When you read the memoirs of ordinary people who were lucky enough to carol for John Paul II in the Vatican, you read about great joy. And, the spontaneous reactions of the Pope. A judge from Nisko wrote: It was great. The Holy Father called encores encouraged us to repeat beautiful Polish Christmas carols. This cannot be forgotten. There were never enough encores.
The Pope could never part with the highlanders. They came with a band that played and sang. Several hundred people came – says the Archbishop. These were special meetings, the happiest Christmas evenings. The happiest, because the highlanders with their temperament and dialect and heart for the Holy Father, always knew what to do to make John Paul II happy. He could not spend Christmas in Poland, so Poland came to him – says the Archbishop. And, it was the one he loved the most. After all, he used to say to the highlanders at Krokiew that he could always count on them. Anyway, I remember that on the occasion of these Christmas wafer meetings in the Vatican, he reminded them of those words himself. They caroled together until the last Christmas. And, they always brought homely delicacies from Podhale for this caroling. On the archival recordings, apart from the great joys of the meeting, one can also see the contrast of the marble floor of the Clementine Hall with simple Polish folklore. In the midst of this contrast, John Paul II sits in white and unites these worlds. As beautiful as nobody else. There is something extraordinary in it – says the former secretary – that the Holy Father cultivated with such care all the customs that he loved so much in Poland. Not only did he submit to the customs that prevailed in the Vatican, but he carried out a small Christmas revolution there. It must have been impressive. Because it testified to the great love he had for these customs, but above all for Poland and Poles
With the consent of Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki – “Place for everyone”
Znak Publishing House, Kraków 2013.
