Author: Michael Wanta

The time has come to bring an end to our blog, and close up our shared thoughts with one last post.

In the beginning, neither Luke nor myself intended to write a blog but it has been a worthwhile experience. There were times when it was annoying to stay up a little later to write a post or when it was difficult to think of something to say. Nevertheless we are glad to have written it. We have been very moved by hearing how many have followed it so closely. It is our hope that it has been an inspiration and an aid to grow deeper in your own walk with the Lord. We pray that you will continue to make progress in your journey to know Christ more personally and to conform your way of life to his model, as we all must do.

Our pilgrimage has come to its end, which reminds me of the first time that Luke and I stopped to pray morning prayer on the Camino.

It wasn’t until the end of Psalm 42 that we realized what the antiphon said: “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?” It was a funny thing to be praying after the first hard hours of a long upward battle. At the time, it was a good reminder to keep in mind our purpose of pilgrimage: heaven. Our European pilgrimage has come to an end. I don’t think it is quite accurate to say that we’ve “entered into the presence of God” but I hope that our walking with him along these many miles will help us to keep in mind his presence, to help us pray more continually and to love greater so that one day we may enter into his eternal presence.

Thank you for your prayers, and know of ours for you.

-Michael Wanta

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

Here are just a few of the many pictures that were taken from our Group’s photos of WYD. I hope that they can give a good sampling of our experiences.

 

Here is the Sanctuary of our host parish in Sopot, Poland. This is where we met for Adoration and Mass during our “days in the diocese.”

A shot of the Old Town of Gdansk, a very old and historic city. Much of it was destroyed in World War II, but has since been rebuilt in the same style.

            

 

Another shot of Gdansk’s main square. There were also bubble bins spread throughout many of the Polish cities we visited. It was a cool place where families would stop for a bit and play.

Here is a picture of Solidarity Square and a view of the Shipyards. The Solidarity Workers’ Union movement started in Gdansk and was a pivotal cause of Communism’s downfall. We visited the museum there and learn a lot about the difficulties the movement went through, the sacrifices the members made, and the help and inspiration which Pope St. John Paul II was to them. the square has three pillars with a crucified anchor, a symbol of hope, on each. The monument commemorates the Solidarity Movement’s efforts for freedom by the cross, a symbol of both defeat and victory, or rather of victory through great loss and suffering.

Here is a shot of a cool pirate ship that we road on a short voyage to Westerplatte, the site of one of the first battles of the WWII. The battle waged for a week as 180 Polish troops held off 3,500 Germans.

A quick view of our living conditions in Krakow. The first picture is our sleeping area in the gym with sleeping bags and luggage from many groups spread all around. The second is of some very happy pilgrimes enjoying a warm meal after a long and rainy day. After a midnight train, we had arrived in Krakow around 7am, managed to travel across the city to our gym and then to the Divine Mercy Shrine. The Shrine was packed and we were able to split up and see a few things before the rain started and we hiked to a mall to get out of the rain and grab some food. The third is a picture of us eating our breakfast in our daily spot near by our gyms.

During the trip we experience many different Mass. Some in small town Churches, others in soaring Basilicas, one with 2 million people and the Pope and some others with just ourselves in a classroom as a make-shift chapel.

A picture of the crowd in the divine Mercy Shrine grounds.

St. Mary’s basilica on the main square in Krakow, an ancient and very beautiful Church with one of the largest altar pieces. Though it wasn’t the best spot to pray during WYD, as the surrounding square was filled with young people, night and day, chanting and such.

 

Enan and I managed to find two popes at the Mercy Centre Catechesis!

The packed streets on our way to Campus Misericordiae, Field of Mercy, the site of the Vigil and Mass with the Pope. About 2 million pilgrims packed themselves onto a few roads that led out to the field. Most of the time there wasn’t too much room and we needed to make backpack chains to stay together.

 

Our camp site in Sector A10 of the Campus Misericordiae. We weren’t too far away from the stage where the Pope would be, at least compared to many many others, but we still needed a large screen to see what was going on.

A pile of some random foods which people donated to us since we didn’t get our food bags until much later in the night.

Two shots of the the Prayer Vigil with the Pope as Night was falling. We were entrusted with candles to foster our participation. Plus it looked awesome to see 2 million floating lights in the giant field.

Lastly, here is a picture of Our Lady of Czestochowa. On our way to Warsaw we stopped by the little town where this miraculous image of the Queen of Poland, Mary the Mother of God, is enshrined. And so our pilgrimage was bookend with Mary, as we would leave Poland a day or so later.

 

-Michael Wanta

World Youth Day is a combination of large and small events (many of which are still pretty big). Pilgrims come in groups from all over the world, and your group becomes your family for the next two weeks. This family unity was felt in the days of the diocese, but there we were also divided into groups of about four per host family. Once in krakow we were all together, moving about the city. We did some of our own events, for example a private Mass or visiting places such as the Divine Mercy Shrine, Wawel Castle and Cathedral, the home town of St. John Paul II, and Auschwitz. On top of these group events we also attended events open to the broader WYD community such as the welcoming of Pope Francis, his Vigil and Sunday Mass, as well as smaller events such as catechesis sessions, where there would be music, a few talks, including one from a Bishop or Cardinal, and it all culminated with Mass.
I would like to share a little more about my experiences at these sessions. Although there were catechesis events scheduled throughout the city and surrounding countryside in a multitude of languages, we regularly went to the large English-speaking location at Mercy Centre (the Tauron Sports Arena) which was sponsored by the Knights of Columbas. The Sisters for Life were also helping to organize the city vents there. It was awesome to see so many religious sisters from their community and others all in one place! In fact that was one of my favorite parts about works youth day, religious brothers and sisters or priests in clerics were everywhere!

The Mercy Centre was an incredible place. Not only was there easy access food, which is sometimes difficult to find on pilgrimage, but they also had the opportunity for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and confessions. It was such a hot spot that, when it was open to the whole WYD Community for an evening catechsis, it was bursting at the seams. Only a few members of our group were able to get in, leaving the rest of us with many other pilgrims who listened to the talks and songs on the speakers outside. It was a little surprising to see how much fun people had being locked out, and to see how much they still participated in the festivities.
The next day, last Thursday, we were able to get inside without a problem. We stayed late into the afternoon. During our time there, I saw a lot of friends from the States and even got to talk to Cardinal Tagle. He has given a talk and celebrated Mass for us, and encouraged us to be open to God’s mercy. He said that it seems odd to give a talk that basicly says “be open to be forgiven” since it would seem obvious that we would want to be forgiven. But tge truth is that we are not. Often times we put walls up and want to stay inside or we want to do it ourselves. Our pride gets in the way. Rather, he encouraged us to reach out to others to acknowledge our weakness but also how much we are loved that the shepherd would leave the other 99 sheep to save us, or the poor widow would clean the whole house and rejoice in finding us who are but a small coin.

The times of catechesis were a great place of prayer, community, and teaching. The talks were enriching and very moving.Not to mention, the breakout sessions were a great way to discuss the faith in a smaller group setting. The Masses were a beautiful experience with so many people there. Adoration and confessions were a great consolation, to take the talks and my experiences to a silent conversation with the Lord.

-Michael

I apologize for the delay in posting. Our time here in Kraków has been amazing, and has flown by. Tonight we are back on the gym floor after the open air camp out in Campus Miseracordiae, field of mercy, where about 2 million pilgrims met for a night vigil and Mass with Pope Francis. The magnitude of that alone should give a glimpse into the busyness of our schedule.

I’ll share one story now,but I hope to give a few further reflectionso when I have some more travel time. Yesterday we got to the Campus around 4 or 5pm. We staked out our spor with tarps and sent a delegation to pick up food from the supply stop. Long story short, they ran out of food since no more trucks could get in till later. We turned back, disappointed, and a little daunted that we hadn’t had lunch and now had no dinner or breakfast. Thankfully, our neighborsite showed us some mercy and a pile of donations formed in our tarp camp. We had enough to be satisfied fir dinner and even a bit left over. Laterms that night we sent anorge delegation to try again. This time they made it back with food bags, though it took them 3 hours. This is just one example of the generosity of pilgrims and volunteers as well as the magnitude of world youth day. I would be remiss if I failed to mention the tireless and joyful service of the military and volunteers who worked to supply us with food, water, and safety by working long hours of constant service.

Tomorrow, Monday, we head to Warsaw to visit Our Lady of Częstochowa before flying home on Wednesday.

God Bless! And know of our prayers despite the infrequent blog posts.