Tonight I've been clearing out our bookshelves. I ran across a book I haven't looked at in ages: "Divine Mercy in My Soul," the diary of St. Faustina Kowalska. St. Faustina (1905-1938) was a Pole and a Catholic nun and a mystic who kept a detailed diary of her prayer life, including what she claimed were interior locutions from Jesus.
I've always found diary entry No. 1732 to be tantalizing. It was written in 1937, shortly before her premature death:
As I was praying for Poland, I heard the words: I bear a special love for Poland, and if she will be obedient to My will, I will exalt her in might and holiness. From her will come forth the spark that will prepare the world for My final coming.
Karol Wojtyla was 17 at the time, and hadn't even received the Sacrament of Confirmation. In two years, Poland would be destroyed by the Nazi war machine, and then held captive by the Soviets. Poland held firm to its faith. In 1978, the cardinal archbishop of Krakow was elected Pope John Paul II. In 1980, Polish Catholic workers formed Solidarity. The Catholic sons of Poland went on to play a critical role in toppling the evil Soviet empire. Exalted in might and holiness indeed! Who could have foreseen it?
As for the rest of St. Faustina's prophetic locution, well, I guess we'll see...
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To add to Simon's comments, thankfully Jillian is wrong, Mass attendence in Poland is quite high and demographically even, it is not just old people, in fact, in the Univ. City of Krakow man churches are packed up and down the aisles and out the front steps with 20-something students. Of course statistics are not perfect but I had heard that weekly Mass attendence in Poland was something like 75% of Catholics (Catholics being 95% of the population) the 62% number might refer to people who go to Mass every week without fail, thus while on any given sunday 75% of Catholics are in Church, on every given Sunday 62% of the same people are in Church. Also, daily Mass, Rosary, confession, and all traditional devotions are well practiced in Poland. Also it should be pointed out that it is Polish immigrants that are driving up the Mass attendence numbers in the UK.
to Simon, heard that idea on Radio Radonezh, many orthodox fathers talk there. If you search words 'prophcecy' and 'Ninevia' in the net,you will find a biblical story about how prophecy of Jonah was abolished by God who saw that people believed in it and started to repent actively.
Sometimes i think what for to do anything if your fate is to go to hell you will be there no matter what you do, and if we believe that person can change his fate, does that mean that future of person is unknown even to God? Or God can abolish the wrong future. Too confusing for me, better not to think about it.
DJ - It is funny that you would say this. I was attending a college event for my son & ran into a woman from Poland whose daughter was attending school with him. She has been in our country for approx. 5 years for her job. The biggest thing she liked about our country was the fact that no one knew if you went to church on Sunday or not. Apparently, one of the biggest reasons these people are in church is because they have to do so. I would have loved to ask her who cared - the government, your neighbors, etc. Interesting at any rate, but this may why so many people are in those pews.
I was attending a college event for my son & ran into a woman from Poland whose daughter was attending school with him. She has been in our country for approx. 5 years for her job. The biggest thing she liked about our country was the fact that no one knew if you went to church on Sunday or not. Apparently, one of the biggest reasons these people are in church is because they have to do so.
Hmmmm.... the only reason everyone goes is because everyone goes? Sounds a little like Yogi Berra's remark about Coney Island: Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded.
FWIW, I went to law school with a Polish guy who constantly said much the same thing, and also fretted about the "excessive" influence of the Church on Polish life etc. After a semester of this, it came out that my classmate's father had been an official of the Polish Communist Party. His anticlericalism was all about protecting his status as part of the privileged elite.
mom4vr61, having lived in Poland I can try to speak to this a little more.
First off though, augmenting Simon's point, if you meet a Pole who has anti-clerical leanings the chances are the parents were active and privleged in the PZPR (Polish United Workers' Party).
As for social pressures to attend Mass. A German friend of mine (who is rather critical of religion) said that in Poland, "All people have is their farm and their Church." I suppose for people in small rural villages where everyone knows everyone, not making it to Mass on Sunday is noticed.
Culture in the small villages is sort of on a plane with "Quiet Man" era Ireland.
In the cities however, Krakow for example has 72 Churches within the old-city (a very compact core area). Most of these churches are huge, most of them have several Masses on Sunday, and are always packed. Frankly I had no clue where the people were comming from to keep filling them!
In the USA we are are used to finding the Catholic Church in an area, figuring out the Mass time, and if we screw up on either of those accounts we aren't gonna make it to Mass.
In Poland, I never even bothered to learn the Mass times of various Churches, Sunday morning I just walked arround and it was always inevitable that I'd find one, it seemed that from 6:00 AM until 1:00 PM there was a Mass starting every-half hour somewhere.
Now with all these options of churches and Mass times, the individual church go-er is anonomous, this is not the tiny village Parish model, so whether one goes to Church or not goes complelty un-noticed, there is no community pressure, and the effect of family/cultural pressure is not the driving force for 20-somethings, bottom line, people in Poland are in Church because they want to be there, they like going to Mass and it is important to them.
As for the gov't in PL, the Law and Justice Party claimed deep loyalty to the Catholic Church, but for almost all of Polish history, going to Church was an act of defiance against Communist, Nazi, or Czarist overlords.
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