QUEEN OF PEACE, QUEEN OF FAMILIES, QUEEN OF POLAND
From reflections during the Appeal Prayer at Jasna Góra 6 May 2014
FR. IRENEUSZ SKUBIŚ
We are coming to You, attracted again today by the papal ‘Totus Tuus’. Yours and also our New Saint – John Paul II has marked again his person strongly in the heart of the Church. He was born as a Saint together with St. John XXIII, the initiator of the Vatican Council II, he was recognized beside the theologian genius of the senior pope Benedict XVI, and pope Francis, collecting crumbs of God’s Word and he will express his presence in the liturgy of the universal Church.
We are standing before You, Our Lady, as always, with a big luggage of our important matters and requests which come from our hearts and minds. Today the most essential matter for us is the matter of peace, especially in nearby Ukraine, where the war has started, where people, our Christian brothers are killed. Queen of Peace, we submit you our request full of pain, for peace between the nations: the Russian and Ukrainian ones. We ask you to give freedom to the Ukrainian nation. Do not allow political ideologies to destroy the human life or anybody’s freedom.
Queen of all Saints, including these two new saint Popes. How much you blessed John XXIII who used to dream about renewed and beautiful Church, whose beginning was this excellent Vatican Council II. This Saint Pope made the Vatican Council a moment of the great historic turn in the life of the Church. Divine Providence inscribed the great pope John Paul II in this turn, who, being a Pole, gave the brightness in the Church; the Pope of the turn of also millenniums, who, thanks to his spirituality, power of predicting the Gospel to all nations, and thanks to the unusual dynamism of his pontificate, became a real missionary of the world, bringing nations on all continents peace, joy and grace of presence of Christ. This presence of Christ has shone on the Square of St. Peter in the Eternal City now, among the gathered crowds of people from all over the world, including – the multi-thousand crowd of Poles, who, willing to follow holiness, were wandering through various holy places of Italy- through Manopello, San Giovanni Rotondo, Loreto and others – saying words everywhere, which accompanied John Paul II on his way to holiness: ‘Totus Tuus’ – All Yours, Mary, all Yours, God, Creator of the World.
Today we want to repeat this papal call before Your image as well as entrustment of us to You, and we want our whole nation to be within the rays of holiness of John Paul II, so that it would feel the need of warmth of Divine Mercifulness which comes directly from Jesus’ Heart. During canonization pilgrimage to Rome we had a possibility to feel the influence of Divine Mercifulness through friendliness and culture of people whom we met on our path, through authentic love, considering the poor and people in need. But this mercifulness, taking place through human hands, is still so needed. It is needed by children, whose safe development is still at stake and who lack bread not only the one on the earth, but also the one which enlivens eternal life in man.
Today, standing before You, Mary at the hour of the Appeal Prayer, we are aware that we are representatives of thousands of people grateful for what happened on these days on the Square of St. Peter and on pilgrimage routes on the Italian land and what strengthened us with great prayer , words of friendship and solidarity. But we are also representatives of those who – not noticed by powerful people of this world – are struggling with the basic life matters. In the spirit of great solidarity with them all, we ask You, our Lady, to strengthen our faith which must be active faith. We ask You to help us be in solidarity with our neighbours, respect our Christian tradition, fight against the hypocrisy of the world and this all which is simply used for developing of the satan’s world. Because what was signing the convention of the European Union by the Polish government, concerning violence in family? It is the pagan convention, which under the appearance of the good, wants to destroy the Christian culture and eliminate God from human souls.
We are surprised by the attitude of the Polish government, which presents directly from the Square of St. Peter such propositions to the baptized nation.
Therefore, our Lady, accept our readiness to call together with Your excellent son St. John Paul II, a patron of all Poles: ‘Totus Tuus!’ – ‘Tota Tua!’. Poland is all Yours, Mary, it will never be pagan. We must only show our greater activity. Poland should convert Europe! Therefore we must elect such Poles to the European Parliament who guard Christian teaching, who will defend the cross and protect the Church. Those should be elected to the European Parliament who will really represent citizens of Poland, and who will be believers in God. We ask You, the Queen of Poland, to help Europe return to its Christian roots. When St. John Paul II was supporting joining the European Union by Poland, he was also entrusting us tasks of being missionaries of Europe, returning the Old Continent what had used to define it. For when the world is endangered today, Europe is endangered, too, as well as our Homeland and it is happening to much extent just because of rejection of God.
Our Lady, please help us stand by the cross, so that it would shine with brightness in Poland, in Europe and all over the world.
(AA)
"Niedziela" 20/2014