Bolesławiec residents prayed today for the victims of the plane crash in Smolensk. Together with the local authorities, they bid farewell to Poland’s President Lech Kaczyński. The church was filled with worshippers who had come to show solidarity with the victims’ families.
In his sermon, Father Stanisław Kusik offered words of support to the worshippers. He recounted the story of St. Thomas, before whom Jesus Christ revealed His wounds. “Revealing one’s wounds to someone is a difficult and personal act,” Father Kusik said in his sermon. “This gesture is difficult, but it brings a person closer to Jesus. The death of so many important people for Poland is undoubtedly a wound for the nation. But Jesus is the one who will lead us through suffering.”
Father Stanisław Kusik mentioned President Lech Kaczyński as a person for whom the motto “God, Honour, Fatherland” was important. As a politician and as a man, Lech Kaczyński was always faithful to this motto. The priest also compared the emotions stirred by this disaster with the reactions of Poles on the day of Pope John Paul II’s death. At that time, too, their shared solidarity and sense of closeness in the face of a significant loss brought their compatriots together.
“This is already a different Poland,” Father Kusik said at the end of his sermon. “A great statesman and defender of democracy has passed away. We, the residents of Bolesławiec, are overcome with grief. Yet let us raise our heads, because Jesus Christ has defeated death.”
The preacher also quoted a poem by Antonina Janowska:
And when the hour of my sunset comes, I will set like the bright sun—to the very last moment. I will never be a tree that, proud in its youth, bends toward the earth with age. When the time comes to depart for another land, I will fly away in a burst of happiness and inspiration. Like a bird that, fleeing an inhospitable earth, turns earth into heaven.
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