From Insecurity To Confidence
Only the person who renounces Self-Importance, who no longer struggles to defend or assert himself, can be large enough for God’s Boundless action.
— St. Edith Stein
Dzien Dobry:
Slept until 8 today (Susan 8:15) and realized that our plans had changed when we opened our e-mail. Our friend Fr. Pat, whom we were supposed to meet today in Krakow, had a family funeral today so we probably wouldn’t get to see him. We didn’t realize until Sunday that he and his sister didn’t go to the funeral, but his cousin who drove him had to go and they were held hostage because the family didn’t want them to take the train to Krakow. Maybe they aren’t old enough.
If we had known that we would have driven to them for lunch and long time coming reunion. We were supposed to go there anyway today for his nephew’s First Holy Communion, which is why he is in Poland, but when he got here they gave him the wrong day and it was on Thurs and we were 150 miles away.
We even thought we could go to the airport on Mon. morning to say hi and get a warm hug, but we have plans and don’t know if we will finish in time. We haven’t seen Fr. Pat in years and so we all decided now he has to come back to Palm Beach after such a valiant effort.
We lounged around and I took all the files out, all 3 of them…………we started with 36 and one of the 3 was just full of credit card receipts, lovely, we have to come home soon and then we have to pay for the trip. Totally depressed we decided to go back to the St. John Paul Center for noon mass. It was cold and rainy out and taking the car seemed like a better idea than walking. Afterwards we planned to come back to the Apartment and do some more lounging. Before we got out the door Susan had pulled out the holy water we had acquired. The holy water from Ludzmierz water a beautiful rust color and the legend of the well was suspect to begin with, needless to say it won’t be going into our mixture of healing spring waters from Our Blessed Mother from 7 countries and 23 shrines. We have had some of these waters for 11 years and they are all still crystal clear.
We realized it was almost 11:15 so we had to hurry and had time to spare for a cappuccino.
There was another First Holy Communion group coming in and we had to laugh, since we always handle and love this at the Cathedral every year and this year we couldn’t, because I was radioactive after the Y-90 treatment.
We made up for the miss by attending 20+ here in Poland.
Editor’s note: Click here to read about Tom’s battle with cancer and his successful treatment
After mass we went upstairs to pray the Rosary in front of the Our Lady of Fatima statue at the main altar. She has been present in every church we have been into in honor of the 100th anniversary. I’m sure we have one at the Cathedral???
We got thru the first decade and a large group came in for a presentation and we moved to Our Lady of Czestochowa chapel to finish, where we lit candles for all the intentions we carry. We actually lit 4 today, since we missed yesterday. We then went to the chapel of Our Lady of Piekary Salaskie and prayed our morning prayers.
After 2 hours we were on our way back to the apartment since the weather hadn’t changed and we were cold but first we needed a car wash since we were picking up Sister Angela and Joe, the brother of our friend Sister Maria from St. Vincent in Delray Beach, Fl. She was here to celebrate her 50 Anniversary with the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and invited us to the ceremony on Sunday. We were honored and offered to pick up guest or family in Krakow.
Washing the car in the rain is great because there is no one ahead of you and vacuuming after in the rain is really stupid, but Jag needed some attention and the rain had stopped, so she was beautiful and spotless when we got back to the garage. Susan ended up in the wash alone in the car and I’m sure I heard a couple of ooh’s and aah’s. Back now it was 3 PM and Divine Mercy hour so we prayed and then had a drink and relaxed until we forgot we had to go buy some chocolates at the best chocolate store in Krakow, so off we went and got 2 nice big boxes of assorted chocolate delights, one for tomorrow and one for Monday.
By time we got back our drink was warm so we threw it out and had a glass of wine before going to dinner. We were not venturing far from home, just across the street was a Sushi Place and it is meatless Saturday` so it was perfect…….well, almost perfect.
Getting fresh and a variety of sushi in any foreign country is hard, except for Japan, and Poland was no exception. What they had was very good but the favorite things Susan likes, forget it, octopus, giant clam, fresh squid, all the chewy stuff, they don’t carry. Look, we didn’t starve…..a nice order of shrimp and calamari teriyaki, some tuna rolls and I had an assortment of sushi, things Susan doesn’t eat. We had beer because they didn’t have saki….oops. Oh well, our waitress was very nice and we left her a big egg roll when we left.
Back to the apartment to layout our clothes and get set up for Sunday, since we will voluntarily begin ground hog day for the next 2 days. I set the alarm for 5 AM and that’s all I remember.
God Bless you all
Love
Susan & Tom
