02.01.2017. Advent, Rorate masses prompted me to have many considerations. I am in a nostalgic mood more involved than in this artificial happiness, “stirred up” by mass media. I come to church about 20 minutes before the Mass (25th of Dec.). I am saying the Rosary and looking at the Holy Family in the manger. I feel embraced with a strange sadness, tears begin to flow out of my eyes, my heart is engulfed in pain. Jesus, why? This day should be a joyous one! Then I see the scales in my heart, with two large scales. It looks like a very old one. On one scale, there are many tiny figures of children. On the other scale, there is an inscription: Mercy. Then I hear in my heart: I can’t make it .. to collect the children that you kill in abortion and in war! Suddenly I see those infants in little cradles, all lying on one scale and blood is flowing down and I hear: look, the scale of your sins is going down and the scale of Mercy doesn’t balance it … But You, Jesus are still born anew, I say, and despite our sins, You are with us. I see in my heart a cradle with little Jesus in the middle of the scales. This cradle balances the two scales. Little Jesus tries to “beseech” His Father through His birth: oh, Father, give more time … for Justice. I have an impression that through His childlike defenselessness, He delays the days of punishment. In this newly born Infant, there is also “the pain of the offering”. In this Infant in the middle of the scales I just see the joy for the people because of the birth of the Lord. It is not the joy of the glare of Christmas (food, presents,, carols), but the painful joy of hope … that despite the sins of the world, God is still born again, God who delays punishment, who forgives the sinners.
The return of the child
I close my eyes in a humble permission
To mix the past time of life with the present one
To seek the pictures that the merciless clock
Hasn’t drowned in the lake of non-remembrance yet
I see a little girl in a Cracow dress
She sits during Mass at the foot of the Altar with children
A priest says the homily, the child doesn’t understand it
And absorbs the scent of sweet lilies and the mood of the church
The child’s innocence is still protected with the angel’s robe
The child is still hugged by Heaven
Looking at the surrounding world with trust
With this childlike trust, abundantly granted through Baptism
Time flowed like a rapid river, that child is already gone
The sharp elbows of life push aside daily life, just to survive
The glance of an adult is mistrustful, she remembers the wounds of life
She often hears: save yourself, you are grown-up …
I withdraw the film of life and reach into the granary of memories
And kneel before the Altar, recalling in my heart, that child
And I ask: lead me along the way of your childlike trust, toward God
Resurrect in me, with the gift of Divine Infancy
So that I could return where trust
Opens up the eyes and ears to the joy of Heaven
Where angels sweep away fear with their wings
Where the power of trust within me
Nourishes the fellow men with this joy.
Strength … and POWER
Does your heart feel the fear?
When it sees the forces of this world
Over the authorities, pride, egotism, unworthy law
When it sees strong, mighty men
Humiliating the weak
Doesn’t it shrink out of pain?
Until it becomes a particle of sand
And a defenseless heart
Engulfed in fear, seeking escape
From violence
From the shattering fist of this world
Straining the muscles to fight for the prime of evil
Whom does your heart call to, then?
Does it call for the forces that bring revenge?
Does it want to win the war by the war?
The forces of this world threaten with weapon
With a cunning, wretched and hateful face
But there is a stronger POWER over them
The invisible POWER with no weapon, no fist
The POWER of Love and Justice, invincible
The POWER, always victorious, the POWER of God over the world
You get to know It when you wipe the tears off the harmed
When you share the bread and love
When you kneel before the Tabernacle, in despair
When courage is born in your heart
To defend the weak and innocent
There is the POWER over the forces of this world, invincible
The POWER of God
The POWER of the Cross of Christ
The POWER of the blood of the martyrs
And the POWER of prayer of all the saints.
The root of the earth
One evening I was looking at dark clouds
Pouring out like ink-like shadows
The shadows were taking over the remains of daily light
But the light was defending itself bravely
Hiding in the tree branches and in the grass
This struggle between darkness and light
Was like a childlike frolic
Like the music of low and high tides of sea waves
I was praying, enchanted with this beauty
And then …
In my heart I saw an awesome picture
An empty field, rather a fallow, left over by the farmers long ago
It reached out as far as the horizon
Suddenly … a huge cross
Is falling onto this empty field
The long beam is piercing into the ground
As if it wanted to become a powerful root
The horizontal beams were propped against the ground
And in a beseeching, human gesture, like human hands
They were lifting up to the sky
The wood of the cross and the light cast around
A red, bloody glow
I desired some words, some explanation
But this tranquility, this closed mouth of silence
Prompted me to endure … in adoration.
