100 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE AND 100 YEARS OF FATHER TOMZIŃSKI
President Andrzej Duda handed Fr. Jerzy Tomziński, a Pauline Father, in the year of the 100th anniversary of independence gained by Poland and on the occasion of the jubilee of the 100th birthday of the oldest Pauline father, memorial medals and a congratulation letter. The ceremony was held on 2 September this year during the stay of president at the Jasna Góra harvest festival.
President Duda thanked Fr. Tomziński, a steadfast priest, for his love to Homeland and the nation. In the letter on this occasion he noted that Fr. Tomziński ‘initiated a national prayer for freeing the primate Stefan Wyszyński, giving the beginning to the tradition of performing the Jasna Góra Appeal Prayer. He played the main role in preparing and carrying out ceremonies of the Millennium of Poland Baptism and the 6th World Youth Days’. In the letter the president also mentioned the work of Father Jerzy as a chronicler and correspondent of Jasna Góra and a journalist of the Catholic Weekly ‘Sunday’. He thanked the Father ‘for his pastoral ministry for God and Church, Poland and the nation, for his beautiful attitude and love to Homeland’. He noted that ‘the Father’s jubilee is beautifully inscribed in the 100-year-old history of independent Republic of Poland, in which – despite tragedies of wars and repressions of the totalitarian system – it was possible, thanks to such steadfast priests as the Father to save the national pride and identity, passing free and democratic Poland over to the next generations’.
The president of Poland handed the prior of Jasna Góra Fr. Marian Waligóra a special letter informing about taking over the honourable patronage of the Jasna Góra celebrations of the 100th anniversary of gaining independence by Poland. These celebrations are going to be held at Jasna Góra sanctuary on 4 November 2018. 100 years ago, just on 4 November 2018, Jasna Góra was taken over from Austrian invaders by the captain Artur Wiśniewski. After 123 years of captivity it was the first time when Polish soldiers stood in front of the sanctuary gate, taking on the honour guard, and on the Jasna Góra tower there appeared white-red flags. Also Jasna Góra, was the first to become a part of independent Homeland whose independence was announced on 11 November. – It was the moment when Jasna Góra really became free, in free, independent Poland, which returned onto the maps of Europe and the world. I am glad that I could take over the honour patronage of this event at Jasna Góra – said president Duda.
Translated by Aneta Amrozik
Niedziela 37/2018 (16 IX 2018)