Author: Michael Wanta

I have been thinking about this post since our stay in Compostela but I haven’t found the words to express myself. I still don’t have the words, but it has been long enough, and I’ll give it a try.

The few days leading up to Santiago de Compostela were pretty tiresome. Although it was great to run into old friends, I was also tired and struggling with the increase of new pilgrims as we got closer. I found my patience becoming shorter, accompanied by generally being worn out. I found it difficult to pray as I wanted or to think/mediate well. There were some questions to which I just couldn’t find the answers. In the midst of this, I felt God’s presence. In every Church which I visited I found pictures or statues of the Sacred Hearts. It was like I was being followed, and I kept hearing the message to trust in God and to remember his love. It was a great consolation to simply know that I am loved despite my errors, failures, and difficulties.

At the cathedral in Santiago, there is a holy door to cememorate the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Walking through the Holy door is attatched the graces to be further detached from sin (of course you must desire and work towards this detachment!). Luke and I had the opportunity not only to pray at the tomb if St. James each day, but also to walk through the Holy door, to receive God’s mercy and also to offer the graces for others. But you don’t have to go on a pilgrimage to Compestela or Rome to find a holy door. Each diocese throughout the world has several Church doors declared as holy doors for pilgrimage. So take a look on your diocesan website or ask your parish priest about making a personal pilgrimage to one of these sites. You don’t even have to walk across Europe!

The cathedral was also lined with confessionals. Priests were reconciling penitents to God in many of the world languages. It was a beautiful site to see. And it was even cooler in Fatima, where a whole chapel is dedicated to confessions, and it looks similar to a hospital! By the way, going to confession is one of the requirements to receive the indulgence from the Holy door pilgrimage. One must also, recieved holy communion, pray for the popes intentions, and strive to be free from the attachment to sin. An indulgence isn’t magic, but it is an outreach from God to us from the Church to heal the damage that sin does to us. Confession forgives the sin and an indulgence (and especially the process of “getting” one) helps to free us from attachmentioned to sin.

Fatima also offered a great message if prayer, sacrifice, and penance for peace and conversion of sinners, including ourselves! But there is a bit too much about Fatima to unravel now.

We will arrive in Kraków on Tuesday morning. In fact, right now, I’m on a night train to Krakow, after finishing up our time in the diocese of Gdańsk where already we’ve heard more about God’s mercy and visited some other holy doors. This whole trip has been a long journey along the way of mercy. In some ways, it is coming to its conclusion in Kraków, with the Holy Father.

-Michael

Our first few days in Poland have been filled with both beauty and busyness. First of all, the landscape is enchanting, whether it is the forested hills, the sprawling beaches, the quaint modern city or the old city centers. But most of all, the kindheartedness of the people stands out. Our host family is incredibly generous, it seems that they would feed us all day if they could. Amd I would be ok with that. Polish food is great! Tonight, also, we were playing the card game bridge, and one of our hosts, Andrje, joined in. The only difficultly was that he doesnt speak much english and had to use his wife as a translator. It made for a very fun evening.

It has been nice to be among such a large group, where I can move among its members and talk with old friends, acquaintances, and new faces. But with such a large group I’ve also had to surrender some of my freedom. It is odd to be more limited and told where to go after about 50 days of traveling at my leisure, making decisions with Luke and maybe a few others, but always retaining my autonomy. It’s a little hard to even find free time to sit and reflect.

Speaking of autonomy, today we visited the Solidarity Museum. It records the events of the worker strikes against the communist party that started here in Gdansk, about 20 minutes from whete we are staying Sopot, but it is all badicly considered one city. Anyway, it was pretty intense to walk through the exhibit and watch/read the events as they unfolded through the years. I was very touched by the role Pope John Paul II played, giving hope to the Polish people during a time of great despair and attack against human dignity. I knew of this in theory before, but walking through the museum made it a lot more concrete. It is a little hard to understand exactly what the Polish people went through, and I’m happy for this chance to get a little glimpse.

Besides the museum, we walked around the old town and visited the oldest church, now a basilica. Many of us climbed to the top of the tower. The view wasn’t great on such a foggy day but the experience was cool. At one point we were walking on boards on top of the ceiling, and another on a stair case that wrapped around the inside of the massive tower.

Lastly, I’d like to note how nice it has been to attend Mass in english, and the homily too! I know this won’t last very long as we will be joining some international celebrations. Nevertheless, after sitting through many foreign homilies, it is nice to be instructed in  language I can understand, rather than trying to guess what the priest is saying or further meditating on the word of God myself.

I assume that the rest of the trip will only get busier, but there is also much beauty ahead.

-Michael

Two days ago we left Fatima on a bus headed to Lisbon. We decided to come to the city a day before our flight from here to Poland, so that we could explore the city a bit.

Monday morning was spent walking the Fatima stations of the cross, which are located outside the village, and near the apparition sites of the angel. We had joined the Te Deum Foundation pilgrimage for this last devotional, culminating in the celebration of Holy Mass at the Calvary Chapel. All of the stations and chapel were donated by Hungarians in thanksgiving for Portugal sheltering Hungarian children refugees during WWII. It made for a slow and thoughtful morning before a bus to Lisbon. Once in the ancient city (it was founded sometime before Rome!) We decided to walk to our hostel from the bus station. It was only 5kms away… and we had walked much more than that on the Camino! The walk, however, tired us out and we spent the evening resting at the hostel before making a camino style dinner. We were even lucky enough to receive a pot of freshly cooked rice from another traveler.

