Later there came another dark period in our history—the communist regime. Party authorities were aware of what Jasna Góra meant to the Poles, likewise the miraculous icon, and the Marian devotion long associated with it. So when, on the initiative of the Polish episcopate, and especially Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, a national pilgrimage with the Black Madonna set off from Czecstochowa in order to visit every parish and community in Poland, the communist authorities did all in their power to stop it. When the icon was “arrested” by the police, the pilgrimage continued with the empty frame, and the message became even more eloquent. The frame with no picture was a silent sign of the lack of religious freedom in Poland. The nation knew it had a right to regain religious freedom and prayed fervently for it. This pilgrimage lasted for almost twenty-five years, and engendered among the Poles an extraordinary strengthening of faith, hope, and love.
All Polish Catholics make the pilgrimage to Czecstochowa. I used to go on pilgrimage there from my youngest days. In 1936 there was a great pilgrimage of students from all over Poland, concluding with a solemn vow before the icon. Since that time, the pilgrimage has been repeated every year.
During the Nazi occupation I made the pilgrimage as a student of Polish philology in the department of philosophy at the Jagiellonian University. I remember it particularly because, to uphold the tradition, we went to Czecstochowa as delegates: Tadeusz Ulewicz, I, and a third person. Jasna Góra was surrounded by Hitler’s troops. The eremitical Pauline Fathers were our hosts and they knew we belonged to a delegation. This was obviously a matter of great secrecy. But we had the satisfaction of upholding the tradition, against all the odds. Later I often visited the shrine with various pilgrimages, especially the one from Wadowice.
Every year the bishops made their retreat at Jasna Góra, usually at the beginning of September. The first time I took part I was simply a bishop-elect, and it was Archbishop Baziak who took me with him. I remember that the preacher on that occasion was Father Jan Zieja, an outstanding priest. The first place, naturally, was taken by the Primate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, a truly providential man for the times we were living through.
These pilgrimages to Jasna Góra may have given birth to my desire to begin my pilgrim journeys as Pope by visiting a Marian shrine. This desire led me to make my first apostolic journey to Mexico, at the feet of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The love that the Mexicans and the people of Latin America in general have for Our Lady of Guadalupe—a love expressed spontaneously and emotionally, but intensely and profoundly—is very similar to the Polish Marian devotion that shaped my own spirituality. They affectionately call Mary La Virgen Morenita, which can be freely translated as “the Black Madonna.” There is a popular Mexican song about the love of a young man for a young lady, which the people address to Our Lady. Those melodious words linger in my ears:
Conocí a una linda Morenita . . . y la quise mucho.
Por las tardes iba yo enamorado y cariñoso a verla.
Al contemplar sus ojos, mi pasión crecía.
Ay Morena, morenita mía, no te olvidaré.
Hay un Amor muy grande que existe entre los dos, entre los dos . . .
I met a beautiful dark-skinned woman and came to like her very much.
Evenings—full of love and affection—I would walk to see her.
When I looked into her eyes, my love grew.
O dark-skinned woman, my dark-skinned woman,
I will not forget you.
There is a great love between us, between us . . .
I visited the shrine at Guadalupe during my first apostolic pilgrimage in January 1979. The decision to travel there was made in response to an invitation to take part in a meeting of the Conference of Bishops of Latin America at Puebla de los Angeles. To some degree, this pilgrimage inspired and shaped all the succeeding years of my pontificate.
First I stopped in Santo Domingo, after which I went on to Mexico. Something extraordinarily moving happened while we were making our way to our quarters for the night: As we crossed streets heaving with crowds, we could almost touch with our hands, so to speak, the devotion of these countless people. When we finally reached our destination, where we were to spend the night, the people just kept on singing—and it was already midnight. Then Father Stanisław Dziwisz realized he would have to go out and silence the crowd, explaining to them that the Pope had to get some sleep. Only then did they quiet down.
I remember that I looked upon that journey to Mexico as a kind of “permit,” which would make it possible for me to go on pilgrimage to Poland. I thought that the communists in Poland wouldn’t be able to refuse me permission to return to my country after I had been received in a country with so secular a constitution as Mexico had at the time. I wanted to go to Poland, and this desire came to fruition in June of that same year.
Guadalupe, the largest shrine in all of North America, is for that continent what Czecstochowa is for Poland. Certainly they belong to two quite different worlds: Guadalupe to a Latin-American world; Czecstochowa to a Slavic world, to Eastern Europe. This became clear during World Youth Day in 1991, when for the first time young people from beyond the eastern borders of Poland gathered in Czecstochowa: Ukrainians, Latvians, Belorussians, Russians. . . . Every region of Eastern Europe was represented.
But to return to Guadalupe, in 2002 I was privileged to celebrate the canonization of Juan Diego in this shrine. It was a wonderful opportunity to offer thanks to God. Juan Diego, having embraced Christianity without surrendering his indigenous identity, discovered the profound truth about the new humanity, in which all are called to be children of God in Christ. “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to mere children. . . .” (Matt. 11:25). And in this mystery, Mary had a very particular role.
THE MINISTRY OF A BISHOP
“Fulfill your ministry” (2 Tim. 4:5)
The Duties of a Bishop
Upon my return to Kraków from my first pilgrimage to Czecstochowa as a bishop, I began work in the arch-diocesan curia, and was immediately named vicar general. I can honestly say that I soon made friends with all those working for the Kraków curia: Father Stefan Marszowski, Father Mieczysław Satora, Father Mikołaj
Kuczkowski, and Father Bohdan Niemczewski, a mitred prelate. The latter, as dean of the Chapter of Canons, was later to be a strong advocate of my appointment as archbishop, despite the strongly aristocratic tradition there—archbishops of Kraków were usually chosen from among the aristocracy. And so it was a great surprise when after such a long line I, from the “proletariat,” was named Archbishop of Kraków. But this happened some years later, in 1964. I will return to this in due course.
I felt very much at ease in the curia and I recall the years in Kraków with deep gratitude and joy. Priests began coming to me with a great variety of problems. I worked with real enthusiasm. The visitation of parishes began in the spring.
Gradually I became accustomed to my new role in the Church. Episcopal ordination brought new responsibilities. They had been expressed in a brief, synthetic form during the liturgy of ordination. As I said earlier, the rite of episcopal ordination at the time of my own ordination in 1958 had already begun to change, while its essence remained unaltered. By ancient custom, established by the Fathers of the Church, the new bishop is asked in the presence of the people whether he promises to preserve the faith in its integrity and to fulfill the ministry entrusted to him. At present the questions are as follows:
Are you resolved by the grace of the Holy Spirit to discharge to the end of your life the office the Apostles entrusted to us, which we now pass on to you by the laying on of hands?
Are you resolved to be faithful and constant in proclaiming the Gospel of Christ?
Are you resolved to maintain the deposit of faith, entire and incorrupt, as handed down by the Apostles and professed by the Church everywhere and at all times?
Are you resolved to bui
ld up the Church as the Body of Christ and to remain united to it within the order of bishops under the authority of the successor of the Apostle Peter?
Are you resolved to be faithful in your obedience to the successor of the Apostle Peter?
Are you resolved as a devoted father to sustain the people of God and to guide them in the way of salvation in cooperation with the priests and deacons who share your ministry?
Are you resolved to show kindness and compassion in the name of the Lord to the poor and to strangers and to all who are in need?
Are you resolved as a good shepherd to seek out the sheep who stray and to gather them into the fold of the Lord?
Are you resolved to pray for the people of God without ceasing, and to carry out the duties of one who has the fullness of the priesthood so as to afford no grounds for reproach?8
These words are certainly deeply etched into the heart of every bishop. They echo the questions that Jesus put to Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee: “‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ He said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ He then said to him a second time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ He said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, ‘Do you love me?’ and he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep!’” (John 21:15–17). Not “your” sheep but “my” sheep! It was He who created man. It was He who saved him. It was He who redeemed everyone, every single person, at the price of His blood!
The Shepherd
Christian tradition has adopted the biblical image of the shepherd in three forms: as the one who carries the lost sheep on his shoulders, as the one who leads his flocks to green pastures, and as the one who gathers his sheep with his staff and protects them from danger.
In all three images there is a recurring theme: The shepherd is for the sheep, not the sheep for the shepherd. He is bound so closely to them, if he is a real shepherd, that he is ready to lay down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). Every year during the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth week of Ordinary Time, the Liturgy of the Hours presents Saint Augustine’s long Sermon “On the Shepherds.” 9 With reference to the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, the bishop of Hippo strongly rebukes evil shepherds, who are concerned not for the sheep but only for themselves. “Let us see how the word of God, that flatters no one, addresses the shepherds who are feeding themselves, not the sheep. ‘You take the milk, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed my sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought; any strong one you have killed; and my sheep are scattered because there is no shepherd.’”10Saint Augustine does, however, arrive at a very positive conclusion: “Good shepherds are not lacking, but they are in the one . . . all good shepherds are in the one, all are one reality. Let them feed the sheep—it is Christ who feeds them . . . in them is his voice, his love.”11
Saint Gregory the Great has offered us further inspiring reflections on the subject of pastoral ministry: “We see around us a world full of priests, but it is very rare to find a laborer in God’s harvest, because we are not doing the work demanded by our priesthood, although we accepted this office. . . . We give up the ministry of preaching, and, to our discredit, as I see it, we are called bishops but enjoy this honour in name only and not in practice. For the people entrusted to our care are abandoning God and we remain silent.”12
This annual reminder, which the Liturgy puts before us, invokes our sense of responsibility toward the Church.
