Poland: Czestochowa - Jasna Gora

greetings all. this is my last post of Poland. some from Lourdes are to follow in the coming weeks. we started class this past week: it is going to be a very demanding semester, but very rewarding if i am able to give my whole heart to it. all my energy, effort, and discipline are required of me-- thank goodness for the coming graces of Easter!! Lent has been very...lenten this year. i feel stretched to trust beyond what i can conceive of trust. each time i do the Lord always provides all that i need, and i feel at peace. but i am also recognizing more the times i have an opportunity to trust and i don't, i turn away, and that doesn't feel so good, it is full of anxiety and self assured disappointments. i am growing in thankfulness. i hope you are all well, you are constantly in my prayers. please pray for ever deeper conversion to the Lord.

day 7: 1 jan 2008

the feast of Mary Mother of God is today and we went to the shrine in Czestochowa, the monastary of Jasna Gora where there is the icon of the "Black Madonna". this place was more than i expected it to be. it is a castle turned into a monastary, it was there that twice the intercession of Our Lady of Czestochowa was invoked and the city saved from opposing armies. outside the castle walls are huge and moving bronze stations of the cross made around 1900. inside above the chapel of Our Lady there are paintings of the stations with the Polish history in the background which are also very moving-made around 2000. around the field surrounding the castle are statues marking the 20 mysteries of the rosary. this place is built for prayer, i wanted more time there to pray.

everything here has permenance-solidly built and meant to last, perhaps it is a message that co

mes from their faith. there were 2 chapels side by side with Mass going on each hour of the day--all full. there was so much significance there, i wasn't preparred to process it. as you entered the shrine area a sign read: "this is a holy place, enter as a pilgrim" i would like to heed that more next time. this was our last day in Poland. that night we would go to dinner with the brothers that hosted us, listen to the bugler of Krakow toot his horn, then rise early to leave home--it was sad to leave. i read Spe Salvi while i was here and that was a real spiritual boost to the trip. if i were to come again, i would want to spend more time at Czetochowa and the Divine Mercy Shrine. it would be good preparation to read a little about the bugler of Krakow, Our Lady of Czestochowa, Jasna Gora itself, and some of Sr. Faustina's Diary.

pictures:

1- Jasna Gora from afar

2- an outdoor reproduction of the icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa

3- an outdoor station of the cross (Christ is nailed to the Cross)

4- a polish station of the cross (Christ dies on the Cross)

5- me with superior tactical advantage as we had a little snowball war on the walls of Jasna Gora

6- our last dinner in Krakow (Aaron, Br. Benedykt, Jeff, me, Chris)

Poland: Divine Mercy and Wadowice

30 dec 2007:


about an hour away from krakow is JP2's hometown of wadowice. his parish church, St. Mary's, is now a minor basilica. when we got there we went to Mass-- it was completely packed with people standing in all the isles and sitting around the edges, even pouring outside. it was like that all day with Mass every hour and a half. outside the church is the school that JP2 attendend and near the end of the church is the house he grew up in with his dad. the whole town is a testimony of faith, so tangible and part of daily life for the people there.

at the Divine Mercy Shrine i got to see St. Faustina's cell, her relics in the sisters' adoration chapel, and providentially, i entered the shrine right at 3pm and was able to pray a chaplet of Divine Mercy with all the people there during the hour of Divine Mercy. they prayed simply and meaningfully, not slow and not rushed--matching the whole pace of life i see here.




pictures:
1- Divine Mercy Shrine
2- JP2's parish in Wadowice where he was baptized, received first communion and confirmed
3- phil the thrill and me at JP2's house flashing our "W" for wadowice signs
4- bill the thrill and JP2 in front of the church
5- one area inside the church

Poland: Salt Mines

tomorrow morning i leave for a week in Lourdes, France. it is a place where Mary appeared to a poor peasant girl in 1858 and where a miraculous spring appeared and many healings have taken place. i will be praying for you all, for any type of healing you need. it will be the 150th anniversary while we are there. when we get back about 50 of us will be participating in a retreat to surrender ourselves and ask the Lord to stir up our spirits, so if you could please pray for us, we'd greatly benefit. well, here's some more Poland info:


Wieliczka Rynek: 29 dec

the salt mine is not a place i would have gone on my own, but one of the other guys really wanted to do it so i went; i'm glad i did. the mine has been in operation for over 800 years, and is still in operation today. we walked down 150 meters below the earth, went on a nearly 2 hr tour and saw less than 1% of the mine. the most amazing thing to me was how the faith of the workers was so integrated to their daily life. they built 4 chapels so that they could have Mass during the work day.


when i say made chapels i mean they carved out a cavern of salt and made the entire "room", the decorations, even the floor out of salt. all the work was done by workers, not outside artists. the only way to explain it is to show you these pictures and tell you to remember that everything you see is made of salt. the guide told us we could lick the walls if we wanted, one of the guys in our group never stopped licking the walls the whole time, he was licking it like it was sugar or something. at dinner he felt a little sick, i wonder why? presently there is Mass every Sunday at 8am, and you can get married in the salt chapel if you want. John Paul II even celbrated Mass down there at least once (and there is a salt statue of him to commemorate the event).


pictures:
1- the "king's chapel" - chandeliers made of 97%+ pure salt, floor of salt carved to look like marble tiles
2- the sanctuary, altar, crucifix, ambo, presider's chair, all carved out of salt
3- close up of crucifix
4- rendition of da Vinci's Last supper carved in the salt wall
5- salt statues

Poland: Auschwitz

Auschwitz: 28 dec - feast of Holy Innocents

it was very cold and the place was quiet. you don't get the feeling as though you are in a bad place, but a somber place. the stories and actions that people did, however, can make you sick. the grounds are orderly, neat, and somewhat pleasant in their own way, somewhat uneven as if hurting from a scar. the actions, the stories we heard were so cold, deprived of cosideration of deeper realities, mechanical, scientific, deadening. it makes me wonder about love-with such atrocities organized as they were and obediently followed, what would love look like in that scenario?



"communal responsibility" the nazi policy that everyone shares responsibility for the others within the camp. if one prisoner escapes, 10 others must die in his place; if the count is wrong at the end of the day (even if the bodies of those who died during the day were not carried back to roll call) the whole camp is punished; prisoners who were put in charge of other prisoners beat the people worse than the nazi's did--harsh deadness to another rakes over the whole scenario. somehow, someone still remembers love and is willing to give himself enough to be a light for others--St. Maximillian Kolbe steps out of line and takes the punishment of another for himeslf. o Lord, open my heart to Love, do not let me be detached from Truth.






pictures:
1- slogan told to prisoners: "work makes freedom"
2- Auschwitz 2 (10 min away) - death camp (most of the buildings have been destroyed, only the chiminys
remain of all the "dormitories", picture shows only a small portion of this camp
3- "dormitory" these buildings were designed to hold 50 horses, when death camps came to be they used the same model to shove in up to 500 Jews. chimneys existed but were rarely lit. bottom bunks had to deal with rats, top bunks had wind and rain dripping on them. uninsulated, 4 to 8 people per bunk, every couple of hours a horn blew and everyone had to turn at the same time as it was the only way to move (circulation problems)
4- sign at Auschwitz 2
5- entrance to the smallest/only crematorium still in existence. stories to terrible to write.