The joy of Poland

On the occasion of the beatification of John Paul II the president of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski offered a thanksgiving prayer for freedom, “a great gift to my Country and to myself”. Referring to the beatification the Polish President said: “we all hope that thanks to that extraordinary experience people will become better and wiser”. The day after the beatification on Monday May 2 President Komorowski was received in private audience by Benedict XVI.A living fountainhead. Komorowski said that John Paul II “spoke of the problems and challenges involving contemporary society: the relations between man and God, those between mankind, and the relations between man and the Church”. The president added, “John Paul II always had a word for Poland’s problems”. Thus for Komorowski “The Pope’s thoughts and action highlight the possibility of reconciling Church mission with deeds in favour of one’s country”. The president recalled that Pope Wojtyla looked upon the Solidarity movement with “fatherly pride”. “I recall – he added – Pope John Paul II’s words of gratitude to the past generations in the Radzymin cemetery”. “We should be asking ourselves if we are capable of expressing our gratitude for our freedom” he remarked underlining that his generation “owes a lot to John Paul II”. “In our struggle for the freedom of Poland we have received exception spiritual support from the Pope”. “To him – confided the Polish president – I owe a plethora of emotions, questions, and answers given in return”. For Komorowski, “in our lives we all need a source of optimism. During his life John Paul II has given us galore. Even in the most difficult time of his death. It was an important lesson. It’s a living fountainhead”.A new chapter. Polish faithful followed John Paul II’s beatification ceremony from maxi-screens installed across cities in Poland with heartfelt joy and emotion. Thanksgiving liturgies are due to be celebrated in the entire country. Congregations will be holding dedicated concerts, performances, exhibitions and even funfairs for children with the purpose of drawing children close to the history and the figure of the Pontiff. Upon the conclusion of the beatification ceremony Msgr. Goclowski said in Gdansk that “millions of people have highlighted those values without which man would not exist”. Thus, the prelate continued, May 1st indicates “a new chapter not only from the formal angle but also in the sense of a true commitment in favour of all those issues regarding the Church and the human family”. “We must all remember – pointed out the Bishop Emeritus of Gdansk – that man cannot be understood without Jesus Christ”.The memory of the schoolfriend. In Poland the official celebrations for the beatification of John Paul II have been organized in the birth town of the Pope, Wadowice. Among the attendants of the Eucharistic liturgy, broadcast by the Vatican on mega-screens, figured Polish Premier Donald Tusk and numerous civil and military dignitaries. An age-old school-friend of Karol Wojtyla’s, Eugeniusz Mroz, also arrived to attend the beatification ceremony. With a broken voice he conveyed his “profound happiness” that his high-school classmate and neighbour, “has been raised to the Altars of the Blessed”. Recalling the figure of Karol Wojtyla, Mroz said that since his childhood he “grew in saintliness” and added that the Pope “never let anyone copy his homework as he considered it immoral, but he was always ready to help his classmates in their studies”.Divine Mercy. On Sunday morning, in spite of the rain, some 120 thousand people who reached Krakow from Poland and from world countries – France, Philippines, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Australia – gathered in the Shrine of the Divine Mercy to attend John Paul II’s beatification ceremony. During the liturgical celebrations in the Shrine of Lagiewniki, officiated simultaneously with those taking place in Saint Peter’s Square, was exposed another reliquary in the form of a monstrance containing the blood of the new Blessed, donated by Card. Stanislaw Dziwisz. After the beatification ceremony attended by large crowds of faithful, prayers were recited in the Shrine of the Divine Mercy. For Msgr. Andrzej Czaja, bishop of Opole, the rite, renewed by St. Faustina Kowalska, “is among the most successful contributions of Wojtyla’s Magisterium to Poland over the past years”. The day preceding the beatification of John Paul II, crowds of faithful attended a prayer vigil in Warsaw, in the central Pilsudski Square, where, immediately after the solemn celebration in St. Peter’s Square, transmitted on maxi-screens, was celebrated the thanksgiving liturgy.