The Silence that hears
There are moments, woven in a mystical world
Being born on the edge of a dream, falling into the heart like a pearl
And they touch us … without any touch
With just a glance, with a light movement of the wind
They are in prayer, spinning somewhere between Heaven and Earth
These moments are like swallows with blades of grass in their beaks
The blades from the world where time doesn’t exist
From the world of eternity …
I touched such a moment unexpectedly
Maybe a swallow dropped a blade of grass near me?
Maybe an angel opened ajar the door of his world for a moment?
I hid this moment in my heart like a thirsty person
The mysterious gift …
The gift of this moment was … the wonderful Silence
Not the vacuum but … the living silence
Flickering with light, with moving pearls of water, with particles of desert sand
This Silence … was listening, though it was silent
My happy soul was swimming in it
With no touch, no words, it was discovering the creative power of this silence
The power of love, peace and joy was shone through with the light of silence
The moment has passed, the moment of mysterious encounter
Maybe the swallow picked up the dropped blade of grass and flew away?
Maybe the noise of the waking day frightened the bird?
But I haven’t lost the memory of that gift of silence …
It is with me in the silent whiteness of the Holy Host.
Resurrection
During the Easter Octave, in the time of joy
I had a painful experience
During Adoration I got embraced by pain
The pain was more spiritual than physical
It strongly hurt, took away my breath, pressed out tears
It penetrated me, wishing to be accepted
So that it didn’t get lost in oblivion
This pain “gave birth” to images and was a director of a mute film
The mute film and the mute images …
Painful during the time of joy?
I saw Jesus walking among the ruins of the city
The burnt stumps of the walls made a tragic scenery
Jesus bowed down and picked up … dead children
He kissed and hugged each one
His robes were covered with their blood, dust and dirt of the burnt city
I also saw Jesus in a rich city
He was walking down a well-lit street
He knocked at the doors of the clubs filled with music
People looked at Him and His dirty clothes with contempt
And He walked away …
For a moment our eyes met together
Then I heard: just look what I resurrected to …
I embraced this spiritual pain and the words of Jesus tightly
He didn’t accuse but showed to my heart
That I and you and others have a long way yet
The long way for the Resurrection of the heart, mind, ears, eyes and body
For the Resurrection … for the love of your neighbor
For the Resurrection … for peace
Just look what I resurrected to – says Jesus
I think, Jesus, that Your Resurrection, despite our downfalls
Is still the merciful Hope for mankind.
01.05.2017. 1-st of May. Feast of St. Joseph the Craftsman. This day I particularly want to honor St. Joseph and I also ask Him for graces flowing out of the Eucharist. I ask Him to be able to cling to the Eucharistic Jesus so much that while receiving Him into my soul I could experience a great feast … I saw in my heart an oval figure with the rays that were similar to the rays surrounding the Holy Mother of Guadelupe. Then I heard: this is your soul that Jesus is coming to. Inside this figure, filled with whiteness, in its very center there were protruding very hard, sharp, black thorns. They were of different size and length. These were our sins, old and new ones, negligence, unfriendly thoughts, even tiny maliciousness. The biggest sharp thorn was with the people who thought they were sinless … Every bad thought, every sin grows like a thorn in the soul. Standing before the Eucharistic Jesus, we receive the Communion … I, you and Jesus … In order to reach our heart, Jesus hurts Himself with the thorns of the soul that is contaminated with sin. Sometimes He reaches us … but bleeds in pain. Jesus, I thought, how priceless and essential is the beseeching prayer before receiving You in the Communion. How important and valuable is frequent confession so that we could discern even tiny thorns, so that we didn’t get used to a conviction that we are sinless. And while receiving Jesus into our heart we should be aware of His painful penetration through us. We shouldn’t receive Jesus during the Communion thoughtlessly but we must always beseech Him for forgiveness for the thorns through which He reaches our hearts.
Oh, Holy Mother of Gidle
You Are little
So little that a human hand can embrace You
And though You Are stony, You don’t weigh like a stone
You Are more like a kiss, delicate and blowy
When an earthly mother kisses her child’s hand
You Were carved in large stones
And Your images were painted on the canvas
You Are not a monument in the Gidle’s little statue
You are like a key in the hand of man
Given to people so that they could open the heart of Jesus with prayer
Five hundred years ago when the ground was being ploughed
The statue of Mary miraculously “flowed” into a farmer’s hands
The light got brightened up, even the oxen knelt down
The washed-over statue began to do miracles
It’s been famous for graces until now, converting souls, healing bodies
Once You asked Your Son, Mary, in Galilean Cana
To turn water into wine at the newlywed’s wedding
Today, Your sons, the Dominicans
Dip in wine Your holy little statue
And the drops of this wine bring hope to the thirsty
So that they could become the newlywed of contemporary Cana
The Cana of Love, Hope and Faith.
