Brother JOACHIM NIEDBAL

(al secolo; Antoni)

Born on 8 October 1916 in Unica Sulikowska (Poland).

Died on 14 August 2008 (91 years of age and 59 in religion).

Entered the Order: 22 January 1947

Novice: 7 September 1947

Simple profession: 8 September 1948 (Krakow)

Solemn Profession: 3 February 1952

Brother Joachim was born on 8 October 1916 at Kuźnica Sulikowska, near Siewierz, into the family of Władysława and Konstanty Niedbał. He had five siblings.

He was baptised Antoni. According to his application for acceptance into the Order, he attended three classes of primary school. During the Second World War, he was forced to work in the German mines in Westphalia and Silesia. On 22 January 1947 he crossed the threshold of the convent of the Hospitaller Order of St John of God in Krakow. On entering the Novitiate on 7 September 1947, he took the religious name of Brother Joachim.

On 8 December 1948 he made his first religious vows and on 3 February 1952 his final vows. Between October 1948 and March 1949 he attended a nursing course the Brothers of St John of God Hospital. In 1956 he worked in various departments of the hospital. But when the communist authorities forbade the Brothers from attending to patients after the nationalisation of the hospital, Brother Joachim began his work in the surrounding area, visiting dozens of people every day - giving injections, applying cupping, delivering meals, and so on for the next 50 years. He always stood out as zealous man of prayer with a special devotion to Our Lady.

In his final years he would perform the Stations of the Cross privately, every day. In October 2007, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz (the former secretary of St John Paul II) awarded him the "Wings of St Raphael the Archangel" from the Brothers of St John of God Hospital in Krakow and the Art Cherub Art Gallery. The award was established to honour those who, in their daily lives, do good deeds for others, with special Gospel-inspired love and dedication in answer to Order’s call: Do good, brothers!

 Brother Joachim did good until his last day. He died on the evening of 14 August 2008 in the very hospital where he had begun his service as a nurse sixty years earlier. His funeral was celebrated on 20th August in the Brothers’ Church of the Holy Trinity, presided over by His Eminence Cardinal Franciszek Macharski. In his homily, the Rector of the Seminary of the Diocese of Sosnowiec Prof. Włodzimierz Skoczny said, among other things:

"It is not easy to discover the real Brother Joachim. He was not a very talkative person, and he certainly did not talk about himself. He walked our streets in his final years bent down, always with his rosary and the bag with the injection equipment, surrounded by people running around, a grey man, like all the Saints (...) Today one of the most beautiful pages of the Order has closed with the departure of Brother Joachim, the oldest of today’s Brothers of St John of God. For so many years he blew on the spark of divine mercy by humbly serving the sick. May he find peace and happiness in the Merciful Jesus ... for ever".

Brother Joachim is buried in the Brothers of St John of God tomb in the Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow.