Day #105: The Beatification of John Paul II

At the beginning of the semester, the University had no intention of sponsoring a trip to Rome for the Beatification of John Paul II. However, as more and more students expressed interest in going, the faculty agreed to alter our schedule, provide transportation and even some food for us to travel to Rome for this momentous occasion in Church history for our generation, as well as for Franciscan University - after all, John Paul II is one of our alumni, having received an honorary degree from our university! So it is only right that we came and represented our beloved Papa and favorite alumnus! The trip itself began on Saturday afternoon after our morning final - I had Art Appreciation, which was relatively straight forward and easy. For part of the final, I had to draw one of the paintings we had studied since the midterm, so I picked Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring. 

Girl With A Pearl Earring by Vermeer

My imitation

After the final, I spent the remaining hours studying for my Christian Marriage Final, which was on the following Tuesday. We boarded the buses at 2:00, had a last minute meeting to go over logistics with Tom Wolter, such as our drop off and pick up point. Dr. Asci also went over a few minor details with us, such as May 1st also being Labor Day, a day Communists invented, and also a day in Rome when there are commonly Communist demonstrations and protests around Rome. Asci told us that these demonstrations would be on the side of the Tiber opposite the side of St. Peter's Basilica. These demonstrations are not allowed to go near the Vatican. However, Asci warned us that if we were to cross the Tiber, to not draw attention to ourselves as Catholics or as Americans. "Communists don't like either of those," he said. So with maps in hand and "X" marking the spot of our drop off point, we boarded the bus for our final pilgrimage of the semester ... to Rome!
We took the winding roads through the Alps down to Italy. It was a gorgeous drive although I felt sorry for those who suffer from motion sickness. :-/ During the drive we watched the sequel to Karol: A Man Who Became Pope, titled Karol: The Pope, The Man. While the first movie had focused on his life prior to becoming pope, this movie concentrated on the events of his life as Pope. As we watched his life unfolding, I was struck by the connection between him and Bl. Teresa of Calcutta. You know how sometimes saints come in pairs: St.s Benedict and Scholastica, St.s Francis and Claire of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena and Bl. Raymond of Capua? I never realized that Bl. John Paul II and Bl. Teresa  might be one of those pairs of saints supporting each other in prayer as they fulfilled their own mission within the Church. Also on the drive down to Rome we saw two rainbows! Beautiful!
We arrived in Rome at about 6 am in the morning, right on schedule, despite oil trouble on the road which forced us to stop at a gas station/convenience store for about an hour and a half. (Don't worry, I made use of it and studied a little Christian Marriage, a final which was looming on the horizon). We were dropped off very close to St. Peter's, but it was still a bit of a walk. The street lamps displayed banners of the soon-to-be beatified's smiling face. The streets were lined with venders selling various memorabilia and religious articles for the occasion. But there was no time to shop. The streets were already begin to fill with little "rivulets" of pilgrims, which turned into streams, which all merged into one giant "river" of people directed by the police and the Italian army. We Franciscan students were by no means in any close knit group - we all had to fend for ourselves to find a spot. I was in a group of five of students. We were able to come in sight of the dome of the basilica, although it was from the area of the Castle of St. Michael, several meters away. Here the crowds became close-knit, so we deviated into a little park by the Castle, where we situated ourselves in an area a little removed from the crowd.

Our spot for the Beatification

We weren't sure if this was our permanent spot yet, as we wanted to see if we could get to the spot where there was a screen near the castle. Joey went scouting to check it out, but when he returned he told us that the area where the screen was located was already very crowded, so we decided to stay here. We couldn't see what was going on, but we could hear it, as there was a giant sound system located a few yards to our left in the middle of the street facing the basilica. While we waited for Mass to begin (it was about 7:30 - 8 am; the Mass began at 10 am), we met two friendly Polish seminarians who spoke quite good English! They had been in Rome since Wednesday. One of them looked remarkably like Bl. John Paul II did when he was a young seminarian! There were pilgrims camped out all over - one group had even set up a full-sized tent! It appeared that the city had provided food for many of the pilgrims as there were left over apples, water bottles, and empty card board lunch boxes all over the place! It was quite a mess. While we waited, Joey and I did some studying for Christian Marriage. A couple students from our group left to see if they could get closer so they might have a better chance of venerating the relics after the Mass.

The Mass was beautiful to listen to from our spot. The music was sublime! My heart rejoiced to hear the Missa de Angelis, the sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes, and to hear Pope Benedict chant! The experience reminded me of Mass in certain ancient churches where the faithful were completely separated from the sanctuary, so they could see nothing that went on inside. The only way they knew what was going on was because of the bells and the music. Where we were situated we could sit, stand, and kneel in relative comfort, so I found myself falling asleep towards the end of the homily, which was said in Italian and thus more or less incomprehensible. But there were a few words I did understand: "John Paul II is beatified." The emotion in the pope's voice as he said those words was worth not understanding the rest of the homily, which we could read on our own later.

Mass didn't end until around 12:30. We didn't have to be back at the buses until 7:30 that evening, so we had a few hours to explore the city. There was adoration and confessions in a few select churches around the area, so after helping our third companion, Dorothy, find her way to the religious goods store Soprani's, Joey and I went back to the park where we had been situated for Mass to finish lunch, which meant finishing up the left-over fruit Joey had left in his backpack. We then set out to find the basilica of St. John Florentine, which lay on the other side of the Tiber right near the water's edge, so it wasn't too far into "enemy territory." But first Joey wanted to see if we could get into the arms of St. Peter's Square one last time. We made our way to the square at a leisurely pace, strolling down the street which opened up into the square. Soon we could see the beautiful tapestry of John Paul II hanging from the balcony of the basilica, which harkened back memories for me of being here in the Square for Bl. Teresa of Calcutta's beatification several years ago. 

The street was a mess of newspapers, pamphlets, water bottles and left over food. It looked as if a herd of giant hamsters had invaded the city! As we walked we found a small schola or choir singing words to the melody of O Sacred Head Surrounded in one of the colonnades of the buildings bordering the street. They sounded quite good, so I put a euro in the choir director's hat. From one appreciative musician to another!

The Choir!

There was a barricade preventing us from entering into the actual arms of the colonnade surrounding the square, so we didn't quite make it in, but we got as close as we could under the circumstances. Our plans foiled and readjusted, we went to find the Basilica of St. John Florentine. Joey had mentioned after Soprani's that he would like to get gelato at some point. Approaching the basilica we found a little cafe with a sign for gelato, so we stopped to enjoy some gelato at one of the tables outside. I had a raspberry flavored gelato cone, Joey a cappuccino flavored one, and we enjoyed the warm weather, the cold sugary treat, and good conversation. Then we continued on our way.

Sadly, adoration was just ending when we arrived, but a priest came up to the podium and announced in Italian that they were going to be saying the Rosary, followed by Mass, so Joey and I stayed for the Rosary, which was said in Italian and French. 

St. John Florentine!

After the rosary, we went church-hopping through the streets of Rome. We returned to the square where Bernini's fountain of The Four Rivers is located, and on which is also located St. Agnes' Church. The square was bustling with tourists and street performers, from break dancers to magicians to people dressed as statues. We found another church on the square that we hadn't visited the last time we were here, but sadly Mass had just begun so we didn't go inside. We returned to Agnes' Church, venerated her relics in the side chapel, and admired the general splendor of the nave from the statues of St. Agnes and St. Sebastian to the organ pipes located above the main entrance.

St. Agnes

My last photo of a European organ... so sad! But it seems a beautiful little instrument!

We had noted two other churches on our way to the square, so we backtracked to check them out. But these were both locked. The third church we stumbled upon though was open, and what's more, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was taking place! There was even a priest saying confession, but we  were afraid he only spoke Italian, so neither of us went. Adoration was beautiful though. The Church housed an image of the Black Madonna, had a side altar on the left side dedicated to St. Josemaria Escriva which displayed a beautiful image of the Spanish priest. On the right side was the most beautiful statue of St. Padre Pio I had ever seen.

Padre Pio!

They closed Adoration with Benediction, after which they began celebrating Mass, so we left, but not before hearing the first verse of the opening hymn, which was a variation of the German hymn Christ ist Erstanden in Italian. Very cool! This hymn is a variation on the Easter sequence. On the way out, I noticed a small case containing a few relics from the newly Blessed John Paul II: a stole, a few other vestments, and one of his white caps (the proper name escapes me at the moment)! 

It was nearing the time when we would have to be back to the bus, so we slowly meandered back in the direction of our rendezvous point. We went to take one last look at St. Peter's Basilica, strolled along the edge of the Tiber River, then stopped again at St. John Florentine's since we were in the neighborhood. We trailed a Dominican in his awesome black cape for part of the way there. ;-) Lo and behold, Mass in English was being said when we entered the basilica! It was nearing Communion, so Joey and I stayed for the end of Mass and received the Eucharist. We lingered at the church for a few more minutes after Mass ended and I spotted a small side chapel toward the back of the church with an image of Our Lady giving the Rosary to St.s Dominic and Catherine. ^_^ 

We had to hurry to get back to the bus, but we made it in plenty of time! It had been a beautiful day, full of graces! On a lesser note though, it was nice to have a free day to see a bit of Rome instead of cramming fifteen churches into a half hour on one of our crazy tours when we were here in March!

This weekend was a sweet conclusion to the pilgrimages of the semester, a semester filled with Bl. John Paul II. We experienced his beloved homeland of Poland, walking the streets of Krakow and his birthplace of Wadowice, seeing the churches where he served and said Mass, eating Pope cake, seeing the university where he studied the arts. We studied his great book Love and Responsibility in our Christian Marriage class. In Art Appreciation we read his Letter to Artists, which was a profound experience for me as a musician/artist. Then we concluded the semester with this great event in Church history, John Paul II's beatification! Thus, the semester was inlaid with his spirit, it seemed. Bl. John Paul II, pray for us!

Days #48-49: ROME!

Saturday:
Saturday afternoon we arrived in Rome from Siena, just in time for Mass at the church of the Sisters of Reparation of the Sacred Heart, which was right down the street from our hotel, the Hotel of Marcus Aurelius. It was a good thing we arrived in time as, since our music ministry group leaders were late, I had to lead music for Mass with Elizabeth, which was a blessing. The Church was new, and pretty modern in style, but it was nice to have it right down the street. We had a holy hour there every evening during our Rome pilgrimage, which was a beautiful opportunity for prayer and reflection amidst our intense schedule. Saturday evening my roommate Marianne and I invited a couple friends up to the room to watch Batman Begins. I've only seen it once, so it was interesting to watch it a second time, and to philosophically evaluate various points from the movie and its sequel with Joey Walsh and Marianne.
Sunday:

St. Peter's Square again! 

Sunday morning we had Mass at St. Peter's Basilica. The Mass was a Novus Ordo Mass in Latin said by a bishop or a cardinal. The ordinaries and the propers were all chanted with an organ accompaniment. They had a small choir and they used the organ. They used the Pater Cuncta Mass ordinaries, which we learned last semester for the monthly Extraordinary Form Masses on main campus back in Steubenville. Fortunately I happened to have my Parish Book of Chant with me in my backpack so I could follow along with the prayers of the Mass and the ordinaries. They also sang Credo IV, which I vaguely remembered from my Chant class, and I fell in love with it all over again. It's a beautiful setting, I must say - although all of them are... ;-) I LOVE CHANT! The organ accompaniment was wonderful, too. There were two organs, one on either side of the back of the nave at the altar beneath the famous stained glass window of the Holy Spirit. After Mass I met an old friend from my summer working at Catholic Familyland, a Christendom student by the name of Megan Speer, who is studying for a semester in Rome. She goes to daily Mass at the basilica, so she was able to give us the information so we could go to Mass at the basilica one morning while we were here in Rome. Our schedule didn't permit us to go to Mass there until Wednesday, but it was definitely a must-do.
After Mass we said the Angelus in the square with the Holy Father, Pope Benedict. I got to see my Papa! I have now had the opportunity to see two of our popes in person, John Paul II and now Benedict XVI. He greeted the various people in the square according to their language, and the Franciscan students cheered quite loudly when he greeted the English speaking people from America.
Our afternoon was spent touring the Basilica with some of the seminarians from the North American College. It was wonderful seeing St. Peter's again, walking through the square, wandering through the massive church, learning about the architecture and the symbolism of the basilica. (For those of you who didn't know, I had the opportunity to visit Rome and Assisi on a pilgrimage for the Beatification of Mother Tersa). The two central pillars of the church are from the original St. Peter's which was a Roman basilica which was replaced by the Baroque/Renaissance church stands today. The obelisk in the center of the square, originally from Egypt, is from the Roman amphitheater where St. Peter was martyred. The statues on the inside are all built larger than they appear so that they will look life-size to us, when they're actually probably 3x the size they look to our size, as is the lettering around the top of the walls of the basilica. The cupola (the dome) is massive, you can fit the Statue of Liberty or a rocket inside of it. I loved seeing the Pieta again. We learned in Art Appreciation that the statue of Mary if you stood her up next to Jesus, she is actually much taller than Jesus, which is what Michelangelo intended as in real life if a woman held a full grown man in her lap, she would be "crushed" by the size and weight of the man. But Mary's size is hidden by the large folds in her robes. So Michelangelo knew where to make it lifelike and where to make adjustments so that the art still looked beautiful. Genius! Another exciting highlight was the altar where they are going to be placing John Paul II's tomb after the Beatification. They will be moving the tomb of Bl. Innocent (III?) to another altar in the church, and place John Paul at an altar near the side altar of the Pieta.

The Pieta by Michelangelo

Papa Ben!

After the tour we went through the tombs of the Popes. There was one new grave there since the last time I was in Rome, that of our beloved John Paul II. I spent a few moments before his tomb kneeling in silent prayer. I feel so blessed to have seen him at the Beatification of Mother Teresa, and to know have the opportunity to be here for his beatification in a few months. He has done so much for Mother Church in guarding and sanctifying her people, promoting the dignity of the human person through his teachings and his love for God and humanity. I prayed that he would bless our school and asked for his intercession for the Church in America as the new translation of the Roman Missal is promulgated this Advent.

Inside St. Peter's

The dome! (Cupola)

The Baldacchino by Bernini

The painting of St. Sebastian above the altar where John Paul II 's tomb will be moved

The altar and the current tomb of Bl. Innocent, soon to be the resting place of John Paul II

Sunday night we decided to try and go out to the Carnival - you see, the few days before Ash Wednesday there is a Carnival that goes on in Rome to celebrate the final days before prayer and fasting sets in. If any of you have seen the movie The Count of Monte Cristo, you'll know what I'm talking about. So my friends Joey, Nathan, Marianne, and I set out for the People's Square, the Piazza del Populo, at about 9:30 pm but the festivities were long over by the time we arrived, sadly. So we walked around the fountain and Marianne danced in the square (she used to be a dedicated ballet dancer), then we headed back. We did get to see the Trevi Fountain before going to the Square, which was near our hotel the last time I was in Rome. The Fountain is so gorgeous all lit up! We threw coins in for good measure to ensure that we came back to Rome, and this time I threw it with my left hand over my left shoulder as I was supposed to, and we got right up to the fountain so there was no chance of me missing the fountain. ;-) We ended up staying out later than we wanted though because the metro shut down at 9 pm for construction, which meant taking the bus, which meant waiting for an hour while trying to ignore the awkward Italian couple making out nearby. :-P We got to bed around 1:30 am, so all's well that ends well, but no more late nights in Rome for me. As sketch and packed as the metros can be, I'll take that any day to buses which seem to be a little less dependable, at least here in Rome.

Day #36: Krakow, Wadowice, Poland

The Steel Cross, a memorial

Add caption

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.

Day #34: Poland

 Poland was definitely one of my favorite pilgrimages thus far. I knew it was going to be a difficult pilgrimage from the start. A week before our pilgrimage we were required to attend a talk by one of our professors, Professor Cassady, a native of Scotland, where he spoke about the importance of experiencing the Poland trip. I was in tears just listening to him speak about Poland. He said that if you squeeze the soil of Poland in your hand, the blood of the martyrs flows out between your fingers. He said, "Why Poland? Why should you go to Poland? Because you need to learn the lesson of Poland: the lesson of St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Faustina, and John Paul II." He spoke about Auschwitz, and of the sign above the gate Work makes man free. "Rubbish! Garbage! Christ makes man free! Freedom is for love ... Execute it. You must decide how you are going to love. [You must face] the great battle to find out the truth about one's self."
I would not say I was excited to go to Poland, but I was drawn there nevertheless. I wanted to go. We left for Poland at 8 pm. We would drive through the night and arrive in Czestochowa around 6 in the morning. There were 3 buses traveling to Poland : I was on bus 3 along with my household sisters and the prethes. They were a good group with whom to travel. Our bus also had Fr. Brad, one of the Franciscan Friars, as one of the passengers, thus labeling it the Glory bus. What is the Glory bus? The bus with the guitar and the Gospel music, LOL. We sang for part of the trip, but we also watched a movie about John Paul II by Universal Pictures, Karol: A Man Who Became Pope, one of my favorite religious movies. It has so many great lines in it, and it definitely put us in the mood for the pilgrimage.

Our Lady of Czestochowa Church, Jasna Gora

Little sleep occurred on the bus, and by the time we had reached Czestochowa,  I was starting to come down with a sore throat. As soon as we arrived, we had to run to make it to the unveiling of the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa at 6 AM. Nothing like running through a snowy Polish morning with a sore throat to wake you up in the morning! The church is called Jasna Gora, which means Holy Hill. The church is surrounded by walls, so you have to go through several archways and gates to get to the actual church - it's like a castle protecting Our Lady within. Each archway was adorned with an image of the Madonna and child. As we walked through the darkness, we could hear a rooster crowing, probably owned by the monks who live there.
We passed through the huge dark doors of the church from the darkness of the wintry night into what seemed like a room of gold. The walls of the chapel nave were burgundy, but they were covered with little religious articles of gold, silver, and other precious stones and metals: mostly rosaries and medallions. The actual chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa is a small chapel within the church itself, separated by an iron grate through which we could pass but it seated only a few people. The icon was covered by a gold curtain engraved with an image of the Garden of Eden, representing the old Eve, and Mary as the new Eve. We gathered outside the chapel, some of us in folding chairs and some of us kneeling outside the black grating. We waited in prayer for a few moments, then a trumpet blast sounded, accompanied by a drum roll as the curtain was slowly lifted. We knelt there for a few moments, but Mass started right after the unveiling, so we hurried out to get some breakfast at a nearby hostel. It was so wonderful to get some hot food and coffee and wash up - it honestly felt like the March for Life - driving all through the night like that, accompanied with the cold and snow outside.
After breakfast we were divided up to go on brief tours - which basically meant we learned about the history of the image as we walked back to the church again. The icon was painted by St. Luke using the wood of a table Christ had made. The icon was discovered by St. Helen, and enshrined in Constantinople for 500 years. It eventually came to Poland in 1382 when the Polish army was fleeing the Tartars, who had struck it with an arrow. The image was attacked again in 1430 by the Hussites (pre-Reformation reformers) who slashed the Virgin's face with a sword and left it desecrated in a puddle of mud and blood. When the monks pulled the icon from the mud, a miraculous fountain appeared , which was used to clean the painting. The icon was repainted, but the arrow mark and the gashes from the sword would not be painted over. Many other miracles have occurred through Our Lady. There are numerous crutches on one of the walls left by those who have been healed because of her intercession. She is known as the Queen of Poland.
As we made our way back to the church, we got a better look of the city of Czestochowa. There was a park located outside the walls of the monastery, blanketed in snow. Coming closer, we saw a huge statue outside the walls of a kneeling Polish cardinal (I don't remember his name at the moment, but he was the other Cardinal who was put in prison by the Communists. He was cardinal before and during the cardinal-ship of John Paul II. There were also several statues located around the walls of the monastery depicting what I think were the mysteries of the Rosary. These were relatively new but I liked them.

The Glorious Mystery of the Resurrection

The Cardinal

One of the archways leading to the monastery

The chapel to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

A painting of a Polish saint who was also a queen, I think she is buried in the Krakow Cathedral.

