Along with Mother Teresa Marchocka (1603-1652), author of Autobiography of a Mystic, Anna of Jesus (Stobieńska, 1593-1649) and Teresa Barbara of the Blessed Sacrament (Teofila of Kretkowskis Zadzikowa, 1609-1670) are among the best-known and most distinguished Polish Discalced Carmelites of the 17th century. Stobieńska was the first Polish woman to take her monastic vows in 1613 at St Martin's Monastery in Cracow, which had been founded the previous year. She was novice mistress and prioress of that convent, and in 1624 she became the first prioress of St Joseph's Convent in Lublin, which she ruled, with minor interruptions, until her death. It was only after her husband's death that Teofila Zadzikowa was able to fulfil her monastic vocation in St Joseph's Convent in Lublin (1634). In 1649 she became superior of the second foundation in the city, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, and in 1665 she left with the sisters of her convent for the foundation in Poznan, where she died. All this time she was the superior and mistress of the novices of the convents she founded. Both enjoyed great authority, not only in their respective convents. Today their legacy is of interest to cultural historians of the Polish Baroque, not least because of the interest in Old Polish women's writing.
The preserved texts of M. Anna Stobieńska include fragments of spiritual reports, less than 30 teachings to nuns and a collection of sentences. The texts of Mother Teresa Barbara Zadzikowa are similar in character (4 spiritual reports and 53 teachings), but they are three times more extensive than those of Mother Anna. Although all the texts of both authors are formative (even the spiritual reports), they have different origins. They include the teachings of the novice mistress, the teachings of the prioress (written down by the authors or by the nuns), notes from private conferences for the sisters, a collection of advice for the nuns, decisions made during retreats, and several letters which are also teachings. The teachings concern the liturgical period, the duties of the religious state and even the principles of good education. Here we find the most important teachings on religious formation in the broadest sense. We learn from them how prioresses and novice formators taught systematic work on oneself, recognising one's faults, eliminating them, acquiring virtues, using the holy sacraments. How they tried to build a community of solidarity, trusting in their prioress, who had to love her subjects and also look after their material needs, especially those of the sick. The texts published here are an important contribution both to the history of the daily life of women's convents in Poland in the first half of the seventeenth century and to the history of the writings of Polish nuns.
The texts published here were previously unpublished. They can be found in two codices. One is kept in the Archives of the Cracow Province of the Discalced Carmelites in Czerna (rkps 246), while the other, much richer and more valuable, is kept in the Library of the Poznan Society of the Friends of Science in Poznan (PTPN, rkps 130).