The light of hope

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – January 18-25 – was held for the ninth time in Poland with meetings throughout the country’s major cities, on the occasion of the Day of Islam celebrated January 26: “the values that are shared by Christians and Muslims are reiterated in the themes for this year’s Day of Islam: ‘Together for the dignity of the family and marriage”, stated the Polish Bishops’ Conference (CEP) in a message recalling the tragic situation experienced by families living in the Middle East, and in the Gaza Strip in particular. In the communiqué the bishops underlined the value of the meetings with the Muslims “that promote mutual understanding and respect of Polish Catholics and Muslims, and highlight the many common elements shared by the faithful of both religions”. With their centuries-long history, Muslims in Poland currently represent only 0.06% of the overall population. Not just a Week. During the Week of Prayer the Polish Church delivered a series of statements regarding the continuation of dialogue among Christian faithful. A booklet published by the CEP’s Council for Ecumenical Affairs, and by Poland’s Ecumenical Council, points out that the strive for Christian unity “must not be confined to just a week each year”. “Prayers for unity in the Christian world are conveyed especially on the day of Pentecost and for the various religious or national festivities”. “We believe that the third Christian millennium that has just begun will provide many opportunities to overcome divisions, to spread the Gospel’s proclamation, imbuing the life of individuals and of the entire Church in our country”. Among the various ecumenical initiatives, Msgr. Stanislaw Gadecki, archbishop of Poznan, said a prayer for the European Youth meeting organized by the Community of Taizé in the city of the Warta river (December 29 – January 2, 2010), which, he wishes “will bring good to the city and to the entire Wielkopolska region”, and be “an antidote to the confusion and uniformed lifestyle viewed in its horizontal dimension only” helping to “recover the vertical dimension of life, from the earth to the sky, giving to human life a deeper meaning”. At the end of the Week, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, archbishop of Crakow, recalled, “the common task of us all disciples of Christ is to recover the hope in a world that tends towards the good, towards love and peace”. “The tasks and the challenges we will address together will favour a more effective proclamation of the Gospel, thus transforming our environments so that they are close to the image of God and of man. Thus with greater zeal we will pray for Christian unity, so that our joint commitment and our testimony be convincing in an ever-more sceptical world”. Spiritual bond. On the occasion of the international Day in memory of the Holocaust victims (January 27), Msgr. Jozef Zycinski, archbishop of Lublin, called upon the faithful to place candles on the window-sills “representing the spiritual bond with the victims of the Holocaust”: “May this light convey the solidarity with those who perished in a world crushed by blind hatred”, stated the Ordinary of the Polish diocese, and “may it remind us all of the sacredness of human dignity that should never be subjugated to fanatic ideological vision”. The candlelight “expresses our Christian culture while evocating the living memory of the tragedies that hit the generations of our fathers”. The Christian co-chairman of Poland’s Jewish-Christian Council Zbigniew Nosowski, pointed out that “an increasing number of Jews are aware of the crucial importance of the dialogue with the Christians, while an increasing number of Christians understand the teachings of John Paul II regarding Judaism and seek to integrate it into everyday life”. During Shoah Remembrance Day, Nosowski pointed out that in Poland “an increasing interest for local history is leading to the discovery that it must necessarily taken into account the history of Polish Jews”: “The rebirth of Jewish life in Poland is a fact, while the freedom to reaffirming their identity leads the Jews to be increasingly open to dialogue”.