After Holy Masses, he invited priests from Krakow to dinner. As a sign that he remembers them, that he feels connected to them. As if he wanted to show them his special closeness on this day – says Archbishop Mokrzycki. So that they know that they have a friend and a brother in him. That they are not alone. That the Pope thinks of them and supports them with prayer. He knew very well that priests needed such support. Thus, he showed that he still felt very connected with his former diocese, with the diocese of Kraków. The Archbishop says that there were always about twelve people at the table. Like the twelve apostles. The atmosphere was very joyful – he recalls. The day, because it’s spring, was usually clear. It felt that this holiday was ours. Such a holiday that gathers us around one table. Around the Holy Father. Sometimes I looked at them and thought it looked like the last supper. There were also students from Krakow who studied in Rome. Everything lasted about an hour and a half. And, then we all were going together to the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in the Lateran, in the last years to St. Peter’s Basilica. This association with the last supper was suggested to us by John Paul II himself. Not in the context of this particular dinner, but in the context of the bond that united him with the priests of the entire world. The same ones for whom he prayed every day and to whom he wrote a letter every year. “When evening falls, I see you entering the Upper Room to begin the Easter Triduum” – he wrote in one of them. “It is to this ‘upper room’ (Lk 22:12) that Jesus invites us anew every Holy Thursday, and it is there that I especially desire to meet you, beloved brothers in the priesthood”. And, if anyone thinks that there was less tenderness in the Papal experience of Easter than at Christmas, he/she is wrong.
With the consent of Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki – “Place for everyone”
Znak Publishing House, Kraków 2013.
