Day #36: Krakow, Wadowice, Poland

The Steel Cross, a memorial

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The church of Nowa Huta

Inside the church

The organ!

The Stations of the Cross

A play ground in Wadowice

The baptismal font

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the image where John Paul II was called to the priesthood

The choir

Pope cake!

More of the inside of the church where John Paul II was baptized

This morning we had Mass at the Wawel Cathedral. It was a Novus Ordo Mass in Latin, said by a little elderly Polish priest at the altar of St. Stanislaus. There was an organ accompaniment and they used the Missa de Angelis chant ordinaries and Credo III. I was glad to know them! Yay for the 4 pm Sunday Mass choir back on campus and knowing the Missa de Angelis! Thank you! At the end of the Mass the organist played an amazing fugue. I sat and prayed while I listened, the tones of the organ lifting up my words to God.
Another Mass started soon after ours was ended. Just before the second Mass began Sister Joan Paul came up to me and exclaimed, "Did you know Chopin is buried here! There is a Frederick Chopin here! Is that the Chopin?""Where?" I exclaimed. She pointed towards the left side of the church, but they were closing off that part of the Church for Mass, so I didn't get to see the grave itself. But I asked my friend Brian who is a Chopin fanatic what Chopin's first name was, since I couldn't remember, and he confirmed that it was Frederick. So, I can at least say that I was in the church where Chopin was buried, even if I didn't get to venerate his tomb. As we were getting ready to leave, the second Mass began and a beautiful choir filled the church with song. I think it was a classical piece. Brian, Hannah, and I closed our eyes and drank it in like a breath of fresh air from the Alps. .To hear such beauty was so refreshing! Alas, we couldn't stay as there were still a little more of Poland to be seen before we headed home.
My roommate, Marianne, myself, and Joey made our way back to the hotel to take an optional short bus trip to see Nowa Huta, the steel mill town built by the Communists, meant to be the ideal Communist city. The buildings there were gray and simple, just the way I would imagine a utilitarian society to build them. There were two churches we saw there: one church dedicated to the Sacred Heart was built on the site where a wooden cross had been erected by the Polish people of Nowa Huta. The wooden cross had begun rotting in the '60's, so an oak cross had replaced it, and this one stands there today. There was another metal cross erected on the other side of the church with John Paul II's name inscribed into it, put there in his honor, I think. We only got to briefly look inside the church, which was very small and very modern looking, so I don't think we missed much.
The next church was the one built using the stone given by Pope Paul VI to Bishop Karol Wojtyla for the erection of a church in Nowa Huta. This church was very modern as well, built to look like an ark, which is a symbol of the Church. Inside the church was really bizarre. There was no focal point, I felt. There was a giant crucifix with Christ's body stretched out towards the pews of the people, a very modern interpretation of the crucifix. The R.D. who gave us some info. about the church said she thought it symbolized Christ uniting Himself with the sufferings of the Polish people. The tabernacle looked like this big steel ball, which I can see why they might have that, it being a steel mill town and all, but I still don't like the idea. They DID have an organ, though, which I appreciated because the Divine Mercy Shrine did not have one. The Stations of the Cross I rather liked as well. They placed the Stations of the Cross amidst modern day Poland, so while Christ and Mary where in period dress, the people around them were in modern dress.
After Nowa Huta, we went back and picked up the rest of the students to go to Wadowice, the birthplace of John Paul II. Wadowice was a tiny Polish town. You could go to the house where he was born, which cost a bit of zloty, and you could go to the church where he was baptized, served, received his first Communion, and first felt called to the priesthood. This church was very beautiful! It had lots of side altars and was full of frescos, statues, and holy images. There was an image of our Lady of Perpetual Help in a side chapel. John Paul II said that one day when he was looking at the image, that was the first time he felt called to the priesthood. The ceiling was painted with Biblical scenes representing all of the encyclicals he had written. We saw the baptismal font where he was baptized. It had low reliefs of various scriptural scenes around it. There was a little children's choir there with a couple sisters rehearsing for Mass, so we got to hear their sweet voices sing as we admired the church's beauty.
I still had yet to taste pope cake, so when we finished in the church, Marianne and I went to get a piece of pope cake at a near by shop. Pope cake is a pastry that Karol Wojtyla and his classmates would get to celebrate the end of exams at school. John Paul II mentioned that it was his favorite dessert one time and from that point on it has been known as pope cake! I think for all those who are not going to be able to attend the beatification that on May 1st they should make pope cake in honor of our beloved Papa! I'm sure there's a recipe online somewhere. It's basically a pastry with layers of a cream like substance. It's very good!
This was more or less the conclusion of our Poland pilgrimage, and soon we were on our way back to Gaming. On the return trip, we did a lot of singing, movie quoting - Lord of the Rings came up a lot. Colin quoted Winston Churchill. We also watched Anastasia and/or made fun of its historical inaccuracies, and talked about literature. It was so good to get back to Gaming, though, and get to rest and get back into the swing of school again. Poland was certainly one of my favorite and most inspiring weekends. I feel like Poland is a diamond in the rough, often unspoken of, often unnoticed, but she has gone through many sufferings, and where there is great suffering, there is great love. I would love to return here someday.