Polska

It’s been awhile, I just got back from 10 day break, but I’m going to catch up on the last month before I write about that.

               On September 16^th we left for Poland, we spent all night on the bus (I always claim a sleeping spot in the aisle) before arriving in Częstochowa a little before 6am on Friday. As soon as the buses parked, we saw people from the other buses jump out and go flying around the corner; I thought they all just had to go to the bathroom really bad. But no, they were running to the shrine of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa  for the unveiling they do every morning at 6am. Once my bus realized this we sprinted after them and ran down the street, up a little hill and around to the entrance and up to the basilica. This was about 10 minutes total of running/wogging (a combination of walking and jogging), and after being cramped on a bus for a whole night, our leg muscles were not happy with us. It was all worth it though, cause we got to the basilica about 2 minutes before the unveiling, and even though it was crowded we managed to shove our way in. At 6am, trumpets begin blaring and everyone drops to their knees and watched the shield that guards the image of the Black Madonna be lifted. The Black Madonna was painted by St. Luke on the tabletop of the holy family.

here’s more information on the Black Madonna  http://www.marypages.com/Czestochowa.htm

 To the right of the image is a gold rose from Pope John Paul II and to the left is the stole that JPII was wearing when he was shot. 

            There’s a pathway around the image that goes behind the altar that people take on their knees. You start on the left wall, and crawl your way towards the altar, and follow the path behind the altar where you stop and can pray directly behind the image. The marble floors were dented the whole way from years and years of people crawling on their knees.

           Upstairs there were Stations of the Cross, in which the plight of the Polish people was depicted alongside Jesus. When He fell, there were images of those who fell along the way to the concentration camps. Where He was raised on the cross, JPII, St. Faustina, St. Maximilian Kolbe and others were at the foot of the cross right next to Mary.

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           After Częstochowa we headed to Auschwitz. The red bricks and climbing ivy almost looked like a school building, but the place was dead. No one talked. Door 10 leads to the rooms where Mengele experimented on twins, door  11 leads to cell 18 where St. Maximilian Kolbe died. Walking from one building to another, you get a sense of what Hannah Arendt used to refer to as the “banality of evil”. There’s the room full of suitcases, big ones, small ones. The next room looks like it has a collection of wooden doll parts, but they are actually wooden arms, legs, hands, prosthetics, and back braces of those who carried the suitcases. Another room is full of hair, from the huge pile you can see little braids of brown hair sticking out. In the next room you notice a little blue baby shoe sitting askew a mound of thousands of other shoes. Walking out of one of the buildings the tour guide pointed out the pictures on the walls, she told us to read the names, and then to read the dates (the dates of their arrival and death) and told us to see how long they had to suffer.  We walked through the gas chambers with the words of Prof. Cassidy in mind, “remember you get to leave, your brothers did not.” Thousands of prayers were said that day. The only way to walk through the camp was with prayers for the owner of that shoe, the girl who wore that dress, for those who fell here, and for all those who didn’t get to leave. Later in the week someone shared this verse with a group of us from Wisdom 3:1-7

But the souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
and their passing away was thought an affliction
and their going forth from us, utter destruction.
But they are in peace.
For if before men, indeed, they be punished,
yet is their hope full of immortality;
Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed,
because God tried them
and found them worthy of himself.
As gold in the furnace, he proved them,
and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.

 

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 Saturday we toured Krakow and ate perogies (really really good perogies) before we went to the Divine Mercy Shrine. We got there in time to pray the Divine Mercy chaplet in the chapel where St. Faustina’s relic is and where she had some of her visions. It was prayed in three languages. 

Outside the basilica of Divine Mercy

Back in Krakow a group of us headed back to our favorite little perogie place, and then got drinking chocolate. Drinking chocolate is better than hot chocolate. It’s basically a melted chocolate bar and you can add something to it like cointreau or milk. Katie got the gingerbread drinking chocolate and it tasted like Christmas in your mouth. We were all in heaven.

Saturday we meandered around Krakow before getting perogies one last time for lunch with Sr. Monica and Sr. Mary.     
Sr. Monica is allergic to gluten, but she loves perogies. Sr. Mary told us she saw Sr. Monica praying that she wouldn’t feel too sick before we went to lunch. =) hmmmm…

We also found a little bakery and got some pope cakes before we loaded the buses and headed to Wadowice, which is the birth place of JPII. We walked around the church where he was baptized and served as an altar boy. Kelsey and I got dinner food (a loaf of bread and gross chips) for the bus ride back, before going with Angela to get more pope cakes (pope cakes are JPII’s favorite dessert)

On the bus, Michelle accidentally sat on Maddie’s pope cakes, thus making the first papal pancakes =)



These feet are becoming well traveled