“I Know My Sheep” (John 10:14)
The good shepherd knows his sheep and they know him” (John 10:14). A bishop should try to ensure that as many as possible of those who, together with him, make up the local Church can come to know him personally. He for his part will seek to be close to them, to know about their lives—what gives joy to their hearts and what saddens them. Such mutual acquaintance cannot be built through occasional meetings: It comes from a genuine interest in what is happening in their lives regardless of age, social status, or nationality, whether they are close at hand or far away.13 It is difficult to formulate a systematic theory on how to relate to people, yet I was greatly helped in this by the study of personalism during the years I devoted to philosophy. Every human being is an individual person and therefore I cannot program a priori a certain type of relationship that could be applied to everyone, but I must, so to speak, learn it anew in every case. Jerzy Liebert’s poetry expresses this effectively:
I study you, my friend,
Slowly I study you, slowly.
This difficult task, its gain, Brings joy to my heart and pain.14
It is very important for a bishop to have a rapport with his people and to know how to relate to them well. In my own case, significantly, I never felt that I was meeting an excessive number of people. Nonetheless, I was always concerned to safeguard the personal quality of each relationship. Every person is a chapter to himself. I always acted with this conviction, but I realize that it is something you can’t learn. It is simply there, because it comes from within.
Interest in others begins with the bishop’s prayer life: his conversations with Christ, who entrusts “His own” to him. Prayer prepares him for encounter with others. In such meetings, if we are truly open, we can come to know and understand one another, even when there is little time. I simply pray for everyone every day. As soon as I meet people, I pray for them, and this helps me in all my relationships. It’s difficult for me to tell how others perceive this. You would have to ask them. Yet I always follow this principle: I welcome everyone as a person sent to me and entrusted to me by Christ.
I don’t like the word “crowd,” which seems too anonymous; I prefer the word “multitude,” in Greek “ple-thos” (cf. Mark 3:7; Luke 6:17; Acts 2:6, 14:1, and elsewhere). Christ walked along the streets of Palestine and often great multitudes of people followed Him; the same was true of the Apostles. Naturally, my own office causes me to meet many people, sometimes great multitudes. That’s how it was in Manila, where there were millions of young people. Yet in a case like that it would have been wrong to speak of an anonymous crowd. It was a community animated by a single ideal, which made it easy to establish a relationship with them. It’s rather like that everywhere I go.
In Manila I beheld all of Asia. What a multitude of Christians! And how many millions of people on this continent still do not know Christ! I place great hope in the dynamic Church in the Philippines and in Korea. Asia: that is the mission we all share for the third millennium.
The Administration of Sacraments
The greatest treasure, the greatest riches at a bishop’s disposal, are the sacraments, which he administers with the help of the priests he has ordained. Christ entrusted this treasure into the hands of the Apostles and their successors through His testament, according to the deepest theological meaning of that word as well as its simplest everyday usage. Christ, “knowing that the hour had come to pass from this world to the Father” (John 13:1), “then gave Himself as food to His marvelling Apostles” (hymn “Pange Lingua”), bidding them repeat the rite of the Last Supper “in memory of him”: to break the bread and to offer the cup of wine—sacramental signs of His Body “given up” and His Blood “poured out.”
After His death and resurrection, He conferred upon them the power to forgive sins and administer the other sacraments, beginning with Baptism. The Apostles handed on this treasure to their successors. Together with preaching the word, the administration of the sacraments is a bishop’s primary duty, to which all his other responsibilities are subordinate. His whole life and activity must be directed toward this goal.
We know that we
need help to accomplish this. “Lord, grant also to us such fellow workers, for we are weak and our need is greater.”15That is why we select and prepare worthy candidates and ordain them priests and deacons. With us they undertake the duty of preaching the word and administering the sacraments.
Such considerations should help shed light upon our daily duties and priorities. This pertains not only to celebrating the Eucharist and administering the sacrament of Confirmation, but also to baptizing children and those adults who have been prepared by our local Church to become disciples of Christ. Nor should we underestimate the importance of personally hearing confessions and visiting the sick to administer the sacrament of Anointing, instituted specifically for the sick. Another important duty for a bishop, which he shares with his pastors, is solicitude for the sanctity of marriage; when it is possible, he should celebrate marriages personally.
Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way Page 4