Marian Celebration in Katowice (20 June 1983)

On Monday, 20 June 1983, at a Marian Celebration in the Diocese of Katowice, he spoke of meeting the image of Our Lady of Piekary. In his homily, the Pope reflected on the "gospel of work." 

1. Praise be to Jesus Christ!

Dear Brothers and Sisters! With all my heart I thank you for the invitation to come to Piekary.

My pilgrimage to Piekary Slaskie , to the Shrine of the Mother of God in the Diocese of Katowice, has a history of many years. As Metropolitan of Krakow, he was invited to preach the Word of God on the last Sunday in May, when the annual pilgrimage of men and male youth takes place. This is a special event in the life of the Church, not only in Silesia but throughout Poland. Men and young people from the vast industrial region then come to Piekary , which goes beyond the Silesian limits of Katowice, either to the West, towards Opole, or to the East, towards Krakow. The same happens today, only the scope of the pilgrimage has expanded. It is no longer a meeting with men, but a general meeting; I therefore welcome you and from my heart I greet all of you present here, dear Brothers and Sisters: men and women, male and female youth, all families.

I have been waiting for this meeting in Piekary since 1978. I have waited for it with perseverance and trust. And you too have waited for it with perseverance and trust . And when it became possible, it was clear that we could not all fit on the top of the Piekary hill. And so Piekary had to transfer to this airport near Katowice, where we are now. In order to be able to carry out the current pilgrimage of the Pope to Piekary, it was necessary this time for Piekary itself to go on pilgrimage!

2. And so, in fact, it happened. In the context of the jubilee of the sixth, centenary of Jasna Góra, today I arrive at the sanctuary of Piekary, and the Mother of God, from her Sanctuary, comes kindly to meet me.

This meeting took the form of a great prayer of the Church of Katowice. The prayer has been going on since the last Sunday of May, since the image of Our Lady of Piekary set out for today’s meeting, visiting each of the parishes along the way. And today, here at this airport, the prayer that accompanies the arrival of the image of Piekary Slaskie has continued since dawn . First of all, there is the recitation of the rosary, and together with it, the singing, the readings and the meditations, according to the planned program, established and carried out with all Silesian precision.

I ask myself: after so many hours of preparation in prayer, do you still have enough strength to listen to the Pope? Aren't you very tired and tired?

However, the memory of previous meetings in Piekary tells me that the people of Silesia and, in general, all men accustomed to the hard work of this industrial region do not easily tire of praying . Furthermore, they know how to pray in such an "attractive" way in their large community that prayer does not tire them. It may happen that when they leave their Sanctuary they feel tired, but not exhausted, because they bring with them vigorous spiritual resources for the hard daily work.

3. And for this reason I thank the Church of Katowice for this meeting today. I thank Bishop Herbert , who has often invited me to come here as Metropolitan and Cardinal, and when he decided to invite me also as Pope, he did not rest until this decision was put into practice. In greeting him, I extend this greeting to Bishops Jozef, Czeslaw and Janusz, who are united in episcopal service. I greet the Chapter and all the clergy: you, dear brother priests , with whom I am sometimes united by bonds no less close than those that unite me with my brother priests of the Archdiocese of Krakow. I cordially greet the male and female religious orders, hoping that their evangelical vocation will bear fruit in the harvest of the great human work that they encounter every day. I greet the Major Seminary, with which I was associated in the past: as a professor and as Metropolitan of Krakow. May this Seminary continue to flourish with an abundance of diocesan and missionary vocations.

To all the busy diocesan institutions, among others the "Gosc Niedzielny" ("Sunday Visitor"), I say, in the presence of the Mother of God of Piekary, as they say in Silesia: " Szczesc Boze! " (God help you).

Allow me also to extend a greeting to the Polish Cardinals present here: the Cardinal Primate and Metropolitan of Krakow, and the German Cardinals of Mainz and Berlin, as well as to all the Bishops present, Polish and foreign. I see that Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia in the United States is also present. Together with you I greet you all.

4. I enter here into the great prayer, which has continued not only since the last Sunday of May, not only today since dawn, but has lasted for generations , filling the whole year, every week and every day.

Once, when the Silesia of today did not yet exist, but there was already the image of the Mother of God in Piekary, the Polish king John III Sobieski entered this prayer, when he went to the aid of Vienna.

Today, I, Bishop of Rome and at the same time a son of the Polish nation, wish to join in the prayer of today's Silesia, which looks to the image of Our Lady of Piekary as it does to the image of the Mother of justice and social love.

And so I also wish, for this prayer, to draw inspiration from the many forms of work that you carry out every day, when — precisely in the midst of your work — you greet one another by saying: "Szczesc Boze!" (God help you) — "Szczesc Boze!" (God help you).