The Feast
Do you know that there is such a Feast
That is rich, abundant and has unknown flavors
Strewing with gifts
The Feast like for the royal children
Love fills the golden chalices there
And enlivening wine and fragrant bread are poured out
The tables are decorated with the whiteness of a tablecloth
That are embroidered with beautiful patterns
As if the angels themselves invented these embroideries
The Feast where you hear a laughter of your soul
But also a groan of pain
Joy and crying
This Feast is … Holy Mass
When you receive the Communion from the hands of the priest
It is like a gate, opening your closed heart
Like a delicate dove, wise and tender
And it looks for unhealed wounds in you
That we and life have afflicted
The Communion cures these wounds, lights up the darkness of the soul
It sprinkles them abundantly from the chalice of wine of love
It covers up old scars that are often forgotten
So that the painful memories didn’t come back
It is not a Feast where only one song sounds
This is the Feast of Great Silence, of such calm
That you can hear the song that is sung only for you
The song of your love for God, that is being born in you.
Teacher of Love
You are a Teacher of Love, Jesus
A Professor in the academy without rooms, pens and books
Your Cathedral is a wooden cross
Your pen is the nails that Your hands were pierced with
The ink is Your blood gushing from Your wounds and the side
You are a wandering Preacher, seeking pupils
You are a frequent Pilgrim in hostile places
You are not afraid of bitter words and roads covered with sins
You go with courage where others escaped
You are a Missionary of the Way of the Cross of Love
Quietly You stand by the sick, the lonely, the rejected
They feel tenderness, though they don’t see the person
Their hearts feel a strange power and hope
When the Teacher poured the drops of His Love into them
Making their tear-flooded hearts like rainbow-shinning crystals
You don’t distribute diplomas about Love, Jesus
A man that is touched with a grace of Your Love
Wants himself to become a teacher of love for his fellow men
And courageously wanders to the places and hearts where others escaped
He wants to be a faithful missionary and a trustful helper of the Lord
Teaching the Truth about the Cross of Love.
01.08.2017. Before my daily Mass, I have 15 minutes for my adoration of Jesus and a decade of the Rosary. I love this time of my morning “encounter”. Suddenly, in my heart somebody asks me a question: do you know why the Rosary is so important and why the Holy Mother in Her every apparition in the world says … pray the Rosary. I start to think it over … and help comes … I see an image of the Holy Mother who is following Jesus in His Way of the Cross. I see Her bending down … and picking up His blood into a white cloth, She doesn’t leave any drop. The cloth is still white … though there is the blood of the Lord inside. Then I hear in my heart: these are the drops of blood from which the pearls of the Rosary were formed. The Holy Mother threaded them on the string of Her love and gave them to people. This image was a great experience for me. I have been praying the Rosary for years, more or less “cordially” but now when I touch the beads of the Rosary, I “feel” that the Rosary is alive, living with the blood of Christ, and every “Hail Mary” nourishes the praying person with power. That’s why we hear this call of Mary … pray the Rosary!
The cry of life
The cry of the birth of new life
Tears up the curtains of the air
Which are rocking lazily
In the rhythm of the passing time
It tears it up with the sounds
That call upon love
That it still doesn’t know much about
The cry, this childlike speech, still endures
But the time of life leaves its lazy rhythm, and speeds up
The child learns his parents’ speech, the words of understanding
As if the cry were an awesome mystery …
As if the emotions brought over a hidden fear
And the new life receives new words, many words
But the cry, although asleep, still endures …
The cry is like a mystical bird, it endures and doesn’t fly off
It isn’t enchanted by the charm of poetry
It remembers the pain of birth, it seeks the truth
The truth that will nourish the “mystical bird”
It will transform the cry and will tame it with … love
Holy prayer will be given for this pain
Flowing down with the beads of the Rosary like drops of medicine
For any pain, fear, misunderstanding
For this human cry of the heart.
