On our first day in Krakow, we arrived early into the station from a midnight train. After waiting a while for our tour guide, we made our way to the gym which was hosting us and we unpacked our things. Soon after, we walked to the tram and found our way to the Shrine of Divine Mercy. The shrine is situated on a large campus and contains the convent of St. Faustina, a basilica of the Divine Mercy Image, and a Church dedicated to Pope St. John Paul II very near to the quarry in which we worked during the war. On his way back from work he would stop by the convent and pray a while. It was there that he intimately discovered the devotion to God’s Divine Mercy that had be entrusted to St. Faustina.
St. Faustina was visited several times by our Lord who desired to share with humanity the message of his unfathomably divine mercy. He loves humanity so intensely and wants each of us to find in his heart a place of healing and reconciliation. This message came at a most needed time, directly before the outbreak of WWII, and it would help to sustain the Polish people even through Communist occupation. It would be worth giving a look to St. Faustina’s diary or the Divine Mercy Chaplet to learn a little more about this devotion. The Chaplet is a short yet powerful one that helps one to meditate on the sacrifice of the Cross: “Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood, soul and divinity, of your dearly beloved son, our lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world” and “For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world” are the main prayers.
we didn’t have much time at the sanctuary, but enough to walk through the Basilica and to see the Church dedicated to JP II. The grounds were packed and it provided a pretty cool first glance at what WYD could be. So many young people had come to the shrine to venerate the relics and to learn a little more about God’s love.
The next day we visited Auschwitz, and experienced a sliver of the suffering that Poland went through.
Although there were no guided tours offered due to the large amount of pilgrims, one of the workers stopped us as we entered the main gate and gave us a presentation on the conditions of life in the camp and the numbers of prisoners. It was staggering. we were told that the bones and dust of prisoners had been used to create the road we were standing on. I was struck by the small perimeter of the first camp and yet how many barracks there were and how many prisoners must have been crammed into each. There wouldn’t have been much space at all.
The second camp could not be more opposed. It was absolutely massive. it must have took us 2 hours to walk it, and that wasn’t even the whole perimeter! The place was filled with a reverent quiet and its visitors with a mournful curiosity to learn what this place was and what had happened here. This memorial quote was written in more than a dozen languages: “For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940 – 1945”
It is sad to think that the message has not been heard throughout the world. That genocides still happen.
The trip was a sobering experience, and for a long time left me speechless. What could I say after being pummeled by the size of the place and the multitude of numbers and statistics that had been thrown at me? Even after seeing the place it is hard to understand it all. Yet a few rays of hope shown through.
I thought of those that survived, those who revolted and destroyed one of the gas chambers and crematories. I thought of saints like Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein who were not conquered by the hate of the Nazis. St. Max willing gave up his life to rescue a father who had been picked for the starvation bunger. The Martyr then spent two weeks in the cell encouraging his fellow prisoners with prayer and song until he was finally killed by lethal injection. He was a light in such a dark place, whether by the gift of his life in the starvation bunker or in his daily activities he gave hope to his fellows. He reminded them that God was still there even in such darkness. In the midst of such hatred, love for humanity was still possible. Just by seeing the buildings and reading what had happened there I felt the obligation to love and to mourn those so badly treated. I imagine that this feeling must have been similar to impetus that drives people like JP II who lived through such horrendous times, endured much personal suffering, saw many of his friends and much of his nation destroyed. Yet his love for humanity seemed endless and was certainly a reflection of God’s love for us, something that he learned through St. Faustina and his experiences.
A few hours previously, we had visited the hometown of St. John Paul II. It was a quick tour, but we had enough time to see his parish Church and the font in which he was baptised. I didn’t think much of it until I saw a picture of the modern day saint kneeling down and praying with a hand supporting himself resting on the font. It struck me how cool that was. A saint praying at his baptismal font, the place where the life of God first dwelt within him. The place where he became a child of God. It was pretty crazy to see where it all began for him.
It has been a long post and I hope that my thoughts have not been too scattered, but that they have given a small look into the depth of significance that lies in Poland. It is a country that has suffered so much yet has kept its faith in God and has given rise to great saints in the process.
-Michael