Like the Camino, hostels also form little fluid communities as people come and go, staying for different durations. The building itself is old yet recently renovated with modern furniture. The walls retain their tiled flower paterns, reminiscent of Ro.an style from its time of rule in the Iberian peninsula, and all together ito makes for a fresh yet old feel.

On Tuesday we left the cool comfort of our hostel, and filled by a breakfast buffet better than any breakfast on the Camino, we set out to explore the city. Our first destination was the Parc do Comercio, a beautiful square situated between the water and the heart of the new city. We made our way from there to the Cathedral, an ancient and noble structure, stumbling upon the birth place of St. Anthony on the way. After venerating his relics, and visiting the Cathedral, we made our way up the hill to the Castelo do sao Jorge. The ancient moorsish castel provides a 360 view of the city. It was really cool to walk upon the walls and take in the view of the old and new city. Lisbon was build close to the water on an very hilly span of land, and this makes both for a lot of difficult walking and some really rewarding views.

After the castle, we made our way down the valley and up again to the ruins of an old Carmel that was partly destroyed in the 1755 earthquake. It now stands roofless after attempts to rebuild it were unsuccessful. The earthquake devistated the city not only by the shaking earth, but also by the following tidal wave and consuming fires. It is still very much in the memory of the city. It was such a large disaster that it destroyed most of the city and crippled the then elite Portuguese Empire.

Finally we made our way up to the ornate Church and museum  of St. Roque before lunch on the hill with a view of the hilltop castle. We were fortunate enough to meet up with our Campus ministry friend, Molly, who happened to be in the city for a day before going to Fatima. The rest of the day was spent in relaxation and prayer.

Today, we woke up early and made our way to the airport. Now, we are waiting to board our flight that will take us to Poland to meet up with our World Youth Day group from Madison. Please pray for us as we make our way on this new and final leg of our Eurpean pilgrimage.

-Michael Wanta

Yesterday, during our first full day here, I went to The Basilica to pray morning prayer and look around the Shrine a bit. I expected a very normal start to my day but it was a very powerful experience. As I read through the little brochure explaining some of the basic history behind the apparitions, I was struck by the message of our Lady and by its importance for the world. I realized that it is very good for me to be here.

There’s much to say about Fatima so I will try to keep it to a few thoughts. Today we accompanied the pilgrimage group from America which is sponsored by the Te Deum Foundation which is dedicated to the material and spiritual support of seminarians. Their main project is the building of a seminary in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina but they also sponsor this pilgrimage to Fatima which is comprised both lay faithful and seminarians… technically also lay faithful, but just studying to be priests. Luke and I were fortunate enough to have dinner with the president of the organization, who was also on the pilgrimage and to learn a little bit more about the orgsnization.

This morning we went to visit the home of Lucia as well as her cousins blessed Francisco and Jacinta. Not only that, but we visited also the sites where the angel appeared to these three young Shepherds. On these occasions the angel taught them how to pray, especially to love God in the Eucharist, and to make acts of love and reparation for sinners. Here is one of those prayers: “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love thee, I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love thee.” The children would pray this for hours, meditating on it and drawing closer to God and loving him more through its simplicity. I was struck by the childrens’ responses to this apparition and the others. They were so willing to pray and to do penance and really to make of their whole lives an offering to God. It is interesting that God would choose three children so young, innocent, and unlearned  in the things of the world to communicate to the world such an important message of peace through sacrifices,  through penance, and through prayer.

Today I was also struck by how much the devotionals that surround Fatima correspond with Doctrine and the essentials of the spiritual life. The prayers and actions of the children more often so simple and they contained in them the seeds of deep theological reflection. I think that we can all take this as comforting. Our prayers do not need to be long or eloquent but they need to be sincere. Fatima serves as another reminder that to enter Heaven we must all be like little children.

I hope to be able to share some for the reflections later but I encourage you all to learn a little more about Fatima, or maybe to try the prayer I quoted above.

During World War I, the Blessed Mother appeared to Lucia, Jacinta, and Francesco at a time of great strife and violence for Portugal and for the world. Mary told them to pray for peace and to make reparation for sins. If you look at just about any Marian apparition, she comes at a time when there is much violence in the world or persecution of the church. We are currently experiencing a lot of violence right now, it might not be too bad of an idea to look to Our Lady of Fatima to learn how to respond.

-Michael

PS: Here is a link to more information about Fatima: World Apostolate of Fatima

Tonight we watched the sun set over Muxia, land of monks, named after the many Monasteries that once dotted the coast here.

The village, spread thin on a peninsula, is an ancient site of pilgrimage, and understandably so. It is a beautiful area.

As Legend has it, it is here that Mary apeared to St. James consoling him in his ministry and encouragin him to return to Jerusalem, where he was eventually beheaded. He had reached the sea and it was time for him to turn back. So to, we will leave tomorrow on an early bus headed for Fatima. My body is certainly ready for a rest, it has been telling me so all day! And after watching the sunset on the last day of walking, I am both relieved and a little sad to be moving on. The Camino was a huge part of our European Pilgrimage.

-Michael