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Of Miracles, Faith, and Family: The Veneration of the Virgin in Poland
| Article
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19056 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1991 |
3,871 Words |
| Author
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Philip Gerard
Philip Gerard is the author of eight books, most recently
Secret Soldiers: The Story of World War II's Heroic Army of
Deception (Dutton, 2002). He holds a Distinguished Teaching
Professorship in the creative writing department of the
University of North Carolina at Wilmington. |
It is eight o'clock in the morning on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary--in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, the day when the Mother of Christ was taken body and soul into heaven. A misty drizzle falls from a leaden sky on Czestochowa, a city of 230,000 in southern Poland. I stand on the stone parapet of the monastery of Jasna Gora--the Hill of Light--where during Christmas 1655, a small besieged garrison turned back nine thousand invading Swedish troops, insuring the survival of the Polish nation.
It has taken me two hours to work my way through the crowds of pilgrims to this vantage point, from which I can look out over the hundreds of people who throng the hillside in reverent silence, attentive to the second high mass of the day being celebrated on the center parapet.
Down beyond the hill, in the woods, in the fenced-off city park below the monastery, and on every patch of vacant ground, pilgrims camp under tents, zipped into nylon sleeping bags or just rolled up in blankets and tarps against the early morning drizzle. Some of them have been here for days: some have just arrived on night trains from the far reaches of Poland--a country where individually owned automobiles are a luxury.
The fortress monastery is ringed with a tent city, almost as if again under siege. Children bathe in a fountain in the park, cooking fires smoke from a hundred small camps, and the air is redolent with the aroma of bacon, ham, eggs, coffee, and soup.
Hotel rooms are rare and expensive--in this economy, they are a luxury, out of the question for the great majority of Poles. People carry their essentials with them: a bedroll, a coat for the chilly August nights, a little food, and a plastic jug of fresh water.
My own journey was only eight hours long--from Szczytno, in the northeastern Mazurian Lakes district--a comfortable, fast journey in a cozy first-class compartment with sandwiches and beer and paczki (doughnuts) for sustenance. But the hardiest pilgrims--traveling in bands sponsored by their parish, social club, Solidarity chapter, school, factory, town, or youth group, and wearing colorful badges to identify their affiliation--arrive in Czestochowa on foot, having trekked for days or even weeks behind their priest or leader, singing hymns and praying the rosary. Many will undertake such a pilgrimage only once during their
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