " I asked .
Monica laughed .
"Not with all the family we have there ," she said . "We really want to go back , but we already have a life here and just to pick up and go back to Poland and start all over ? " Monica frowned and shook her head .
Monica laughed .
"Not with all the family we have there ," she said . "We really want to go back , but we already have a life here and just to pick up and go back to Poland and start all over ? " Monica frowned and shook her head .
 |
| Always at Grace's finger tips to give a client is a book about the mother of Jesus or a papal encyclical. |
The question appeared to wound Grace . She was silent, pensive
for a moment. Then, with her smiling green eyes, Grace declared , "You know, Mr. Schwarz, don't you, families that pray together, stay together.
Nothing that can break them apart when they are together on their knees. And the children will
follow. "
She then looked at her daughter for more words. Then paused before saying, " To go back, I first ask God what He wants. More important is to help people be where all should be—in heaven. "
She then looked at her daughter for more words. Then paused before saying, " To go back, I first ask God what He wants. More important is to help people be where all should be—in heaven. "
I discerned that Grace and Monica were here for the
duration of their mission.
IV Well done, good and faithful servant …Come [into heaven ] and
share your Master's
happiness ! ( Matthew 25: 21
)
Grace admits having battles which all of humankind has with its three arch enemies: the
world , the flesh and the devil. Monica wants to return to school and
learn more about architectural design , especially the skill of restoring "everything that is old.
" Grace says she herself is happy "seeing people change for better, from bad life to good life. "
My wife Mary Alice and I will remember the time in our home when, for no apparent reason , Grace suddenly turned off the vacuum cleaner to say, "Many people are very lost . I pray for America and
Poland. " Then she continued cleaning our home .
On her tombstone , Grace wants the epitaph to read: " She loved
Jesus and Saint Mary. And If there'd
be room on that tombstone, I'd also want what
Pope VI wrote about Our Lady's husband, Joseph:
" 'He is the proof that
in order
to be a good and genuine follower of
of Christ, there is no need of great
things
—it is enough to have the common,
simple, and
human virtues, but they need to be
true and
authentic . ' "
THE END
comments are welcome at
rrschwarz777@gmail.com
© 2023 Robert R. Schwarz
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