From Krakow, Poland:
Jul 26, 2016 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News)
As World Youth Day approaches, the Archbishop of Krakow recently spoke with EWTN Deutschland about the “city of saints” hosting the gathering, and about its most famous son – St. John Paul II.
“You ask me where I have seen [John Paul II's] holiness. Well, we know that he was a very talented man – a writer, a poet, a speaker, an actor; but most of all, a great pray-er,” Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz told EWTN’s Robert Rauhut.
Cardinal Dziwisz was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Krakow in 1963 by St. John Paul II, who was then an auxiliary bishop of the city. Wojtyla was appointed archbishop the following year, and then-Fr. Dziwisz became his secretary soon thereafter – a role in which he served until the Pope’s death in 2005.
He said St. John Paul II “had already discovered the importance of prayer as a boy back in Wadowice. He organized his whole life in a way such that it had a great reference to God; such that his life became a prayer to the Lord himself … He did not split his time between work, sports, and prayer … Everything he did served the Lord’s will, in some way.”
“He granted audiences, he held different meetings, but the people who were close to him knew he was praying even then.”
The cardinal reflected that when one of the Pope’s staff would tell him of a difficult situation to which they couldn’t find a solution, St. John Paul II would reply, “I do not see one either, because we have not yet prayed enough … Let us introduce this matter to the Lord: a solution will then arise in some way; the issue will solve itself, always through prayer.”
St. John Paul II’s prayerfulness was “with him from the time he was a child,” Cardinal Dziwisz reflected. “His father played a great role for that matter. He taught him the prayer to the Holy Spirit, which accompanied him his whole life. Even on his last Saturday, on the day he died, he recited this prayer to the Holy Spirit.”
He added that St. John Paul II was also very devoted to the Virgin Mary and the rosary: “for him that was always a Christological prayer: contemplation of the work of redemption with the Mother of God.”
The late Pope spent time in Eucharistic adoration daily, and made a Holy Hour every Thursday. Cardinal Dziwisz said St. John Paul II “encouraged us to compensate the time that the Apostles overslept” during Christ’s agony in the garden.
St. John Paul II “saw the positive in everyone,” which Cardinal Dziwisz attributed to “his theology – the picture of God in men, this appreciation towards everyone.”
The saint’s legacy is kept alive particularly through his magisterium, the cardinal said, calling it “a point of reference in many areas,” especially the family: “He has left us a great doctrine in that field.” As an exemplar he mentioned Familiaris consortio, St. John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation on the role of the Christian family in the modern world, noting that Pope Francis’ own recent exhortation on the family “quotes John Paul II many times.”
Cardinal Dziwisz also reflected on the central role that the Church played in the development of Poland as a nation – the country is celebrating the 1050th anniversary of its conversion this year. “Without a doubt, the Church played an important role in the first days of the Polish state and it still is significant for our people today,” he said.
Krakow became the Polish capital in 1038, and was then also deemed the “center of culture, Christianity and religiosity in Poland.” One of its early bishops, St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów, can be called the “conscience of the nation,” Cardinal Dziwisz said, noting that he was martyred “defending human rights and defending the freedom of conscience.”
St. Stanislaus “was the first to show that the Church is to serve the people and that it should do so in an autonomous way, not serving on behalf of the state, but with it … he demonstrated the sovereignty of Church authority from the state authority. That is how the church in Poland was upheld back then and is maintained today. Of course, both institutions cooperate for the common good, but in general, we deal with two independent orders.”
Cardinal Dziwisz affirmed that Krakow “is indeed a ‘city of saints’. No further place –except for Rome – has as many saints as Krakow. Here, we have many churches, and the quantity of churches is an expression of how religious the city is. Almost every church contains a grave of a saint. It has been like that all the time and we have numerous contemporary saints.”
He noted St. Albert Chmielowski, who founded religious congregations and died in 1916, and who “was a role model for John Paul II.”
St. John Paul II’s pride in his native Poland showed a healthy and postive patriotism, Cardinal Dziwisz reflected. “He very strongly underlined the difference between ‘nationalism’ and ‘patriotism’”, he explained. …
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