Saturday morning, March
9
Goooood
morning! I had a dream last night
that the Polish currency exchange rate also applied to time. The exchange rate is about four zloty
to one euro. So, when I woke up at
5am this morning, I thought, “Oh, I don’t have to be up until 6am, but since
we’re in Poland, I have more time, four minutes for every minute.” Hahaha. I didn’t realize how ridiculous this was until I got up at
5:45am and found that only 15 minutes passed before it was 6am. Heehee…
It’s
quiet, peaceful, early in the morning, and snowing outside. I’m sitting by a window, writing. I feel so blessed, what a beautiful
gift!
Now,
getting back to yesterday, Friday. Thanks
to our nice stranger friend at the train station, we made it onto the correct
train and to Niepokalanow.
Meanwhile, it had started snowing!
We made the pilgrimage to Niepokalanow because that’s where St.
Maximillian Kolbe lived most of his religious life and where he was
arrested. The town there actually
came to be because of him. It was
built around the chapel and house for the religious borthers that St.
Maximillian built there.
|
Niepokalanow |
St.
Maximillian Kolbe was a Franciscan friar of the Immaculate. He joined the brothers when he was only
19 years old. The man was
brilliant (he had his first doctoral degree at age 21!). During WWII, he was arrested and taken
to Auschwitz. When one of the men
in his block escaped, the Nazis chose ten men to sentence to death in the
starvation bunker. One of the men
chosen began desperately pleading for his life because he had a
wife and children. St. Maximillian
stepped forward and offered to take his place. The Nazis, astonished, accepted the switch. Fr. Maximillian lived fourteen days in
the starvation bunker, all the while praying and singing, comforting and
encouraging those dying with him.
At the end of fourteen days, he was killed by lethal injection.
We went through a museum where we learned about Fr. Maximillian’s entire life. Most people only know of his final heroic act, but his whole live was lived with the same virtue. We saw some of St. Maximillian’s personal belongings, his bed and desk, the room he was arrested in, and the blue and white striped pajamas he wore in the concentration camp. We ended our pilgrimage there by praying a rosary in the chapel, the first building in Niepokalanow, built by Maximillian and his religious brothers.
|
St. Maximilian's bed |
|
St. Maximilian's desk |
|
The striped pajamas St. Maximilian wore in Auschwitz |
We
hopped on the train again and headed back to our host family for dinner. Their daughter met us at the train
station, took us to Mass, then to her house. She had just returned that day from studying abroad in
Italy! Did I mention how
incredible Polish hospitality is?!
Speaking of which, dinner was great! We had pierogis.
They were so good, and so Polish!
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat the “pierogis” in the states
again without passing great judgment on them.
After
dinner, we went to a talk given by
Wanda Półtawska.
She was one of Blessed Pope John Paul II’s best
friends!
She would go hiking in
the mountains with him and he would go on family vacations with her family and
another family.
She was with John
Paul II as he was dying and would read to him everyday, usually from Polish
literature and poetry.
This woman,
who is 92 years old, survived Auschwitz and two rounds of cancer.
She spoke a lot about John Paul II’s
theology of the body and how he would often have meetings with troubled couples
and teach them about the beauty of theology of the body and how that would
solve their problems.
She didn’t
talk to much about her personal relationship with Blessed John Paul II, but she
wrote a book,
I’m Afraid of My Dreams,
about her struggles coming from a concentration camp. I think there is
more about her personal friendship with John Paul II in it.
Exhausted,
we returned to our respective host families…where they fed us MORE! I stayed up until around 11:30pm,
talking with the couple’s fourteen-year-old son. He told me about Poland, his school, things he does for fun. Even this fourteen-year-old boy was so
kind and hospitable! He was
patient with me when I didn’t understand his English and so humble in his
willingness to converse with me even though his English wasn’t perfect.
Ok,
this post has gotten super long, must stop! Time for breakfast, then off to…