Our Lady of Czestochowa, The Black Madonna

Th chapel next to the chapel of the Black Madonna

The actual chapel to the Black Madonna

Inside the church, they were doing some repair work so it was hard to make out the layout of the place. It seemed like a maze to me, with little side altars and chapels located here and there. There seemed to be two main chapels, one to our Lady of Czestochowa, and another one, which was where a lot of the construction was going on. I found up a flight of stairs a small chapel to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with a stained glass window of St. Faustina. The next thing I found was the other main chapel, where a Mass was being said.
But I could hear the sultry tones of the Credo III wafting through the walls from the Black Madonna's chapel next door. My heart was tugging me in the direction of the music, so I followed. It turned out that there was another Mass being said in the little chapel to Our Lady, a Novus Ordo Mass in Latin with chant and polyphony. There was a walk around the sides of the chapel that went behind the wall enshrining the image which pilgrims could do on their knees. This walk took the pilgrim right next to the Black Madonn'as little chapel, separating them only by a marble rail. I went on my knees through part of the walk and paused when I had reached the tiny chapel. I stayed there until Communion (fortunately there was no one behind me, though they could have slipped past me), as our school Mass was to follow and I wanted to be able to be near the image. I was enchanted by the beauty of this Mass, the chapel, the music. I softly joined my voice with that of the singers when I knew the chant. You couldn't see the singers - they were either behind a screen or in the choir loft - making it seem as if it were wafting down from heaven itself. The organ was accompanying some of the music as well. The Mass was for a religious group or pilgrimage it seemed, as most of the people in the chapel were nuns or sisters. I leaned my head on the railing and looked at the image of Our Lady. Her garments were adorned with a mosaic of precious stones and metals, as were the Christ Child's - recalling to mind a play the university had put on last spring titled The Kitchen Madonna, which I still rank as one of the best plays I have seen. Both Madonna and Child wore golden crowns. Christ's right hand was raised in blessing. Mary's face radiated serenity, and kindness shone in her gentle gaze. I have never felt so close to heaven in my life, surrounded by such beauty, gazing at Beauty Himself and the most beautiful of His creation, His Mother. I thought to myself, "Every Mass should feel like this - feel as if heaven has come to earth and caught us up into the communion of love between Father, Son, and Spirit." I finished the walk, and waited for our Mass with the rest of the Franciscan students as the previous Mass ended. The last motet they sang was a Renaissance polyphonic setting of Ave Regina Caelorum.
For our Mass I was able to get up very close to the image, which I was glad of - one of the students, Justin, was kind enough to offer me his seat as he would be returning to Poland for ten-day. I prayed for the strength to meet the silent terrors of the day that awaited us in Auschwitz, for God to teach me what He desired me to learn through the lesson of Poland.
After Mass we were allowed to look around for a little while. The monastery had a couple museums, which we went through. The museums contained exquisite chalices and monstrances from the previous popes and saints, as well as articles owned by the monastery over the years. We then boarded the bus for Auschwitz.

A rose on the train tracks of Auschwitz

Auschwitz was, as my friend Joey said, the best part of the trip, as it was the most spiritually growing. There was a chill there that pierced through my layers of clothing to one's very bones. Ravens were perched in the trees outside the entrance. There was an intense stillness there, unlike anything I have ever experienced. We were separated into groups for tours of the place. We walked beneath the famous entrance, beneath the famous words, "Work makes you free." Near the entrance was a spot where a band of prisoners who were musicians were forced to play music as the soldiers checked and counted the prisoners to see if any had escaped. The musical band of prisoners reminded me of Olivier Messiaen, who wrote a quartet during his time in a concentration camp in France and performed it with a group of musicians in the camp. I think it's called The End of Time.We saw photos of so many of the prisoners on the walls, each of them with their own stories, families, their lives lost, brutally cut short. We saw their "beds," washrooms, cells, and one of the gas chambers. We saw the cells where prisoners were kept or executed. The entire place seemed flat, lifeless, dead.  The air was damp, cold, still and the weather overcast. There was no wind, no movement save for the tourists. It was as if a shroud had covered the place, a shroud of death. We saw the thousands of shoes, suitcases, pots and pans the Jews had brought with them when they had first come off the trains. They had thought they were coming to live and work there, but many of them were executed. When the Russians were coming, the Germans tried to burn the evidence of their crimes, mostly the clothes, suitcases, and shoes but they didn't have time. There was a pile of eyeglasses - a rat's nest of glass and wire. There were so many atrocities within that death camp, to look at it was sickening. How could people do this to one another? This work of satan? THey couldn't see these people as humans but saw them as animals, but in reality the Nazis were the animals and they the humans. I could see a person either losing all belief in God or being convicted of God's existence and strengthening their faith all the more, nothing in between. It shows the strength of the human will, of faith. It was so hard to imagine the horrors there, the millions of ghosts, the shots ringing from the machine guns at the execution wall. And even when the land had been desecrated with the blood of the innocents, God sanctified it with the sacrifice of his beloved saint, Maximilian Kolbe. The man signed with the cross of Christ went gaily in the dark, singing hymns with his fellow prisoners as they were starving to death in Cell 21. It was a great testimony to the power of God, how He could take the worst of men and bring out the best. To conclude the tour we went to Birkenau, known as Auschwitz II, an extension of the camp where most of the mass extermination occurred. There was a monument to the victims at the end of the railroad tracks where the trains came with the Jews and the other victims. There was a rose on the tracks at the gate house, a dark red rose. We prayed the Chaplet of Divine MErcy at the memorial, then drove to KRakow to check in to our hostel. Hopefully one day the abortion mills will be just like this place, a memory to a horror that is no more.