THE
P RTAL
May 2012
The land of
Blessed
John Paul II
Page 6
As I write this, I am busy with preparations for a trip to Poland.
I’m on a pilgrimage/holiday with family and friends – including
some of the team from the excellent monthly publication
Magnificat (has Morning and Evening prayers, the Propers for
Mass each day, plus info on all the saints and seasons, plus glorious
artwork. If you don’t yet receive it every month, get yourself a sub.
now: [email protected]).
Why Poland?
Blessed John Paul II, of course. There are dozens
of good reasons to visit Krakow: cathedral, castle,
museums, university, history, scenery, coffee-shops,
cakes, enchanting streets and squares, restaurants...
and we’ll enjoy as much as we can of all of these, and
with vigour. But the John Paul theme is the real reason
for the trip.
John Paul II changed history
Not only Polish history – 1989 and all that – but
British history. We are now all living the great
adventure that our Holy Father Benedict began for us
with Anglicanorum Coetibus. And its roots go back
thirty years, to the first-ever visit to Britain of a Bishop
of Rome, John Paul’s arrival at Gatwick in 1982.
na
wri tes
often frighteningly different challenges from those
presented under Communism, and Britain is utterly
different too. Time to take stock, to go on pilgrimage,
to pray. The Divine Mercy shrine and Sister Faustina.
Wawel cathedral, where Blessed John Paul was
ordained. Wadowice, where he was born and brought
up and there is a museum dedicated to him. And
more. Cream cakes, too – John Paul’s favourite cakes
are now known as kremowka papieska in his honour.
A time to pray
We’ll pray at the Divine Mercy shrine, and our
prayers for Britain will be fervent: this is a country
where abortion, drug abuse, high crime rates and
family break-up are now so standard as to be the stuff
of clichés, and where the government’s response is to
urge legislation inventing the notion that two men can
I was there – with an awful lot of others – on the marry each other. We’ll light candles for our friends
tarmac at Gatwick, peering and cheering, jumping up and family, for all the intentions that we are carrying
to try to catch a glimpse of the white-clad figure that on this pilgrimage, and for the Ordinariate and its
stooped to kiss the ground and turned to greet and bright future.
wave. We had all set off at four in the morning in a
coach from our Surrey parish, clutching thermoses of
We’ll explore Poland’s history, including recent
coffee and home-made periscopes.
history that in the 20th century forged bonds with
Britain in a dark hour, and in the 21st has brought so
Blessed John Paul’s walk into Canterbury Cathedral many Poles to work here in uncertain times. Poland’s
alongside Dr Robert Runcie, praying at the tomb of history is chequered and so is ours.
St Thomas Becket was the proximate start of the
series of events that led to the establishment of the
We cannot predict the future and we can’t simply
Ordinariate, and the reason you are reading this. It is issue instructions to God and expect him to fulfil
his successor, our wonderful Benedict XVI, who has them: history is human history and we write it with
had the courage to follow up, to take the great step and our deeds, good and bad. JPII now knows more about
create the Ordinariate, after requests from Anglicans it all than we do.
who came to see that any form of corporate reunion
with Rome on a scale once envisaged was no longer
The day after I get back, there’s an ordination in
possible.
London of two more priests for the Ordinariate of Our
Lady of Walsingham, with more to follow: that walk
And now here we are in a new chapter in a new into Canterbury Cathedral and prayers at the tomb of
century. Poland is a different country – facing new and a martyred archbishop are all part of that too.