Spliced Rosaries
I surround myself with the Joyful Mystery of Rosary
Like with a wreath of roses
Hail Mary becomes a conversation
Of a child with Mother
Gentle words of Mother lead to meditation
I lay my requests on the Rosary of Her life
These two Rosaries of life of Mother and a child
Get spliced in the loving prayer
There is Annunciation on the Rosary of life of Mary
And Her trustful, beautiful fiat
There are ten beads, colorful and gray on my Rosary
They are the signs of time of hesitations, departures, returns
There are also colorless beads, indifferent
How many years passed, how many people touched my heart
So that I could feel the bead of love under my fingers
So hot from the glance of Mother, calling for my fiat
The Rosary of Mary’s life is flowing on in the Mystery of Visitation
The enlivening stream of the Holy Spirit leads Her
To Elisabeth and Zacharias
The Rosaries of life of Mary and Elisabeth get spliced
Jesus and John become a great gift of God for the world
How many signs of God’s presence are there on my Rosary of life?
How many love-burning beads for God?
How many encounters with fellow men in the prayer of gratitude?
The Mystery of Nativity, a poor grotto, no decorations
Only the intense stare of Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds
The stare over the silent miracle
The miracle that only a loving heart can recognize
But not the eyes that like the glare and blinding light
And not the ears that wait for a clatter and fanfares
I touched the Rosary of my life with this silent miracle, this Mary’s lullaby
So that it would become a prayer of the heart
The Mystery of Offering, the mystery of the eyes of Ann and Simeon
They are the only who see Jesus – God in the hands of a poor family
The eyes of others in the temple don’t recognize the miracle
The miracle that appeared in their life
Simeon proclaims suffering to Mary
I am holding my Rosary of life and there I seek
The beads that I offered in suffering and pain
I seek the beads of offering my life to God
The Mystery of Losing and Finding Jesus
Mary and Joseph are looking for the Son but He is teaching in the temple
I touch the Rosary of my life and meditate over this mystery
Am I overestimating my faith?
Am I overestimating my love for Jesus?
Don’t I get lost in too many prayers?
Then I hear Jesus whispering … come back to Me, my child
And find Me in the temple of your heart, I am waiting there for you.
The Sorrowful Rosary
The Olive Garden. A strange garden, spurting with enlivening greenery in the day
At night, the garden is filled with Jesus” suffering
And His beseeching words: keep vigil with Me …
The Apostles’ dream is so deep that the words of the Lord get sunk in it
Judas is about to appear … he isn’t asleep
How many times have I sunk Your words, Jesus, in my indifference?
How often have I been afraid to stand beside You, who suffered?
Scourging. The whips grooved bleeding wounds on Your body, Jesus
Our sins are in Your wounds like wasps in a nest
And they touch Your body
You are like a honey-comb absorbing the evil of the world
Your suffering body is saving people
How many stings of sin have I pierced into Your wound, Lord
When I consciously closed my eyes when You suffered?
Crowning with thorns. The hangmen think: we injured the body
But He isn’t pleading, He is praying …
We will drive thorns into His head, maybe He will stop praying …
Maybe the power of prayer will disappear?
And He will ask for mercy?
Forgive me, Jesus, for my thorns of doubt about You
Sorry about my abandoned prayers
The cross on Jesus’ arms. Your world, Jesus, punished You with the cross of shame
It punished You physically with abasement and pain
And You, Jesus, dressed the cross with the robe of victorious Love
This robe of Love, invisible for the hangmen
Was woven out of obedience to the will of the Father, the deeds like white lilies
Which covered the cross of shame and defeated the cruelty of sin
Who wants to follow Me, You said … should take his cross …
Death of Jesus on the cross. The cross with Jesus was driven into Golgotha
The earth trembled, pierced with the cross
Pierced with … Divine Love … injured with the pain of this Love
A soldier is piercing Jesus’ side and His heart
As if he wanted to kill this Love, deprive It of life
But now the spring of graces is flowing out of this wound
And it fills the vessels of life of many generations with living water …
For the salvation of sinners.
The Glorious Mysteries
The Resurrection. The morning awakens sounds, light, fragrances
It awakens chastity that radiates with … hope
The hope for a beautiful song, a hymn of victory of good
The stone of the tomb is removed, Magdalene does not recognize the Lord
Her eyes, like ours, don’t recognize the miracle of Resurrection at once
This wonderful gift of God, the gift of the holy morning
That gives birth to the souls for eternity
The Ascention. I am going to prepare home for you, says the Lord
The heads of the Apostles are lifted toward Heaven, the hearts are uneasy, fear of loneliness
The world of unbelievers in the Resurrection still exists
Those who don’t believe in the Saviour
They look for earthly gods as if they were afraid of eternity
Let’s pray for those who make their body a god
And don’t ask Jesus for a home for their soul
The Descent of the Holy Spirit. I will not leave you orphans, I will send The Holy Consoler
It is said by The One who was nailed to the cross by people
So speaks Love that does not get angry
And does not remember bad things, does not seek what is His …
The Love that never leaves you
But this Love also begs at the altars of the world:
Don’t leave Me, let Me not become an orphan!
