Eternal God and creator of all things, and thou O Mahomet his sacred and divine prophet. We beseech thee let us not dread the Christians, who are so mean and silly to rely on a crucified god. By the power of thy right hand, so strengthen ours that we may surround this foolish people, on every side, and utterly destroy them. At length fulfill our prayers and put these miscreants into our hands, that we may establish thy throne for ever in Mecca, and sacrifice all those enemies of our most holy religion at thy tomb. Blow us with thy mighty breath like swarms of flies into their quarters, and let the eyes of these infidels bedazelled with the lustre of our moon. Consume them with thy fiery darts, and blind them with the dust which they themselves have raised. Destroy them all in thine anger. Break all their bones in pieces, and consume the flesh and blood of those who defile thy sacrifice, and hang the sacred light of circumcision on their cross. Wash them with showers of many waters, who are so stupid to worship gods they know not: and make their Christ a son to that God who ne’re begot him. Hasten therefore their destruction we humbly entreat thee, and blot out their name and religion, which they glory so much in, from off the face of the earth, that they may be no more, who condemn and mock at thy law. Amen. “

From a letter from the King of Poland, John III Sobieski to his Queen following his victory against the Turks at Vienna in which he inserted many particulars including the “Prayer of the Turks against the Christians”. (London: 1683).

Cited in: The Struggles for Poland by Neal Ascherson, excerpts of the First American Edition, Random House Inc., New York 1988

Applications for the PAAA Scholarship Award of $2,000 will be accepted from December 1, 2005 until April 12, 2006. The winner will be notified of his/her status after May 1, 2006 and will be expected to attend an award presentation at PAAA¹s May 2006 General Membership meeting or other event.

You do not have to be a member of the Polish American Arts Association to apply for this scholarship.

For more information, contact:

Gordon Kray, PAAA scholarship committee chair
703-536-9783 (home)
202-265-7390 (studio)
E-mail Mr. Kray

Estelle von Wachtel-Torres, M.D., scholarship committee co-chair
703-742-7675
E-mail Ms. Wachtel-Torres

Check out Polish parishes? Why? and article by the Rev. Czesław M. Krysa, SLD, President of the WNY division of the Polish American Priests Association and a well known author, historian, and ethnographer.  It is the introduction to a series of article that appeared in Buffalo’s Am-Pol Eagle newspaper.

I especially like the disccussion points.

Each week of the Advent and Christmas season, this column will discuss one of the following Pol-Am faith VALUES, which make us as a community unique:

—¢ family as the domestic church
—¢ senior family member as tradition bearer
—¢ central role of the priest
—¢ memorial of the deceased
—¢ solicitude for the poor
—¢ meal as hospitality
—¢ solidarity with nature
—¢ language and music. 
 

While I am on the subject of the Tatras and Goralskie culture I wanted to make mention of one of the pre-eminent Polish priest-philosophers of Goralskie heritage, Fr. Józef Tischner (1931-2000)

Father Józef Tischner was born on March 12, 1931 in Stary Sacz in the Tatra Mountains in Southern Poland.

One of Poland’s foremost priest-philosophers, Father Tischner maintained his close connection with the Goralskie (Highlander’s) culture and its dialect.  The mountain culture had a tremendous impact on his philosophy and style.

Górale (Highlanders) are considered as a romantic, rural, freedom loving people by Poles and in Polonia and Father Tischner made a point of stressing his heritage and cultural affinity as a Góral.

In 1997 he published a short book with a tape-recorded transcript in which he relates the history of philosophy in the Highlanders’ dialect, Historia filozofii po góralsku. He especially stressed his love and connection to the land, and in particular, the Tatra mountains.  Jan Andrzej Kloczowski OP commented: —… because he felt the land, he believed his responsibility was to be vigilant towards the thinking of those who walked and lived on that land.—

In 1981 Father Tischner was elected chaplain of the Solidarity movement.  As a resident of Krakow, Father Tichner held a particular duty of care toward the steelworkers in the suburb of Nowa Huta, site of the ‘Lenin’ Steelworks and the home of the Ark church built by Krakow’s Roman Catholic Bishop, Karol Wojtla, in definance of the communist authorities.

Of solidarity Father Tischner wrote:

“This old but also very new word, solidarity, what does it mean?  To what does it call us? What memories does it bring back?  To explicate it more precisely, perhaps it is necessary to reach back into the Gospel and seek the origin of the word there. Christ explains its meaning: —Carry one another’s burden and in this way fulfill God’s law— (cf. Gal. 6:2).

What does it mean to be in solidarity? It means to carry the burden of another person… Solidarity has still another facet; solidarity does not need to be imposed from the outside by force… And one more thing – solidarity, the one that is borne from the pages and spirit of the Gospel,  does not need an enemy or opponent to strengthen itself and grow. It turns towards all and not against anyone.” (Józef Tischner, The Spirit of Solidarity, trans. Marek B. Zaleski and Benjamin Fiore, S.J. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984) 2-3.)

Father Tischner echos the thoughts of the PNCC’s first Bishop, Francis Hodur in regard to the need to be regenerated, to make a free choice for God in our lives.  He wrote:

“The freedom of God in relation to creation and the freedom of the human being towards God is the basic principle for understanding the history of salvation. In this history nothing ‘must be.’  It is rather the case that ‘everything can be.’  (Józef  Tischner, Ksiadz na manowcach (Kraków: Znak, 1999) 74 -75.)

A tip of the biretta to Father Ben Fiore, S.J., a long time friend from my Buffalo days.  We taught together in Poland as part of the Pomost International program.  I first came across mention of Father Tischner while teaching in Rzeszow, Poland.  One of Fr. Fiore’s  student’s noted that her husband was a translator for Fr. Tischner.