Meeting with Pilgrims from the Diocese of Szczecin-Kamien-Czestochowa (18 June 1983)

On Saturday, 18 June 1983, the Holy Father met in Czestochowa with pilgrims from the Diocese of Szczecin-Kamien-Czestochowa, to whom he said, “You represent, dear Brothers and Sisters, a powerful and dynamic center of working, intellectual, spiritual and religious life," to all of whom he gave his blessing.

I give a cordial welcome and salute to the old, because almost millennia old, but at the same time very young church, which is in Szczecin. I greet Bishop Kazimierz and thank him for the words he spoke; I greet the Auxiliary Bishops, Bishops Jan and Stanislaw, the diocesan and regular clergy, the nuns and men religious; I greet all those who endured the toil of this pilgrimage to pray with the Pope here, in Czestochowa, in Jasna Góra, in this particular kingdom of Mary; and close the Jubilee of Jasna Góra together with him. I welcome and greet all the People of God of the Diocese of Szczecin-Kamien and the entire population of the Oder and the Baltic. I say to everyone, from here, in Czestochowa: "Peace be with you!". This meeting highlights, in a way, even more strongly what I said after landing at Warsaw airport:

"I would like to say, then, that I come to my entire homeland and to all Poles. From North to South, and from East to West."

2. For almost two thousand years, the Church has announced what it received from the Lord. And for more than a thousand years, the Good News that Jesus lives has resonated in our Polish Slavic lands.

The history of the evangelization of Western Pomerania is well known. A difficult, often painful evangelization, to remember only the attempts of the missionary Bárnard the Spaniard.

However, God sent his apostles again to announce to our parents what they had received from the Lord. We know that a fruit of the missionary sowing of the man of God, Saint Otto of German Bamberg, was the episcopal school founded in 1140, with headquarters in Wolin and subsequently in Kamien.

We know what the efforts and concern for evangelization were also on the part of those who reigned at the time, especially Boleslau Krzywoustego, who, once baptized, also saw in the Church a powerful factor that internally integrated and consolidated the still young State.

3. I look at you and with my heart I embrace your entire diocese, all of Pomerania, the entire Coast.

The Church did so much in these territories after their return within the confines of the current Polish State; a huge contribution of work in reconstruction, development, and settlement. Great work to make everyone feel at home and like family.

In the midst of all the difficulties and setbacks, the enormous effort of the Church, so that the Crucified and Resurrected Christ was announced and lived in the hearts of men. However, to this day, this Church, contrary to Polish conditions, has an exceptionally low number of priests.

With this hope and this confidence in this Church, in the People of God of Western Pomerania, I will bless you, in a little while; the first stone coming from St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, for the new Major Seminary in Szczecin! May the grace and blessing of God, who chooses servants among his people, descend upon him, and hearts be sensitive to his call.

Let me, in one sentence, recall all those who worked, often heroically, to make us feel at home in this territory, in faith and in being Polish. To the living and the dead I say in the name of the Church "Bog zaplac" (God pay you), and to the living, and to those who will come, I also say "courage"! God help you.

4. You represent, dear Brothers and Sisters, a powerful and dynamic center of working, intellectual, spiritual and religious life. I address you, students and teachers of all schools; to you, students and teachers of the athenaeums; to you, workers in the shipyards and ports, metalworkers, workers in the chemical industry, men of the sea and men of the hard work of the land. You come to the Jubilee of Jasna Góra with the Pope, with the weight of all the difficult past of these lands and this Church; you come especially with new experiences, those from after the war, and those that we are used to saying, from recent years. You come to the Mother of Czestochowa with a wound in your heart and in pain. And this presence of yours has the strength of testimony, of that testimony that astonished the entire world, when the Polish worker claimed himself with the Gospel in his hand and with prayer on his lips.

The images that were circulating around the world in 1980 touched hearts and consciences.

This happened because the fundamental question was the question — an important one — "how much?", but at its base was the question "in the name of what thing?", the question about the meaning of human work, of its very essence. In answering a question asked like this, these fundamental principles cannot be missing, which are as deep as man himself, and which have their beginning in God. Christ cannot be missing from this response. That's why, even in the most difficult and dramatic period, you invited Him in a private way.

Only the interiorly renewed man, for whom the supreme criterion is the integral doctrine about man, can in peace and with courage build a new reality. You therefore invited to Your side the Resurrected Christ, which Peter and the Eleven announced, which Saint Paul, Saint Adalbert, Saint Otto of Bamberg, Saint Stanislaus and Saint Maximilian Kolbe announced. The Christ who lives and who saves. The Christ of workers, of working men in the eighties of our century. The Christ who appears before us and says: Peace be with you! Don't be afraid! "Come and eat" ( John 21, 12).

5. At a time when the world is shaken by so many conflicts of different nature, full of various contradictions, when injustice prevails in its multiple aspects and the improper division of goods takes place, giving rise to tensions and struggles, the Pope I could not fail to publish an encyclical on human work. The Gospel of work and peace cannot fail to be proclaimed with particular force.

And at this moment, while you look at me and I look at you, and while the eyes full of maternal love and strength of the Lady of Jasna Góra look at us all, I could not help but speak, albeit briefly, of these great problems , which are formed above all in the conscience and in the heart of the man of this earth, tired but full of confidence and faith, uniting mine with Your testimony.

To the Mother of the Church, which this Diocese, among so many difficulties and sufferings, but also among so many efforts and hopes, chose as Patroness, I entrust everyone, every state, every man, every home and family, every environment.

May She watch over the right of her Son over You, over your hearts and over your consciences, and over Your right in relation to Him, Your work and its fruits, Your dignity, and to act in accordance with a right conscience and in accordance with universally recognized rights.

To all of you present here, and to those who join us spiritually, I bless you from the bottom of my heart.

© Copyright 1983 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

 Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana