By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily Oct. 1, 2023, the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, while celebrating Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Westmont, Illinois, to mark the 150th anniversary of the PRCUA, the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, a fraternal benefits society.
Rev. Canon Walter Ptak, President James Robaczewski, brother priests, officers, and members of PRCUA, drogie bracia y siostry, I am honored to be here today to celebrate with you this significant milestone in the history of the PRCUA and Polonia in America. Niechaj bedzie pochlalony Jezus Christus.
In the movie, Karol, a man who became pope, we see a young woman who is a member of the then Father Wojtyla’s circle of young student friends. She is distraught because she and her husband are about to flee Poland because of the harassment of the communist authorities. Father Wojtyla consoles her. Whenever you are, he assures her, you will still be Polish.
Today, we celebrate 150 years of the PRCUA (the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America). For 150 years, the PRCUA of America has promoted brotherhood and unity among Poles in America and has worked to preserve the Roman Catholic faith, Polish culture and identity through education, charity ad fraternal aid, and to help members morally and materially. Since those early years, from the time of Father Teodor Gierek, Fathers Wincenty Barzynski and Leopold Moczygemba with many other dedicated clergy and lay people, the PRCUA has faithfully carried out its mission as a fraternal benefit society.
Like the great oak tree of Panna Maria in whose shade Father Moczygemba first celebrated Mass for his people on Texas soil, Polish roots run deep. These roots of faith and culture anchored them and their families to a fierce pride in their “Polishness”. It is a holy pride that the angry winds of poverty and prejudice could not conquer.
To protect those roots of Polishness, Poles in America built new institutions: fraternal societies, newspapers, insurance cooperatives, schools, seminaries – and our own national parishes. Among these institutions, we claim pride of place for the Roman Catholic Union of America. Like the RCUA, these institutions were not designed to isolate us Poles from the new society in which we found ourselves. On the contrary, in the face of hostile forces that would marginalize us until we would deny our Slavic identity and our Roman Catholic religion, these institutions were designed to give us the position of strength that would allow us not to assimilate but to integrate. For even if we had to leave behind Poland, we would not leave behind our Polishness.
Whenever we are there is Polonia! Again, the words of Karol Wojtyla remind us: Wherever you are, you will still be Polish.
When Karol Wojtyla became the great John Paul II, he spoke often of the relation between faith and culture. Just as the Word of God took on flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and became truly man, faith must also become part of the culture of any people in which the Gospel is planted – otherwise, it risks remaining just a veneer, a foreign presence. Enculturation – the process in which faith becomes a culture – a way of life, a way of understanding one’s existence, one’s identity, and a way one makes sense of the world around him – is the way that the mystery of the Incarnation continues in the life of the Mystical Body of Christ. Early in his pontificate, Pope John Paul II made Sts. Cyril and Methodius co-patrons of Europe in order to highlight the great sensitivity they showed to the culture and language of the Slavs they evangelized.
Our identity as Poles and as Catholics was forged in Poland’s baptism in 966. Thanks to our 1,000-year history, the Catholic faith has become “enfleshed” in Poland’s identity as a nation and as a people. Even third or fourth generations of Polish Americans have preserved a way of living out their Catholic faith in distinctively Polish ways. Deep faith in the Blessed Sacrament, frequent recourse to the sacrament of Penance, devotion to the Blessed Mother and faithfulness to the Holy Father continue to be well known characteristics of the way Polish Catholics live out their faith. Practices of popular piety with Polish flourishes also help Polish Americans and their children to continue to grow in their Catholic faith and still be Polish even when, like myself, we don’t speak the Polish language that well.
Anniversaries such as this 150th jubilee offer each of us to remember the past with gratitude – and there is so much to be grateful for. At the same time, we should celebrate the present with enthusiasm, and look forward to the future with confidence.
St. Paul in today’s second reading tells the Philippians: “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others.”
St. Paul’s words offer us a road map towards building a future of hope. We can build that future when we work together for the common good.
In the Gospel, Jesus’ parable was a rebuke to the chief priests and elders of the people because they claimed to accept God’s Word, but they had failed to live up to it. They said “yes” but they lived a “no”.
May the example of our Polish saints, and our Polish heroes, inspire us to live a “Yes” – a “Yes” to our Polish identity and culture, a “Yes” to the Catholic faith that has enabled the Polish people to survive partitions, invasions, poverty, oppression, and prejudice.
I would ask you to remember the moving homily Pope John Paul II preached on the eve of Pentecost Sunday on June 2, 1979, in Warsaw’s Victory Square. He said, we cannot understand who man is without Christ, and we cannot understand what Poland is and why it survived so much over the centuries, without Christ. And in the same way we cannot understand the history of Polonia – the struggles of Moczygemba, the sacrifices of those poor immigrants who built soaring basilicas, cannot be understood without Christ. Without Christ, it doesn’t make sense.
And let me dare to say that only Christ can explain our attachment to our “Polishness”. For if Poles preserved the faith, the faith also preserved us as Poles, the faith has kept alive our dignity and our identity as Poles. It is precisely because of this faith, that no matter wherever we are, we can still be Polish.
In Warsaw, on that Pentecost vigil in 1979, the Holy Father called down the Holy Spirit:
Niech zstąpi Duch Twój!
Niech zstąpi Duch Twój!
I odnowi oblicze ziemi.
Tej Ziemi! Amen.
Let your Spirit descend.
Let your Spirit descend.
and renew the face of the earth,
the face of this land.
That prayer did not go unanswered. Today, as we reflect on 150 years of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, may that same Holy Spirit renew the hearts and minds of all Polish Americans so that our Polishness will continue to be an effective expression of our Catholic faith.
