Into The Sacred Reality

Tomorrow is the day I will go on my personal pilgrimage to St. Wojciech (Adalbert) parish in Mucharz (my Patron Saint). This is the centuries old parish, one of the first in this area, with amazing history. Here it is believed my Patron Saint stayed and preached Good News on two separate occasions in tenth century. It would not be possible to omit this sacred place in my road map of shrines and holy places important to my faith and spirituality which I need to visit and pray there in my time of holidays in Europe this year.

From this parish Wadowice parish was born (the home parish of Saint John Paul II). Mucharz was the very first parish visited pastorally by Karol Wojtyła right after he became the bishop of Kraków. This is the parish and the sacred place which - according to words of Saint John Paul II spoken in 1994 in Vatican during the celebrations of 16th anniversary of his pontificate - had great influence on his faith and his life. 

Time to immerse myself in the sacredness of this holy place and its venerable history full of the presence of the Holy Spirit and of my Patron Saint. The added value of this spiritual journey is the fact that the parish priest of the parish is my classmate from our ordination class, Rev. Fr. Krzysztof Strzelichowski, one of my closest friends in our class. So good to reunite with him again, to celebrate Holy Mass together and have a nice late evening chat over a piece of world renowned cottage bread, a glass of fine wine and our favorite cheese.

Special Day

Feeling blessed and honored to have the opportunity to visit His Eminence Franciszek Cardinal Macharski today at his residence at 'Ecce Homo' Shrine in Krakow and to celebrate Holy Mass with him at 11.00 am. He is my bishop who accepted me to the major seminary in Krakow, formated me and led through all steps until ordination to diaconate and priesthood. He is the one who sent me to my first and second parishes in our Archdiocese. He is the one who sent me to Tanzania as a Fidei Donum missionary and took care of me throughout the years. Respect and filial love to this remarkable Man of God, now Archbishop Emeritus of Krakow, 87 years old. Please, pray with me for him!

Radio Bonus

Yesterday I had an opportunity to talk a bit on various issues concerning myself, my vocation, silver jubilee, my missionary vocation and work, Kiabakari and Divine Mercy and so forth during a radio interview at internet Radio Bonus  in Kraków. The excerpts of the interview have been published just a while ago at the Archdiocese of Kraków portal www.franciszkanska3.pl. The link to the article is here.

For those of you who would like to listen to the recording, I was told it would be aired tomorrow, Friday, May 10th at 5pm Polish time. I was told also that they intend to publish the audio file of the recording, so those of you who cannot access the radio at that particular time, could do so at their convenience.

I wish to express my gratitude to the Radio Bonus staff, in particular to Miss Magda Dobrzyniak and Miss Karolina Putlak who organized the interview, for this unique experience and an opportunity to share. God bless us all!

One Year

I wish to congratulate my classmate, His Excellency Bishop Grzegorz Ryś, auxiliary bishop of Archdiocese of Kraków, and his fellow auxiliary bishop Damian Muskus, for the first anniversary of their episcopal consecration which we celebrate today. I regret I was unable to participate in the consecration Mass as on that day a year ago I was in the air returning to Tanzania from Poland, and it was impossible to postpone the flight as I was rushing back to be present at the Centenary celebrations of Christianity in our Diocese of Musoma.

I celebrated Holy Mass today for both Bishops, thanking God for the gift of their apostolate and praying for them that Divine Mercy may shine through the service to the Church and the world. Auguri! Please, pray for them!

Bishop Grzegorz Ryś

Bishop Damian Muskus

Jericho In Kraków

All inhabitants of Kraków, reading my blog, I would like to encourage and invite to take part in Jericho in Kraków - six days and nights of continuous prayer for the people and the city of Kraków in the presence of the Eucharistic Lord in the church of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Kazimierz. This is a preparatory prayer meeting before the new evangelization of the city of Kraków which will take place in October this year. You can read more on this topic in the Facebook page of the new evangelization of Kraków here. May the Spirit of the Lord descend upon my beloved city and renew its face!

Fencing Off

For a long time my sisters have been complaining that some of the local people come after school hours to pre-school and devastate the playground. They managed already to cut off one of the swing, steal bolts and nuts, wood planks and wreak havoc on the playground area in general...

About Us

Just an alert to bring your attention to a short 30 minutes or so photo presentation and music (below) depicting the latest (November 2011)  pastoral visit of the mission team of Archdiocese of Krakow, Poland, in our missions in Tanzania. You may see my mission in Kiabakari (from 6th minute of the program up to almost 11th minute). Plus Musoma cathedral later on in the program where I spent more than four years (2002-2006).

Missionaries from Kraków

Just to let you know, that you may find interesting short videos published here. There are a couple of videos from Kiabakari, from times I described in my earlier post (click here). Enjoy! And while you enjoy, please, say a prayer for us, missionaries, and our work. Thank you!

That Day

Exactly, on this day, twenty one years ago, I set my foot for the first time on African soil, in Dar es Salaam, upon my arrival to Tanzania, to begin my life and service as a Fidei Donum missionary from Archdiocese of Kraków - for the Diocese of Musoma. I reminisced that day in my autobiography - Między Taborem a Golgotą (Between Tabor and Golgotha), and for those of my readers who don't have this book, I would like to quote the passage from it, describing how it was on January 8, 1991. For those of my readers who do not speak Polish, please use Google Translator (provided in the right column of this blog)...

The Source

Today was a special day...

Primus Inter Pares

The first among equals...This ancient Latin sentence I can proudly use in a special, personal context, as on last Saturday, the Apostolic Nunciature in Poland announced that the Holy Father raised two priests of Archdiocese of Krakow to the episcopal dignity. One of them is my classmate, Rev. Father Grzegorz Rys, with whom (and more than sixty other colleagues) I studied for priesthood in Krakow's major seminary from 1982 till 1988 when on May 22 we were ordained as priests. Our ordination class of 1988 has been specially blessed with this choice of a great priest and illustrious scholar, current rector of the same seminary we were studying in years back... I am very happy and proud and must say that this choice is excellent and very correct. I admire my classmate, his qualities as a human being, Christian, priest and professor. God is great and our archdiocese is lucky to have him as its auxiliary bishop. And I think this is not the end for him. He will go to greater heights. I am honored to share the same class with him and pray for him to Merciful God that he may be richly blessed in his episcopal service for the benefit of the People of God of Krakow and the whole Church.