So it is. To get to the very roots of human work — be it work in industry or on the land, the fatigue of a miner, a metalworker or an employee, or the housework of a mother, or the tiredness of working with the sick —, to reach the very root of any human work , it is necessary to refer to God: "Szczesc Boze!" (God help you).

5. With this greeting " Szczesc Boze " (God help you) we address the man who works, and at the same time we report his work to God.

We report human work first to God the Creator . First of all, in fact, the work of creation itself (namely, bringing the existence of the cosmos out of nothing) is presented in the Book of Genesis as the "work" of God , divided into the six "days of creation". After these days, God, having finished the work he had done on the seventh day, rested from his work (cf. Gen. 2, 2); With this, Sacred Scripture also imposes on man the obligation to rest, the obligation to give God the holy day.

Human work is related to God the Creator. In fact, when God created man in his own image and likeness , he gave him the mandate to dominate the earth. This biblical expression is a particularly profound and content-rich description of work. The analysis of these biblical words, which are already contained in the Book of Genesis, is largely the basis of my Encyclical Laborem exercens , which I dedicated two years ago to human work.

6. When we greet each other at work with the phrase "Szczesc Boze" (God help you), we express in this way our benevolence towards our fellow worker, and at the same time we refer his work to God the Creator, to God the Redeemer .

To redeem man, the Son of God became man in the womb of Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, by the work of the Holy Spirit. Christ rescued us through his cross and resurrection , making himself obedient until death. The entire earthly life of the Son of God also enters into the work of Redemption, His messianic mission united with the proclamation of the Gospel and, before this, the thirty years of hidden life, which from its beginning was dedicated to work in the workshop alongside Joseph of Nazareth . Thus, in the word of divine revelation is printed the Gospel of work, which the Church always rereads again and again announces to all men. Work, in fact, is man's fundamental vocation on this earth.

He talks about this in the year that celebrates the extraordinary Jubilee of Redemption . This year, the entire Church desires in a particularly profound way to draw its spiritual strength from the mystery of Redemption. The worker is also called to unite, through his own work, to Christ the Redeemer of the world, who was also a "man of work".

All this rich content is contained in these two words " Szczesc Boze " (God help you), which are heard so frequently in Poland, and especially in Silesia. To Christ, to the Gospel of work, to the mystery of Redemption, we approach through Mary : precisely through She who, in her Sanctuary in Piekary, is united to entire generations of working men in Silesia; precisely through Mary, whom here in Silesia you invoke as the Mother of justice and social love.

7. Human work is, in fact, at the heart of all social life. It is through work that justice and social love are formed, if each sector of work is governed by a just moral order. But if this order does not exist, injustice takes the place of justice and hatred takes the place of love.

Invoking Mary as Mother of justice and social love, you, dear Brothers and Sisters, as workers of Silesia and the whole of Poland , wish to express how much you value precisely that moral order, which should, govern the sector of work.

The whole world followed, and continues to follow with emotion, the events that took place in Poland from August 1980 onwards. What particularly reflected public opinion was the fact that these events were above all about the moral order related to human work, and not just the increase in wages. She was also made aware of the fact that these events were free from violence, that no one suffered death or injuries because of them. Finally, there is also the fact that the events in the Polish world of work in the 1980s bore a clearly religious sign .

No one, therefore, can be surprised that here, in Silesia, in this great "basin of work", the Mother of Christ is venerated as the Mother of justice and social love.

8. Justice and social love precisely mean plenitude of the moral order, united to the entire social system and in particular to the system of human work .

Work derives its fundamental value from the fact that it is carried out by man. This is also the basis of the dignity of work , which must be respected regardless of the type of work that man does. The essential thing is that man does it. By carrying out any work, he imprints on it the mark of the person: of his image and likeness to God himself. It is also important that man carries out work for someone, for others.

The Gospel of work, a lesson in justice and social love

Work is also an obligation of man: whether before God or before men, both before his own family and before the Nation , the society to which he belongs.

This obligation, that is, the duty to work, also corresponds to the rights of the working person, which must be formulated in the broad context of human rights. Social justice consists in the respect and implementation of human rights in relation to all members of a given society.

Against this background, those rights which directly concern the work performed by man acquire a just eloquence. I will not go into details, but will only list the most important ones. First of all, the right to a fair wage — fair, that is, one which is also sufficient for the maintenance of the family. Then, the right to insurance in the event of accidents at work. And finally, the right to rest. (I remember how many times in Piekary we discussed the question of Sundays off from work.)