The Assumption. The angels opened the windows of Heaven, St. Peter is kneeling at the gate
Mary, with soul and body is lifted up to Heaven
We don’t know how joyful it was
Sometimes the echo of this joy sounds like a song in our ears
When we, on our knees worship the Mother of Beautiful Love
When we kiss Her statues, pictures and send our prayers
When we beseech and ask … and She, The Mother makes miracles in our life
Mary, The Queen of Heaven and Earth. Adored by the angels, The Immaculate
But Your sight, Mary, is still turned to Earth
You have apparitions, You plead, You warn
You even cry, like an earthly mother, when hurt with pain
Of lack of gratitude and sinfulness of Your children
Out of Your tears and drops of blood of Jesus, You make the holy gift – The Rosary
You bind Heaven and Earth and Your heart with the hearts of earthly children with it
So that our hearts and Yours, Mary
Got together in the joy of Heaven.
The icon written by life
I was gazing upon You, Jesus
On pictures and sculptures
I was whispering prayers and was often silent
I wanted to enliven Your every image
And believed like a naïve child
That someday You would move …
There was such a day, the Feast of Sister Faustina
When I was engulfed in an adoring silence
And I heard a friendly voice:
Paint the Lord with your life
Carve His face with a chisel
Dipped in the treasury of His words
And remember that the beauty of Jesus’ picture is not in the artist’s talent
But in the power of love and trust of the creator
So I make an icon out of a desire of a longing heart
On the fabric, woven out of the sparks of inspiration
I feed a sleepless night with a rosary prayer
And meditate over the Lord’s Passion and put His pain into my icon
I ask Veronica for a holy veil, maybe She will lend me?
I paint Jesus’ garments with the colors of beauty of the seasons
And wipe His degraded face with my penance and contrition
For my icon I seek Truth and Love in the Eucharist
In my prayer I ask my Guardian Angel for advice
He whispers shortly: paint your life with a brush of Holiness
I want so much to write Your icon, Jesus
For my heart that thirsts to enliven You
So that I could hear You while looking at Your mouth
And while looking at Your eyes I could discern Your will
And through Your smile, tears and pain
I could discern Your blessings and requests.
Do you love Me?
On a gray, cold, rainy day
Which bears sadness and pain
I heard in my heart a question of the Lord:
Do you love Me?
This voice was like an ingenious singer
Who can transform a sad soul with his singing
And enliven with a joyful song of hope …
How can I not love You, Jesus?
Without loving You, I would be like a bird without wings
Like a house without doors and windows, a prisoner of the body
Like an orphan, abandoned in the desert
Like an illiterate of Your words of love
Blind and deaf would be my heart, indifferent
To Your and human love
I love You, Jesus, for You gave me the wings of faith
I am like a bird, sitting down on Your hands
I am not an orphan, I have You, Jesus
I am not a prisoner of the body
My eyes see further, my ears hear Your words
I rejoice when I hear Your voice, Your question:
Do you love Me?
For my soul feels
That even this crumb of my love – toward You
It is Your gift – Your presence in me.
The depth of faith
During the adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament
When I nourished my soul with silence
That is free from thoughts and words, buzzing with worries
I saw a picture as if borrowed from the Heavenly Gallery
The picture of human figures boldly entering
Into the waters of the ocean
They were dressed in long robes lifted up by the waves
And keeping them up on the surface for a while
Dusk has embraced the ocean with its arms
And it would overpower this picture completely … if
There weren’t a lively, sparkling light that accompanied those people
The light whose source I didn’t see
I thought … the saints?
Yes, the saints who are not afraid of the depth of the ocean
The saints, the blessed who don’t feel any fear
They know the source of the Light – the Holy Spirit
That endures with them, accompanies them
Turning the depth of the ocean … into the depth of faith
Will they drown? – I asked with awe in my heart
They will … but they will not withdraw and look for a safe beach
They will sink in the dark night of the soul, they will cry …
They will seek the cross-ship in the whirlpool of the ocean of faith
It will lift them to the surface of trust
The saints and blessed, the servants of God, who are so in love with God
That the depth of the ocean of faith will not scare them.