Certainly, I wanted, I should have returned to Poland. Already for many years, since 1972, I was working on the preparations for the St. Stanislaus Jubilee, to be able in 1979 to celebrate the nine hundredth anniversary of his death, and at the same time to end the synod of the Cracow’s Diocese synod. However, all of this was not so simple. The former government, in the political context of what was then the Soviet Union’s block, may not have the right to a free decision. And, maybe in fact, the trip to Mexico was helpful in that matter. Or, at least it created a channel of new circumstances, which made the trip to Poland possible.
…during my first pilgrimage to Homeland, together with all numerous people gathered in the community of prayer (…) I invoked the Holy Spirit.
It is therefore impossible without Christ to understand the history of the Polish nation—this great thousand-year-old community—that is so profoundly decisive for me and each one of us. If we reject this key to understanding our nation, we lay ourselves open to a substantial misunderstanding. We no longer understand ourselves.
And I cry—I who am a Son of the land of Poland and who am also Pope John Paul II—I cry from all the depths of this Millennium (…):
Let your Spirit descend.
Let your Spirit descend.
and renew the face of the earth,
the face of this land.
I repeat therefore the words of Christ himself: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20: 22). I repeat the words of the Apostle: “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess 5:19). I repeat the words of the Apostle: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit” (Eph 4:30). You must be strong, dear brothers and sisters. You must be strong with the strength that comes from faith! You must be strong with the strength of faith! You must be faithful! Today more than in any other age you need this strength. You must be strong with the strength of hope, hope that brings the perfect joy of life and does not allow us to grieve the Holy Spirit. You must be strong with love, which is stronger than death…
In those difficult times (…) it was a cry of faith, of faith that God is working and with the power of the Holy Spirit renews and sanctifies everything. It was a cry to renew the face of the land, this land. (…) we did not know at that time, how transformations in Poland will go. Today, we already know. We know, how deeply reached God’s power, which makes us free, heals and purifies. How not to give thanks today to God in the Trinity, for all of this, what in the past years we are reading as His answer to our cries of that time!
John Paul II “The Autobiography”
Polish Publishing house – Literary Press