9. The sphere of workers' rights also includes the problem of trade unions. I repeat what I wrote in this regard in the encyclical Laborem exercens :

"... modern unions grew from the struggle of workers, the world of work and, above all, industrial workers, for the protection of their fair rights, in accordance with entrepreneurs and owners of the means of production. It constitutes their task is to defend the existential interests of workers in all sectors where their rights are at stake. Historical experience teaches that organizations of this type are an indispensable element of social life, especially in modern industrialized societies. that only industrial workers can form associations of this kind. Representatives of all professions can use them to guarantee their respective rights. There are, in fact, unions of farmers and intellectual workers... Yes, they are. , an exponent of the fight for social justice, for the fair rights of working men according to their various professions" (n. 20). The encyclical then also talks about the duties, manner and limits of the activity of trade unions.

In this spirit I already spoke in January 1981, during the audience granted in the Vatican to the Solidarity Delegation , accompanied by the Delegate of the Polish Government for permanent working contacts with the Holy See.

And here in Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski said: "This is the right that men have to associate; this is not a right granted by someone, it is an innate right. That is why this right is not given to us by the State, which only has the duty to protect and monitor it so that it is not violated. This right is given by the Creator, who made man as a social being. From the Creator come the social character of human aspirations, the need for us. associate and unite with each other" (Discourse, 6.2.81).

10. Therefore, dear friends, the issue that has been taking place in Poland in recent years has a profound moral significance . It cannot be resolved in any other way than through genuine dialogue between the authorities and society. The Episcopate has often recommended this dialogue.

Why do workers in Poland and indeed throughout the world have the right to such dialogue? Because the working man is not only an instrument of production, but also a subject who has priority over capital in the entire process of production. Through his work, man becomes the true administrator of the organization of work, the work process, the products of work and their distribution. He is also willing to make sacrifices when he feels himself to be a true co-administrator and can influence the fair distribution of what has been produced through collaboration.

11. We turn to Mary as Mother of social justice , so that these fundamental principles of the social order, on which the true meaning of human work depends, and together with it the meaning of man's existence, are clothed in a concrete social life of our land. Man, in fact, is not capable of working when he does not see the meaning of his work, when this meaning is no longer transparent. When it is somewhat overshadowed. Therefore we address our ardent prayer to the Mother of social justice, so that she may once again give meaning to work, to the work of all men in Poland.

At the same time, we invoke Mary as the Mother of social love . By putting into practice the principles of social justice, the love of which Christ spoke to his disciples becomes possible: "A new commandment I give you: that you love one another" ( Jn 13:34).

This social love is nothing other than the " civilization of love ", constantly recalled by Pope Paul VI , towards which all development of social life and international life must be directed.

Among other things, he said:

"A civilization which, precisely because it has its origin in love for humanity and because it aims to lead humanity to enjoy the joyful experience of love, must dedicate itself to the search for and affirmation of the authentic and full values ​​of life, even though... it may give rise to misunderstandings, difficulties and opposition" ( Paul VI , General Audience, 21 January 1976).

12. Love is greater than justice . And social love is greater than social justice. If it is true that justice must prepare the ground for love, then the even greater truth is that only love can ensure the fullness of justice.

Therefore, man must be truly loved if man's rights are to be fully guaranteed. This is the first and fundamental dimension of social love.

The second dimension is the family . The family is also the first and essential school of social love. Everything must be done so that this school can remain what it is. At the same time, the family must be so fortified by God — that is, by the reciprocal love of all those who form it — that it knows how to remain a bulwark for man in the midst of all destructive currents and painful trials.

Another dimension of social love is the homeland : the sons and daughters of the same nation remain in love with the common good, which they draw from culture and history, finding in these the support for their social identity, and at the same time providing this support for others, for compatriots. This circle of social love has a particular significance in our Polish historical experience , and in our contemporary world.

Social love opens up to all men and all people. If he is formed in a deep and solid way in his fundamental desires (man, family, country), then he also overcomes the test in a broader scope.

13. Therefore, dear participants in this meeting in Silesia, once again, of your compatriot and Successor of Peter, accept in this great community of ours the Gospel of work, and accept the Gospel of justice and social love .

May it unite us deeply; around the Mother of Christ in her Sanctuary in Piekary, just as it united entire generations here.

May it shine widely in the lives of hard-working men in Silesia and throughout Poland.

We also remember all the deceased workers , those who suffered fatal accidents in the mines or elsewhere, those who recently lost their lives in tragic events. All!

As for us, the living, a great moral effort awaits us , linked to the Gospel of work: the effort that aims to introduce justice and social love into Polish life.

Under the sign of Mary — with Her help!

For this effort and this fatigue: Szczesc Boze (God help you)!

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