A Confluence of Remembrance: Aug 25

One of the reasons St Casimir’s, for the 8th consecutive year, has embraced and calls others to Table Talk with Mama has to do with our Patron, Prince of the Poor & his father the Lithuanian of Poland.

In the 1460s St Casimir made a clandestine, personal pilgrimage to the Black Madonnna. This was a sign of his deep devotion to the Mother of God, expressed also in favorite song he sang to her “Daily, Daily Sing to Mary.

In 1472 St Casimir’s Father, took all his princely sons (one King of Bohemia, the other a cardinal) to the Bright Mountain Shrine of Częstochowa for a royal Mass in honor of Poland’s Queen.

More recently, in the 1920s, the pastor who built St Casimir’s landmark church, brought an icon of Our Lady from Częstochowa Poland, which was honored by 8-days of prayer in the original chapel. This image has since has been lost.

In 1976 St Casimir’s pastor, received an oil painting from a future pope and saint, John Paul II in gratitude for the Polish hospitality extended him by Msgr Ed Kazmierczak.

Just three years later, on is first visit to Poland this Polish Pope and later Saint hosted at St Casimir’s. said of the Black Madonna: We, Poles have a kind of holy “habit” of coming to this place.  We come here to hear the heart of the nation beat in the heart of our Mother.  Warsaw, 1979.

This image is honored in the SW Bell Tower Chapel.

August 25, 2019

marks a most providential day of many graces, not only as the eve of the annual Feast Day of the Black Madonna, or the 8th day of Table Talk with Mama Mary, however, this very afternoon, the Cardinal of Philadelphia will crown the icon of Our Lady with papal crowns in Pennsylvania at the American Częstochowa. What a blessed day for North America.

Pope Francis blessed these copies of Our Lady of the Bright Mountain of Częstochowa’s crown, made in Italy as a gift of the town which honors a similar hodegetria (Guide to God) icon since the early days of Christianity.

The American crowns (pictured above) are copies of similar crowns donated as votive offerings last year on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the first-ever coronation of an image of the Madonna, with papal crowns, outside the eternal city of Rome, in 1717, the so-called Crowns of Pope Clement XVI.

On this same auspicious day of spiritual grace St Casimir’s and WNY Descendants of WWII Survivors, commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Insurrection (1944), the only organized, national resistance to the Third Reich of Nazi Germany on the European Continent.

We do this by dedicating the Golgotha Memorial, a hand carved, wooden scent of Jesus’ Crucifixion, his sorrowful Mother and faithful apostle, St John, the Evangelist. These figures are a gift of Fr Krysa’s family in Poland (pictured with Memorial above). WNY Descendants gather for this dedication because our parents (including Fr Krysa) kept their story silent. We as children and grandchildren of families tortured and killes by Soviet Communist-aetheist Russians and Nazi Germans feel a profound need “to speak out for them” today.

St Casimirs welcomes all descendants, members of the Polish Legacy Project, and the Polish American Congress.

This day was conceived in the heart of annual Table Talk with Mama Mary, for she was the only Queen, spiritual “head of state” and commander who led Polish families, seniors, children and military to defend their very homes. The losses of Poland during WWII were mostly to her civilian population, and therefore have been designated as three-sided genocide of this country’s age-old neighbors. This is why we pray on the eve of her Annual “Birthday” in Poland, on a day which may be inconvenient to some, however it’s importance in the heart of PolAms of WNY, those who lost family members to hate-filled neighbors, and anyone who pleads before our Mama and Queen (as we have done for the past 8 days) for healing of victim of abuse of people and power in the Catholic Church, and a complete cessation of polarization and violence in this country. Violence is not a way to deal with people we don’t agree with.

This is why these days take place at a time which may find some busy with other matters. Table Talk Conversations have been daily joining with the Novena of preparation for the Papal Coronation of her icon in Doylestown, PA and the Polish Community of a closed and reorganized church in Allentown, PA.

Sunday August 25 We remember, particularly at the 10am Dedication Mass:

- 80 years ago Communist Russia signed an aggression pact the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty with Soviet Russia to dismantle Poland. Hitler made it a reality by invading Poland on Sept 1, 1939, and Stalin from the East followed suit on Sept 28. Millions were killed as a result of their cooperative efforts.

- 6 million plus Polish citizens, Jewish and Christian, exterminated at all German concentration camps during World War II.            

- 9,000 Polish Catholic priests and bishops, who were imprisoned, tortured, beaten and killed in various German concentration camps. Polish Catholic nuns raped and/or killed in labor camps by Soviets and Nazis.

- Almost 2 million Polish slave laborers who suffered, and those who died of illness, starvation, or were euthanized, as well as infants and children who starved to death in Nazi Germany during World War II including the Nazi concentration camp for Polish boys in Łódź.

- A million Polish families who were deported to Siberian Gulag Death Camps by the Russians and the men, women and children who died from starvation and exposure and buried in unmarked graves.

- Polish men and women who died as a result of concentration camp medical experiments especially the “guinea pig” Polish women at Ravensbruck concentration camp.

- Hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens, children, and AK underground military brutally murdered in the Warsaw Uprising, and throughout Poland from 1939-1945, including Members of the Home Army tortured and murdered by Soviet Russians after WWII.

-- Hundreds of Righteous Poles and their entire families murdered for hiding their Jewish neighbors.

-- 200,000 “good looking” children Nazis stole from Polish families and orphanages and Germanized by Lebensborn German families. Most were never recovered after the war, losing their identity forever.

Today, Poland has built herself up to the 1st most desirable country in Europe to invest in, and the 4th strongest economy in the world. German media is calling this a miracle. This all occurred  despite the fact that Poland lost more citizens, infrastructure, cities, and 90% of its capital city.  Just under 15% of its population was butchered, more than any other nation in Europe or otherwise during WWII. This country did not receive remuneration from her neighbors who sought to wipe Poland off the face of the map, eradicate her history and culture. The USA rebuilt Germany and the German Government paid restitution to other countries it attacked; nothing comparable for Poland, neither did Russia.

For these and other reasons the Descendants of WNY Survivors feel a deep need to tell a story they had to keep secret. Here are some of the Polish fronts of WWII that mostly civilians, our families, seniors, as well as military died in.

_____________________

From this grace-filled day of August 25, 2019, will flow at these two inspirational, remembrance events:

Resilient Crowns of Hope, Sat Oct 5, 2019

9:30-2pm.  A seminar on Rosary “Crowns” which kept the fire of faith and persistence among Catholic prisoners of  German concentration camps by professor of Modern History, Dr Eileen Lyon of The State University of NY at Fredonia and the diadem-beaded crown of the Black Madonna Queen. Limited Seating. Reservations necessary.

WNY Family Remembrance Mass: WWII Victims & Survivors, Sun Nov 3, 2019 at 10am. Following the Mass a personal exhibit of mementos of these families, entitled Buffalo Neighbors, will open.