Gifts in time

“I address special greetings to the bishops and to the faithful and pilgrims to Gniezno, who pay tribute to St. Adalbert, Patron of Poland. His martyr’s blood has become the seed of faith of your lands. Through his intercession I pray that this seed may grow and bear rich fruit”. Benedict XVI addressed these words to the Poles present in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, 27 April, extending his greetings also to those who had celebrated at Gniezno the memory of the saint who was killed by the heathens on 23 April 997. According to legend, the duke of Poland Boleslaus the Brave bought the mortal remains of the saint from the heathens, paying their weight in gold. In the year 1000 the emperor Otto III and Boleslaus met over the tomb of St. Adalbert at Gniezno. The emperor then invested the duke with the title of Frater et Cooperator Imperii . St. Adalbert, bishop and martyr, thus became the symbol of the spiritual unity of the whole of Europe. A witness for the unity of Europe . “The witness of St. Adalbert is particularly relevant for our time. Europe then was seeking its identity, and found it in Christian culture and civilization”, said the Most Rev. Henryk Muszynski , Archbishop of Gniezno, during the solemn celebration in the precinct in front of the cathedral of Gniezno, presided over by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz on Sunday, 27 April. “Today too – the archbishop continued – Europe is seeking its roots with great fervour. If however we concentrate only on the economic, political and social values, if the spiritual matrix that binds us together is lacking, Europe will cease to be itself, or, as John Paul II said, it would cut off its own roots and assume a form completely different than that it originally had”. In his homily during the liturgy, the Most Rev. Jozef Zycinski also emphasized that the martyrs and saints had traced the face of European culture. “But the saints – he said – are the gift of God not only in St. Adalbert’s day but also in our own time. There are many saints around us, such as the mothers who sacrifice themselves to fulfil their own mission, or the young who refuse to take life as it comes, and are willing to defend true values”. Missionary crosses . During the rite, some youths on pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Adalbert received a Bible from the hands of the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Jozef Glemp. Those, on the other hand, who are about to leave for the missions in the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America received missionary crosses from the apostolic nuncio in Poland, Monsignor Jozef Kowalck. In the period 1998 – 2007 these crosses were conferred on almost 500 religious and laymen and laywomen of various vocations. This year they were received by 9 priests, 10 male religious, 21 female religious and 3 laymen. The figures published in Poland on the occasion of World Vocations Day show a decline (by some 30%) in the number of voluntary missionaries. According to Bishop Wojciech Polak , chairman of the Polish Council for Vocational Ministry, the causes for this decline should be sought not so much in a drop in vocations as in a stronger commitment to pastoral work in the national territory itself, due to the opportunities now available for religious congregations to re-acquire their own schools and hospitals. Bishop Polak also pointed out how the character of vocations has significantly changed: they are no longer especially born in the rural environment, but are predominant in the cities and towns where youth pastoral work is most active and where the movements and the various religious communities are operating. Fall in vocations . Diocesan seminaries in Poland registered a 10% drop in vocations in 2007 over the figure for 2006. This trend, commented Bishop Polak, also characterized women’s religious orders, while the number of pupils at religious seminaries has fallen by 4-5%. Even more worrying are the figures relating to pupils in the first year, who were 25% less in 2007 than there were in the previous year. At the present time 4257 pupils are studying in diocesan seminaries in Poland. Candidates for the priesthood also fell from 1145 in 2005 to 786 in 2007, while 1768 pupils were studying in the seminaries run by the religious orders. According to the data published on 1st January 2008, there were 22,087 religious sisters who have taken their vows in Poland, while 410 candidates for postulancy were admitted in 2007. According to Polak, the main cause for the drop in vocations consists in “a culture that generally does not reward the assumption of responsibilities, nor decisions taken for the whole of one’s life”.