WYDiary July 22-24

We arrived in Warsaw on Friday, July 22. Our tour guides greeted us at our hotel in Kraków, where we settled in our rooms, had naps and gathered in the hotel restaurant for dinner. I had a mixed plate of perogies, for 18 zloty, about $6 CAD!

Arriving in Warsaw

On Saturday morning, we went on our first tour, starting in Wadowice, St. John Paul II's hometown. We saw his house next to the church, as well as the baptism font "where it all began." We also saw his elementary school. 

After lunch, we went to the famous Auschwitz concentration camp, a horrible chapter in human history. There was a poster that said the 11th commandment should be: Thou shall not be indifferent, for indifference kills!  The drive home was somber. Quite a moving day.

After more touring on Saturday, we gathered for Mass. The Gospel reading was about the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. We reflected on the proximity of Wadowice and Auschwitz as contrasting witnesses of light and of darkness: the home of St. John Paul II, who was tireless in promoting the culture of life, and Auschwitz, perhaps the 20th Century's most infamous example of a culture of death.

On Sunday morning we were up early to make our way to the Wieliczka Salt Mines. We had an incredible experience walking down almost 950 steps, where we saw the largest underground chapel in the world. Magnificent carvings of the life of Christ decorated the walls. There was also a carving of St. John Paul II at the entrance. Later, we made our way to Calvary Sanctuary, where there is an impressive church, a forest with over 50 chapels and an outdoor Stations of the Cross. 

Then we made our way to the Convent of St. Faustina and the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy, a basilica where St. Faustina is buried. While the convent is older, the basilica dedicated to the Divine Mercy devotion was blessed in 2004. It has some beautiful stained glass and the ceiling reminded me of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

On the doors of the Basilica are the Corporal and Spiritual works of Mercy

This is the Beautiful Stained Glass Window in the Basilica of Divine Mercy

Some observations on our first days - The crowds have not been overwhelming yet and the traffic has been light.

All of the sites have been well prepared.

There are banners on street posts like we saw in Toronto for WYD 2002. These banners include cartoon-like images of St. JPII and St. Faustina. There are pictures of a smiling Pope Francis everywhere.

This marked the end of our additional pre-WYD program, which gave us a sense of the religious and cultural history of the church in Poland.