I think that the Holy Father liked all Christmas carols – says the Archbishop. After all “Among the silence of the night” („Wśród nocnej ciszy”) and “Let’s all go to the stable” (“Pójdźmy wszyscy do stajenki”). “Oh little ones, little ones”(„Oj maluśki, maluśki”) he liked to sing especially, because it is a pastoral on a highlander note, and to the mountains and highlanders – you know, he had a huge weakness. And, in turn “God is born”… I also think that there is some mystical force in this Christmas carol. This polonaise is so majestic. And, these words about the petrified power. You can feel that you are singing about something important. “Despised, covered with glory” – this is what the Holy Father said so often. Ewa Wisłocka once said that John Paul II himself stated that some Christmas carols are deeply connected with specific fragments of the Gospel. “He made us aware of how from pastorals we are referring to theological content” – she said. And, she quoted John Paul II: “As I grew old – he was to say once – Christmas carols and Lenten songs are for me material for meditation and contemplation.” A close friend of the Pope, Professor Fr. Tadeusz Styczeń quoted in the introduction to the edition of John Paul II’s Christmas homilies the carol “Among the Night Silence” (…). And, he wondered; How he must have experienced these words, since he himself became that priest whose voice people all over the world were waiting for on Christmas Eve. And, yet it will not be an exaggeration to say that in Polish Christmas carols John Paul II was looking for inspiration – and he found it! – to convey the mystery of the Incarnation to Rome and the world in the most beautiful and profound way – Urbi et orbi. Professor Styczeń recalled their Christmas Eve spent together and their caroling. He wrote that what John Paul II said and sang at the Christmas Eve table was a prelude to what he said during the Midnight Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica: “to the word spoken to all those gathered around the altar of Christ in the Roman Basilica and to those who, in various places of the globe, remained waiting “for the voice of the priest” to “among the silence of the night” shine lights for the people of the entire world.”
With the consent of Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki – “Place for everyone”
Znak Publishing House, Kraków 2013.
