Poland’s New ‘Blesseds’ and Divine Providence

National Catholic Register, 15 September 2021

The Sept. 12 beatifications of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and Mother Elżbieta Róża Czacka contain many layers of spiritual fruit.

“Poland, the nation of Mary, the land of saints and blesseds!” 

Thus Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, concluded his homily at the beatification Mass in Warsaw of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and Mother Elżbieta Róża Czacka.

The Marian dimension was a dominant theme of the beatification. The Marian date also made the beatification more powerfully symbolic than most. That was evident, too, in the extraordinary reliquaries that were used, as well as in the stories of a remarkable friendship that the beatification emphasized. 

Marian Date With Polish History

September gives us a Marian week — three feasts within an octave: the Nativity of Mary (Sept. 8), the Holy Name of Mary (Sept. 12) and Our Lady of Sorrows (Sept. 15).

Given the intense Marian devotion of the new Blesseds, it was not a surprise that a Marian date was chosen for the beatification. What is less well-known is that the Holy Name of Mary, Sept. 12, has a Polish connection. 

The Battle of Vienna took place Sept. 11-12, 1683. King Jan III Sobieski led the outnumbered Polish troops into battle against the Ottoman Turks; the future of Christian Europe was at stake if Muslim armies conquered Vienna. 

Sobieski prevailed and adapted Julius Caesar to Christian sentiments: Veni, vidi, Christus vincit! (“I came; I saw; Christ conquered!”) The very next year, Pope Innocent XI declared Sept. 12 to be a Marian feast, the Holy Name of Mary, in thanksgiving for the Battle of Vienna. 

Sobieski, revered as one of the great Poles of history, is buried in the crypt of Poland’s holiest cathedral, Wawel in Kraków. St. John Paul II celebrated his first Mass as a priest in 1946 at the altar just steps away from Sobieski’s tomb.

Not only Christians remember, of course. The date for the 9/11 attacks was chosen to avenge the Islamic loss at Vienna in 1683.

Given Blessed Stefan’s intense Marian devotion and his own role as father-defender of the nation under communism, the date was highly significant — as was the place.

The Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw officially opened in 2016, on the 225th anniversary of a promise made by the Polish parliament in 1791. The Sejm, in thanksgiving for the May 3, 1791, constitution, promised to build a shrine to Divine Providence. Four years later, Poland was wiped off the map of Europe. But Poland kept its promise, and when liberty and prosperity finally returned after communism, 200 years later, the shrine was built.

Evocative Reliquaries 

The other sacred “architecture” marking the beatifications were the extraordinary reliquaries that were used for the relics of the new Blesseds. 

For Blessed Stefan, the reliquary depicted the empty silhouette of Our Lady of Częstochowa, the shrine where he offered his first Mass as a priest and where he chose to be consecrated a bishop. Why the empty silhouette? 

Blessed Stefan led a monumental preparation for the 1,000th anniversary of Polish Christianity in 1966. For nine years he sent a replica of the Częstochowa icon to be venerated at all the parishes in Poland. Tens of thousands came, to the exasperation of the communist regime. So the regime forbade the icon to travel! Blessed Stefan sent around the empty silhouette instead — and the crowds only grew larger. The reliquary was thus a fitting bit of pious dancing on the grave of communism.

The reliquary for Blessed Elżbieta Róża Czacka was even more unusual, with the relics encased in a sculpture of two hands reading in Braille. Mother Elżbieta had founded a religious order to serve her fellow blind people. Having lost her sight as a young woman, the young Róża, using her family wealth, traveled throughout Europe to learn the best practices for assisting the blind to live with dignity. Upon her return to Poland, she developed a Braille alphabet for Polish; she was the first to do so. At the beatification Mass, one of the prayers of the faithful was read by a blind man reading from a Braille text.

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