Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
On his first trip to Poland in 1979, the newly elected Pope John Paul II immediately went to the Marian shrine of Czestochowa to witness the beautiful role the Virgin of Jasna Gora must have had in his election:
“By the inscrutable designs of Divine Providence I am today present here at Jasna Gora, in my earthly homeland, Poland, and […] I wish to confirm and renew the act of consecration pronounced at Jasna Gora on 3 May 1966, on the occasion of the Millennium of Poland. With this act the Polish Bishops wished, by giving themselves to you, Mother of God, "in your maternal slavery of love", to serve the great cause of the freedom of the Church not only in their own homeland but in the whole world.
The call of a son of the Polish nation to the Chair of Peter involves an evident strong connection with this holy place, with this shrine of great hope: so many times I had whispered Totus tuus in prayer before this image.
[...] What must I say of myself, to whom after the barely 33-day pontificate of John Paul I it fell, on 16 October 1978, by the inscrutable decree of Providence to receive his inheritance and the apostolic succession to the Chair of Saint Peter? What must I say, I who am the first non-Italian Pope for 455 years? What must I say, I, John Paul II, the first Polish Pope in the history of the Church? I will tell you: on that 16 October, the day on which the liturgical calendar of the Church in Poland recalls 'Saint Hedwig’ …(Invoking the Virgin of Jasna Gora) is a tradition that goes back some 600 years to the time of the blessed Queen Hedwig at the dawn of the Jagellonian dynasty!
In the year of the Millennium of the Baptism of Poland, on 3 May 1966, in this place the Primate of Poland pronounced the act of total servitude to the Mother of God for the freedom of the Church in Poland and throughout the world. This historic act was pronounced here, before Paul VI, absent in body but present in spirit, as a testimony of that lively and strong faith expected and demanded by the present time.
[...] On 3 May 1966 the Polish Episcopate added to this fundamental work by the Council its own act of Jasna Gora: the consecration to the Mother of God for the freedom of the Church in the world and in Poland. It was a cry coming forth from the heart and the will: a cry of the whole of the Christian being, from the person and the community, for the full right to proclaim the saving message; a cry that willed to have universal effectiveness by striking root in the present age and in the future. Everything through Mary. This is the authentic interpretation of the presence of the Mother of God in the mystery of Christ and of the Church, as is proclaimed by Chapter VIII of the Constitution Lumen Gentium. This interpretation corresponds to the tradition of the saints, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Grignion de Monfort and Maximilian Kolbe.
Pope Paul VI accepted this act of consecration as the fruit of the celebration of the Polish Millennium of Jasna Gora, as is shown by his bull placed close to the image of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa. Today, on coming to Jasna Gora, his unworthy Successor wishes to renew it on the day after Pentecost, the very day on which is celebrated throughout Poland the feast of the Mother of the Church.
For the first time the Pope is celebrating this solemnity, expressing together with you, Venerable and dear Brothers, his gratitude towards his great Predecessor, who from the time of the Council began to invoke Mary with the title of the Mother of the Church.