There is a memory of Karol Wojtyła, which remained in my memory and in my heart in a special way: the first arrival in Poland as a Pope, in June 1979, especially a meeting with students. That morning, Warsaw with the Vistula River in the background, illuminated by the first rays of the sun, which barely pierced through the clouds, was charming. As soon as the Pope began to speak, hearts of everyone started to beat really hard. And at the end, like on a command, thousands of young people instantly raised small wooden crosses towards the Holy Father. Then, I read only the political significance of this gesture. I understood that a generation of young Poles had become resistant to communism and that there would soon be an earthquake in this country. But, in this sea of crosses was the seed of something much more powerful than the people’s revolution. It is a “mystery” which at that point I didn’t fully realize, and I was able to resolve it twenty-six years later, in an undisguised crowd who were coming to John Paul II to say goodbye to him for the last time. I think that in this action there was a deep, visible dimension of his teaching. Karol Wojtyła showed the face of God, the human face of God and the Incarnation. He became an impersonator and tool of God’s fatherhood. He reduced the distance between heaven and earth, between Divine and human space, laying the foundations for a new spirituality, a new way of living the faith by modern people.
With the permission of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “Testimony”
TBA Publishing House, Warsaw 2007
