A special time

The faithful of the archdiocese of Gniezno will participate in special prayers in spiritual preparation for the beatification of John Paul II from Sunday 27 February, for nine weeks. Similar initiatives of prayer and spiritual reflection will take place in many other Polish dioceses and will, in preparation for the day of beatification on 1st May, involve large numbers of young people, adults and whole families. “Holiness is not a private question, and hence in this particular period that precedes the beatification of the Polish Pope, the faithful ought to draw close to each other also in social terms”, recently insisted the Metropolitan of Katowice, the Most Rev. Damian Zimon.Three stages. In Warsaw the diocesan programme drawn up by the curia together with the civic authorities entails three stages of official celebrations. The preparatory period for the beatification will begin on 1st April; the second stage will comprise the celebrations coinciding with the events of 1st May in Rome, while the ceremonies in tribute to the new Blessed will continue down to the feast of thanksgiving on 5 June. The Centre of the Thought of John Paul II, one of the major institutions for the promotion of the teachings of Karol Wojtyla, will supply each parish in the land with material for the study of John Paul II’s thought; in particular it will comprise the homilies dedicated to the Ten Commandments that the Pope pronounced during his pilgrimage to Poland in 1991. Families resident in the territory of the archdiocese of Warsaw will further receive a letter that will invite them to reflect on the contents of John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation “Familiaris consortio” on the Christian Family in the Modern World.Special lessons in schools and mega-screens in the mountains. Special lessons dedicated to the life and teachings of the Polish Pope will be given in schools of every grade and level, while a competition for youth dedicated to John Paul II will be organized during the next school year. Over 1,150 schools of various levels, in Poland and throughout the world, already bear the name of John Paul II. A few years ago these schools created the association “Family of schools of John Paul II” which today, happy about the forthcoming beatification of their patron, as their president Halina Marcinek explains, “are pledging with all the greater responsibility to put into practice the Pope’s teaching”. An initiative of the portal for young lovers (www.przeznaczeni.pl) is also targeted at young families; its aim is to promote conjugal fidelity and recall the teaching John Paul II on the life of couples. Prayer vigils, concerts and exhibitions dedicated to Wojtyla will also be held in many towns in the region of Krakow, and especially in the sanctuary of the Divine Mercy at Lagiewniki, which is expecting an exceptional number of faithful for the prayer vigil before the beatification. Polish mountain inhabitants in the region of Podhale, on the day of the beatification, will congregate in the winter sports centre of Wielka Krokiew to follow live TV coverage of events in St. Peter’s Square on mega-screens. On that occasion, they will also prepare an opera that will tell the story, in four acts, of the Pope’s election and his visits to the Tatra mountains (1979, 1983 and 1997). The folk music and dances will be performed by various musical groups, so that – as the organizers explain – each part of the show will be different from the others.Going to Rome. The Vice-President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Mgr. Stanislaw Gadecki, has emphasized that “all Poles need to be persuaded to go to Rome for the beatification”, predicting that “if three million people had knelt before the bier of John Paul II, probably now a great many more will go to Rome [for his beatification], for the simple reason that joy attracts more than grief”. Fr. Jan Gora, Dominican Father and friend of Wojtyla, as well as organizer of youth rallies at Lednica, has been planning coach trips to Rome for over a month now. Explaining that John Paul II had “helped him to understand the gift of priesthood”, Fr. Gora is convinced that “today his words continue to help young people to grow in faith”. “I’ll go to the beatification ceremony since physical participation in so important an event is something different than following the ceremony on television”, said another friend of John Paul II, Karol Tarnowski, recalling the holidays he had spent together with Wojtyla, as also his wedding and the baptisms of his children celebrated by the future Blessed. The Rector of the Seminary of Krakow (where the young Karol Wojtyla studied), Grzegorz Rys, also plans to go to Rome for the ceremony: “The journey to Rome is today a national necessity”, report all the Polish travel agencies which have stepped up their activity during this period. And even the closest surviving relative of Karol Wojtyla, the 86-year-old Bronislaw Wojtyla, whose father was the cousin of the father of John Paul II, and who for reasons of health will be unable to participate in person in the beatification, has said that all his children and grandchildren will be there in his name.