On 18 August 1886 she entered the novitiate of the Ursulines in Kraków. In 1887 she received the religious habit and was given the religious name of "Maria Ursula of Jesus"; she made her perpetual profession on 28 April 1889. In 1904 she was elected as the Mother Superior of the convent and remained in that position until 1907. In Kraków she opened a home for female college students and at that time it proved to be a new phenomenon. The nun often spent hours in Eucharistic Adoration. With a special blessing of Pope Pius X she went to Saint Petersburg in Russia where she worked to build up the Saint Catharine House which was a residence for Polish children and adolescents that were living there at the behest of its pastor Konstantin Budkiewicz. The nun was forced to wear civil clothes since because Roman Catholic institutions were illegal in the Russian Empire. Once the tsarist government oppression to the faith grew she moved to the Russian-controlled Finland where she translated songs and a catechism for the Finnish fishermen who were Protestants for the most part. The religious also set up a free clinic for ill people as well as for the fishermen and their families. But her apostolic zeal soon attracted undue attention for the Russians began to monitor her moves and decided that enough was enough. In 1914 she was expelled from the Russian Empire and sought refuge in neutral Sweden though still kept in touch with the religious who remained in Russia. While in Sweden she committed herself to ecumenism and to that end worked alongside the Lutheran archbishop Nathan Söderblom. In 1915 she set up the newspaper "Solglimtar". In 1916 she met the writer Ellen Key.