Back to the Tomb of St. Stanislaus

Pope St. John Paul II said while on a pilgrimage to Fatima, “In God’s Providence, there are no coincidences.” Thirty-three years ago, as a seminarian studying for the priesthood in Rome, I went on a trip to Poland for Holy Week. I had never been to Poland before and didn’t know what to expect.

In God’s Providence, I met a seminarian, Leszek Harasz, who was studying for the Archdiocese of Krakow. He and a group of other seminarians took me around Poland’s ancient capital explaining to me Polish history and visiting the tombs of Polish saints. In the cathedral on Wawel Hill we knelt at the tomb of St. Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr, and young Leszek and his friends told me that, God willing, they would be ordained priests at the tomb of this early bishop of Krakow. On that trip a deep spiritual awakening took place for me that deepened my love for Our Lady of Czestochowa, Pope John Paul II, and Polish history and culture. On that first trip to Krakow was born a deep, spiritual friendship, a true brotherhood, between Leszek and myself. Both of us were ordained to the priesthood in 1992, Leszek in Krakow, and I in Harrisburg. Through the years, I visited him in Poland. Twice he came to the United States, once to spend a summer with me in a parish, and then for my ordination as a bishop. I got to know his priest classmates and friends. I became close with his parents and friends.
           
This past week I was with Father Leszek in southern Poland again. We went on pilgrimage to Our Lady’s shrine in Czestochowa. We offered Mass on the altar beneath her famous, miraculous icon and knelt there, giving thanks for her constant love, guidance and protection. We went to the tomb of St. Faustina Kowalska and offered Mass rejoicing in the message of Divine Mercy. We visited the home where St. John Paul II was born on his 102nd birthday. We hiked in the Tatras Mountains and marveled at the tremendous beauty of God’s nature in the “rooftop of Poland.”
           
We also went to the altar at the tomb of St. Stanislaus with almost 50 of his classmates and his Archbishop, Mark Jedraszewski, and offered the Holy Sacrifice in Thanksgiving for 30 years of priesthood. Yes, we went back to the tomb of St. Stanislaus and recognized that our lives as priests were a loving sacrifice offered each day. Perhaps not as a red martyrdom of blood like St. Stanislaus but because of a white martyrdom of dying to ourselves and living only in, for and through the Great High Priest who went to the wood of the Cross.
           
No, there are no coincidences in God’s Providence. It was by His Providence that Fr. Leszek’s life and mine have been brought together and mutually blessed by God’s grace.  He led me to Poland 33 years ago and gave me a brother in Fr. Leszek Harasz and He led me back again—back to the tomb of St. Stanislaus—to find Him again.

Our Lady of Czestochowa, Mother of Priests, pray for us!

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh