I responded to the Deacon's post with a comment attesting to our spiritual vitality and our efforts to keep our parish open.TheDeacon responded to this with a supportive comment, links and mention of our online petition. He also published this lovely photo of Our Lady, known to him as Matka Boska Ostrobramska, with the following verse from the epic poem "Pan Tadeusz" by Adam Mickiewicz.
My fellow St. Stanislaus Kostka parishioner and consultant in all things Polish, Christine L., graciously translated the passage into modern English and went beyond:
"Lithuania! My homeland (or my fatherland, motherland, country)! you are like good health;
Only one who has lost you can learn how much you are valued,
Today I see and describe your beauty in all its splendor
Because I yearn for you.
Holy Maiden, who protects Czestochowa and who shines above Ostra Brama! You,
who shield the castle town of Nowogrod with its faithful folk!
THE VERSE CONTINUES:
As a child, you miraculously restored me to health,
(When my tearful mother placed me under your protection,
I raised my dead eyelids
And I could immediately walk barefoot to the threshold of your shrine
Coming to thank God for restoring my life.)
In like manner you will return us miraculously to the bosom of our country.
In the meantime, transport my longing soul
To those woodland knolls, to those green meadows
Stretched wide along the blue Niemen (River)....
To those fields painted with various kinds of grain,
Gilded with wheat, silvered with rye,
Where mustard like amber, buckwheat like white snow,
Where clover grows as with a maiden's blush,
And everything is girdled as with a ribbon
Of green turf, on which quiet pear trees sit..... "
N.B. "Ojczyzna" or "Fatherland" is used as a feminine noun so "homeland is a better choice!
THAT'S ALL TONIGHT! Dobra noc!!!
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