text: Day 7 (Going To Take A Little More Time On This One)
  Thanks so much for following us on our pilgrimage to Poland. Thank you especially for your prayers — they are greatly appreciated. What a gift it is to have the internet to stay so connected even though we are thousands of miles away. I am going to spend a little more time in prayer and reflection before writing about some of the things that happened yesterday. I would like to write a little more in depth about some of the insights I have received about war, redemption, and the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit. We will be staying in the same motel the last three nights which should make things less hectic. It's also time to do some laundry or start turning things inside out. 😬 I am feeling incredibly blessed and very grateful to be on this pilgrimage and have been very impressed with the cheerful disposition of the pilgrims and our guide. Things are going very well. I know some of you have subscribed to the blog and are getting the entries via email. I am always doing
  Today after breakfast we went to the Basilica of Our Lady of Czestochowa for Mass in one of the side chapels. Mass came to a quick end after communion as our tour guide, one of the Pauline priests from the Basilica arrived to give us a tour of the Basilica. The Pauline priests staff the Basilica of Our Lady of Czestochowa and were founded in the 13th century. There name is derived from the hermit Saint Paul of Thebes (died c. 345), canonized in 491 by Pope Gelasius I. Because our tour guide kind of came in and disrupted the end of our Mass, our pilgrimage guide, Kasia, came up to me and said, "I know this priest and he is very hard to control. I can get you another guide." I laughed and said he would be fine. He was quite a character, constantly throwing out one-liners as we walked around the busy basilica listening to him with our single headphone devices. It was noisy and quite chaotic throughout the church as it was a Saturday and many activities were going on includ
  Day 5 Świnice Warckie and – Czestochowa
  Today we visited the town of Świnice Warckie where St. Faustina was born and received her baptism. The church was fairly new and had the most interesting tabernacle shaped like a globe. It made me think of the first line of St. John Paul II's first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, "The Redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history." What beautiful words to begin his pontificate! Our pilgrimage guide translated a presentation about the features of the church from a Slovakian nun who is a member of the Congregation of Our Lady of Mercy. We then celebrated Mass and headed to the home where St. Faustina and her 9 siblings were born. It was a very small house and it is hard to imagine so many people living in such a small space. There was only one bed so most of the family had to sleep on the floor each night. After our brief tour of the Kowalska house (a common name in Polish like "Smith" in English) we traveled to the city