By Coulter McIntyre
Thursday, February 13, 2025 was an exciting day for the Portland pilgrim group. We started with Mass at an altar in the crypt of Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, the very altar upon which a young Fr. Karol Wojtyła, who later become Pope St. John Paul II, offered his first Mass as a priest on November 2, 1946. Archbishop Sample offered a votive Mass of Pope St. John Paul II, and it proved to be a deeply meaningful way to begin our first full day in Poland.
We were given a brief tour of Wawel Cathedral, a marvelous 14th century Gothic building atop Wawel Hill in Krakow, which served as the coronation place for Polish monarchs for many centuries. The layout of the building itself might be unfamiliar for Catholics in the United States. Whereas we’re used to Churches primarily consisting of one large central nave with a main altar, Wawel Cathedral’s central nave is much smaller compared to the rest of the church. There is a large pathway surrounding the central nave with a dozen or so side chapels. In front of the central nave is a second major altar which holds the relics of St. Stanislaus, the bishop of Krakow who was martyred under King Bołeslaw II in 1079. I was particularly drawn to a certain altar in the back left corner of the cathedral. In the altar itself are the remains of the great Polish queen and saint, Jadwiga. Above the altar is a large black crucifix before which St. Jadwiga often prayed during her life of only 25 years during the end of the 14th century. This powerful queen spent her life and rule as a testimony to Christ and now rests at the foot of the very cross before which she so fervently prayed for her subjects. And while her body lays lifeless here, her soul lives with Christ in heaven.
After the tour of the Cathedral, we had an audience with Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, the retired Archbishop of Krakow. His Eminence had served for almost 39 years as the personal secretary to Pope St. John Paul II, beginning in the Pope’s days as Archbishop of Krakow until his death in 2005. Since the Cardinal’s English wasn’t fluent, and none of us knew any Polish, we spoke with him in Italian. Cardinal Dziwisz knew John Paul II better than anyone, and the most important thing he wished to share with us was that while the Saint can be remembered as many things, he was most especially a man of prayer, “a uomo di preghiera.” His Eminence also shared his recollection of when the Holy Father was shot on his way to give an audience in 1981. He described how the Saint maintained great faith in God’s providence throughout the ordeal.
That afternoon, we drove to Wadowice, the hometown of Pope St. John Paul II. There we visited the parish where he grew up and saw the font where he was baptized. It is part of the Chapel of the Holy Family in the Basilica of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our last stop was on our way back to Krakow, where we stopped in a place called Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, the Shrine of the Mother of God, where there is an image of Our Lady which was very important to the Pope St. John Paul II. His own mother, Emilia, died when he was only eight years old. After her funeral, the young Karol’s father brought him to the Shrine and told him, “From today on, she will be your mother.”
Our Lady in Kalvaria
Font where JPII was baptized
Altar and tomb of St. Jagwiga of Poland