From: Lubosh <Lubosh.Hanuska@anu.edu.au>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Quo vadis ? #9
Date: 10 Nov 1992 05:06:16 GMT
Organization: ANU Canberra
Distribution: world
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X-XXDate: Tue, 10 Nov 92 00:05:15 GMT

Great Pilgrimages

I have already told you about the meeting commemorating the 1100
anniversary of the death of St Methodius at Velehrad in Moravia in August
1985, Well, it certainly was one of the biggest meetings, but there were
many more like that. Especially Slovakia and Poland have a lot of special
places where usually once, or several times a year a lot of faithful
pilgrims gather for a religious service. After John Paull II was elected
the Polish authorities some political analysts had said "This will mean
the end to the totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe..." It was true, we
felt it, too. There were huge gatherings in Poland, and the borders to
Poland were always closed during Pope's visits. One member of our prayer
group desperately wanted to go to Czenstochowa on one of those
occasions... She said even if she'd have troubles, she doesn't have
anything to lose, she didn't have any family... It wasn't all that easy,
but the border to Poland never was too much patroled, and there were many
tourist paths in the mountains crossing the border, so she decided to
take one of them to walk over to Poland. Anyway, only a few of the most
reliable of her friends new about it before she left. She did well to get
to Poland, but she got caught on the way back. Many people in the prayer
group had troubles since then, because the Secret Police (StB) had some
of them on their files already (not me :-), and somehow they found
connections with her. This woman herself had been questionned quite a few
times, other people were interrogated, threatened to lose their jobs -
one was kicked out of his university studies, but this was not the only
reason... It took us a lot of prayers, and almost half a year of time to
get those fellows off our backs. I didn't really have troubles, but there
must have been something going on, because on one occasion I was called
by my supervisor to discuss with him "my religious problem" (the Marxist
ideology considered us to have something like "a drinking problem" and
always tried to help us to "get rid of it"). After all he found out that
not I do have a problem, but he does have a trouble to answer some of my
questions. Finally he suggested I'd read Lenin's "Materialism and
empiriocriticsm", and get back to him if I have more questions (I even
tried to get back to him afterwards, but he didn't want to discuss it
anymore) - apparently there were only six students in the Computer
Science course, and he didn't want to lose one of them. Some people were
not bad, even though they were a bit short-sighted and limited by their
"default" materialism, and they had a lot of hatred against anything else
implanted in themselves (it was not always their fault, and it wasn't
right to judge them for it). We used to pray for them, and I know it
helped at least to make some of them think about what they are doing...
Well, but I started to talk about those great meetings - there were
several of them every year, and a usual attendance at some was around
100,000 people. Sometimes people really made it a pilgrimage - they
walked at least the last bit, even if only a few keys (=kilometres :-)
Once I made a journey with my brother riding our bikes from Prievidza to
Kosice( over 300 kms), and next day to Levoca (try your best World Atlas
again :-) which is one of the most visited religious places there - in a
beautiful surroundings of mountains and forests. We saw many groups of
folks walking the whole day from There was a crowd of over 100,000 people
at that weekend (this was the first weekend in July 1987). It's very
difficult to describe the atmosphere... Officially these meetings were
always claimed to be an irelevant event for old women, and suddenly there
was a hundred thousand of mostly young people !  The church where the
meeting was held is on a quite high steep hill..., so one doesn't climb
up and down too much. We came there tired, climbed up on the hill, and
spent most of the night praying and talking to others, and the next day
after the morning mass we were heading back to Prievidza (well over 200
km from there).  After a great meeting like that we were full of energy
and enthusiasm, but the day was really hot, and we were exhausted... We
only stopped a few times to rest and eat (but one can't eat much when
riding). I remember how great my feelings were afterwards - I did it, I
did it (but my kegs did not share my heart's excitment :-)... Afterwards
we used to ride our bikes to many of these prayer meetings, and sometimes
got other people to join us. Yes, I believe these meetings were really
important, the activity of the Catholic Church was very much alive in
them, and I know that it also encouraged other non-Catholic Christians.
The meeting in April 1990 at the Bratislava airport where over 1 million
of people gathered to meet John Paul II when he was allowed to visit the
country for the first time was just a confirmation of the faith of all of
us in how strong the Christian community in the country really was. 
Well. there is also something else to mention - as there was a tradition
of these meetings, we all welcomed an opportunity to meet with Christians
from other countries. The first opportunity for it was the meeting
organized by the Taize' community in April 1989 in Pe'cs (Hungary).
However. it seemed not to be easy to get there. There were rumours that
the border will be closed during that time, etc. Anyway, I joined my
brother, and his friends from a student prayer group from his uni, and
came to a railway station late in the night to get onto a train to
Hungary. Of course we all had bought tickets to Pe'cs, and suddenly just
before the train arrived there were quite a few police folks wondering
around what an accident it is that almost fifty people are going to see
the same place in Hungary at the same time. We had to explain, and
explain, and explain (it seems that the policemen anywhere in the world
are not very easy people to explain things to :-)... But the train
arrived, and the policemen apparently decided not to do anything to avoid
us get onto the train - it was packed up to the roof, because it was
already coming from Poland, where apparently there were no restrictions
on travelling to Hungary. As some of you might know Hungary was
considered not to have all that large proportion of Christians in
comparison with Czecho-Slovakia and Poland, but the atmosphere was great
there, too. Pe'cs is a beautiful historical town with a beautiful
cathedral, and a lot of faithful Christian communities. We were very much
welcomed there, and as we lived in the families that offered the
accommodation and board, we could also learn about how they live, and it
really gave us a lot ! Yes, these Taize' meetings were very important,
especially  for young people, and since their atmosphere was very
ecumenical, they they helped to improve our understanding of other
Christians, and I'll certainly have to tell you more about them next
time...
Yours in Christ,
Lubosh
+ !           "If you love only those who love you, why should you
receive a blessing ?
                           Even sinners love those who love them  !"     
   (Lk 6,32)