Consecration of the Church Dedicated to Saint Maximilian Kolbe (22 June 1983)

On Wednesday, 22 June 1983, at Nova Huta, the Holy Father consecrated the church dedicated to Saint Maximilian Kolbe. In his homily, the Pope said that, with his entrance into this church, Simon Peter enters, on whose confession the universal Church is founded, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" ( Mt 16:16).

1. "Therefore you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God " ( Eph 2:19).

I repeat these words from the first Reading of the Liturgy of the Consecration of a Church, taken from the Epistle to the Ephesians.

Dear Brothers and Sisters! You are "members of the family of God", because the Most Holy God, One in the Most Holy Trinity, has here among you, in Mistrzejowice, his House : the church, the house of God.

I feel happy about this.

Great is my joy, my dear Successor in the See of Saint Stanislaus, dear Bishops of the Archdiocese of Krakow, and you, Bishops, our dear Visitors.

I am happy, dear Monsignor Nicholas, who for a long time was chancellor and my collaborator in the Metropolitan Curia and for some years has been second parish priest of Mistrzejowice. And all of you, priests of Mistrzejowice and Nova Huta, of Kraków, of the Archdiocese and the surrounding area!

2. I am happy... Father Joseph! Dear Father Joseph! The first parish priest of Mistrzejowice, who devoted himself completely to this small part of the Church of Kraków... and who has been lying in the grave for almost seven years now: first in the Grebalow Cemetery, and now here, in the church of Mistrzejowice, next to the main altar.

May the Risen Christ allow you, dear Father José, to enjoy this present and extraordinary solemnity of an Easter nature.

When we consecrate a temple to the Living God, we enter into the mystery of Christ's Passover. Indeed, Christ himself, crucified and risen, is the cornerstone : "In him every building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together to become a dwelling place for God in the Spirit" ( ibid . vv. 21-22).

You carried in your heart this image of the future church in Mistrzejowice, dear Father Joseph: the image formed by living faith. And with this image you departed this world, at only 39 years of age: a worker for God , a priest of Jesus Christ, consumed to the end.

3. Today, your former Bishop, former Metropolitan of Krakow, and since 1978, by the inscrutable plan of Divine Providence, Bishop of Rome, consecrates this church. He performs its consecration .

And this is happening during my pilgrimage in Poland. What brings me to my homeland is the jubilee of Jasna Góra , due to the six centuries of the presence of the Mother of God in Her Effigy, loved by all Poles.

This also occurs in the first year after the elevation to the honors of the altars of Saint Maximilian Mary, martyr of Oswiècim, our compatriot.

It is right, from every point of view, that I should also be in Mistrzejowice on the itinerary of this pilgrimage. This church that I am about to consecrate, and the parish that it is to serve, came into being under the special inspiration of Father Maximilian , shortly after his beatification, which, as we recall, took place in October 1971. Father Joseph Kurzeja, taking on his difficult mission here, his heroic office, entrusted himself from the very first days to Saint Maximilian, who was then still blessed. He entrusted himself to the one who had given himself, without limits, to the Immaculate .

I remember the early beginnings of this difficult and humanly risky project: there was a small room for catechism and, attached to it, a porch for the altar. I celebrated the first Christmas midnight mass in Mistrzejowice in 1971. The small room welcomed children and young people for catechism; next to the altar, under the open sky, the parishioners of the increasingly developed Mistrzejowice district gathered in very varied weather conditions.

The inspiration of Saint Maximilian continued. His intercession paved the way for the difficult undertaking . This undertaking seemed to be threatened more than once. But finally, we express gratitude to the Krakow authorities, who at one time allowed construction on the site where we now stand.

4. Today is the day of the consecration of the church in Mistrzejowice, in Krakow-Nova Huta: the church of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, the first of the Polish saints, who already belongs to the second millennium of national history.

Today the walls of this modern building will be consecrated ; the altar will be anointed with holy chrism.

Today, Simon Peter also enters this new sacred space of the church of Mistrzejowice to make the same confession he made at Caesarea Philippi, when he answered the question: "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" This question had been asked by Jesus of Nazareth, and Simon Peter replied: " You are the Christ, the Son of the living God " ( Mt 16:16).

On this confession the Church is built as on a rock. That is why, in turn, Jesus of Nazareth said to Simon: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" ( ibid . v. 18).'

The entire Church is built on this profession of faith made by Simon Peter. The universal Church of Jesus Christ confesses that He is the Son of the living God. Every Church is based on this confession. Your parish of Mistrzejowice is also based on this confession , which is a small living part of the universal Church, belonging to the Archdiocese of Krakow.

What is this temple, then, that we dedicate and consecrate today? It is a surface, a sacred surface, in which the confession of Simon Peter resounds incessantly, repeated by thousands of lips and hearts.

5. Today, the Liturgy sings the solemn Psalm, which expresses the joy and faith of the People of God, the joy and faith of the Parish as it crosses the threshold of the House of God.

"I rejoiced when they said to me, 'We will go to the house of the Lord!' Our feet are at your gates, O Jerusalem!" ( Ps 121/122, 1-2).

Yes, dear brothers and sisters! Your feet stand on the threshold of the new church. Enter through its doors . Today, in a particularly solemn way. And so you will enter, may God grant it, from generation to generation. These generations must know how you began to move towards this church, when it did not yet exist. “Those who build churches visible to God,” says Peter Skarga, “have first built a church in their hearts” ( Homilies , vol. II, p. 369). Your generosity and your work in building this temple must be known . Those who planned and built it must be remembered. The many benefactors who contributed to this work must be remembered. In this remembrance, the priests who worked here from the beginning must have their place, first alongside Father Joseph, of holy memory, and then alongside his successor. May the Sisters, especially the Little Servants of the Immaculate Conception, have their own place in this remembrance.

It was the entire living community of the People of God of Mistrzejowice, of Nova Huta, that built its own future here . And it must continue to build it. Today is not the day of the end, but the day of the beginning.

Simon Peter's confession must become here, for each and every one, a leaven of life . Of divine life and at the same time fully human.

6. Nova Huta looks to Old Krakow and learns the history of the man who has lived for centuries in Poland, along the Vistula River – of the man, of the Christian, of the confessor of Christ. Nova Huta looks to the real Krakow – and adds a new chapter to its history. To the many parishes of Krakow, which have arisen over the centuries and at different times in our century, yet another is added. Each parish is the community of the People of God , in which the work of evangelization is systematically carried out.

Through this work the question of the Kingdom of Heaven is placed in the hands of the parish: " I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven " ( Mt 16:19), Christ says to Peter. These "keys" reach every parish, and through them the doors of the "age to come" must be opened to the people of every generation.

At the same time, the work of evangelization carried out in the parish passes through the hearts of living men. These men here in Mistrzejowice, in Nova Huta, constitute the new generation , which grows up in the shadow of the blast furnaces. The generation that day after day finds its growth in the great and heavy industrial work. The seed of the Gospel falls in the soil of this work. And since the Gospel is the Good News of the calling of man to the supreme dignity of being adopted children of God, consequently also the work of evangelization in the parish of Nova Huta must be particularly linked to the great question of the dignity of work. Of human and Christian dignity.

The parish dedicated to Saint Maximilian must dedicate itself to this task with perseverance.

7. My dear Brothers and Sisters!

Men of work! Today I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this church dedicated to Saint Maximilian and all the churches of Novaya Huta! They came into being here, in the midst of blast furnaces and factory chimneys, thanks to your faith and Christian solidarity !

In this new church of Mistrzejowice, which I will be given the opportunity to consecrate today, I wish to place in your hands the Gospel of Christ about work . May it be the Good News of your lives. Through you, may it become the Good News for the contemporary world. Christ placed the Gospel in the hands and hearts of the fishermen of Lake Gennesaret, and today it is necessary to place it in your hands and hearts so that it may be proclaimed “to all creation” ( Mt 16:15). So that the man of industry, the man of today’s technical civilization, may find himself in it, his dignity, his rights . So that thanks to it he may “have life” and “have it abundantly” ( Jn 10:10).

Allow me to quote the words I spoke in June of last year in Geneva at the International Labour Conference:

"The link between work and the very meaning of human existence always testifies that man has not been alienated by work, that he has not been enslaved. Quite the contrary, it confirms that work has become the ally of his humanity, that it helps him to live in truth and in freedom: in the freedom built on the truth that allows him to lead, in fullness, a life more worthy of man" (n. 7; 15.6.1982).

8. Finally, during this Year of Redemption , I wish to greet in Jesus Christ — from this one parish of Mistrzejowice — all the parishes of Nova Huta, Krakow and all of Poland.

I wish to wish everyone that the work of penance and reconciliation , which the time of this year's extraordinary Jubilee must express in a particular way, may develop in them organically and bear much fruit.

All, in fact, are built "on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone" ( Eph . 2:20).

To all the parishes of Novaya Huta, Krakow and all Poland, I convey, through the Mother of the Church, the blessing of peace and the holy kiss of charity . Amen.

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