In the years of my youth I have witnessed enormous sufferings and painful experiences. The generation to which I belong experienced horrors of war, concentration camps, and persecution. In my Homeland, during the Second World War, priests and lay Christians were brought to death camps. In Dachau alone, about three thousand priests were imprisoned.
Well, in this big and terrible theatrum of the Second World War, much has been spared from me. Every day, I could be taken from the street, from the quarry or from the factory and exported to the camp. Sometimes, I even asked myself: so many of my peers were killed and why not me? Today, I know that this was not a coincidence. In the context of this great evil, which the war was, in my personal life somehow everything worked towards the good which was the vocation. Everything, in a way was helping vocation. I cannot forget the good which I experienced from people who God has put on my way in that difficult period: people both from my family, as well from my friends and acquaintances.
And, I am talking about this now to emphasize that into my priesthood especially in this first step, a huge sacrifice of the people of my generation, men and women was inscribed. These toughest experiences, Providence has spared from me, but for that reason I have a greater sense of debt toward so many people known to me, and even more numerous, those nameless, without distinction of nationality, language, who at the great altar of history contributed somehow to my priestly vocation. In a sense, they introduced me to this path, in the light of the sacrifice, they revealed to me the truth – the deepest and most important truth of the priesthood of Christ.
If I look at my youth, for this youth during the years of occupation – terrible years, it was a nightmare – I see that the source of “piercing force” was the Eucharist. And not just for me, for many…
John Paul II “The Autobiography”
Polish Publishing House – Literary Press – 2005
