Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko

One

Life in Poland Under Communism

Satan’s goal is to destroy the Fatherhood of God in the world, to remove God from the world. 

The whole Communist system was built on a lie, the lie that God does not exist, that there is no higher power than the state, and that material reality is all that exists. By denying God and religious practice, the Soviets aimed to control not only the political, economic, and social spheres but the very conscience of individuals. 

When Poland fell under the control of the Soviet Union they were denied almost all the freedoms we enjoy.

They were denied the freedom of religion. The communist government saw the Catholic Church as a threat due to its influence and opposition to atheistic ideology. Churches were closed, clergy were persecuted, and religious activities were restricted. Practicing your faith would often result in discrimination in employment and education. Religious leaders and devout individuals were often under surveillance and faced harassment. Cardinal Wyszinski was arrested and imprisoned in solitary confinement for three years simply because he was the head of the Church in Poland. 

Freedom of conscience was suppressed. Those who openly expressed dissenting opinions, whether on religious, moral, or political grounds, faced imprisonment, exile, or worse. The pervasive surveillance and culture of informing created an atmosphere of fear and distrust, fracturing communities and even families.

Since the Government owned everything, I mean everything, they controlled the means of production and pricing. As a result, the people faced unbearable inflation and shortages of basic goods and services. 

So, by August of 1980, the Polish people had had enough and workers all over the country began to strike in protest - demanding their human dignity and freedoms be recognized. 

Two

Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko 

When the steel workers began to strike in Warsaw in August of 1980, Cardinal Wyzsinki sent Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko to celebrate Mass for them in the steel mill and he became their spiritual leader. 

Every month he had a special Mass for the freedom of Poland, celebrated from the balcony in front of the church and attended by half of Warsaw.

In his homilies, Fr. Jerzy confronted the lie of Communism and urged the people to wake up. saying, “Our slavery comes from our knuckling under to the reign of the lie. We do not unmask that lie, and by doing nothing about it, by our silence, we encourage it!”

Fr. Jerzy became the symbol of the spiritual resistance against Communism.  

The Communists had to do something to stop him. But the harassment, arrests, multiple interrogations, and increasing media propaganda against Father Jerzy did not make him resign, so the communist government decided he had to die.

Three

Martyrdom 

On Oct. 19, 1984, as Father Popieluszko was returning from celebrating Mass at another parish, he and his driver were abducted by the Secret Police. They forced the priest out of his car, beat him, and threw him into their trunk. Then they drove to a dam on the Vistula River, bound him hand and foot, tied weights to his body, and threw him into the river to drown. 

His funeral was attended by a million people.

Then on December 31st, 1989, after many more protests, Poland became free. On June 6th, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI beatified Father Jerzy.

Communism denied religious freedom and freedom of conscience and abused the human rights of the Polish people. Fr. Jerzy gave his life defending those freedoms.

Four

Materialism and Sloth 

Satan used Communism in Poland to make people forget about God. Satan uses materialism in the West to make us forget about God. 

Materialism is the lie that self-worth is based on achievements which are measured by money, that happiness comes from pleasure through entertainment. This causes us to be so busy and distracted we forget about God. That is the deadly sin of sloth.

Sloth is the vice, the deadly habit of stuffing ourselves with busyness and entertainment, of stuffing ourselves with so much junk, that we are no longer hungry for God.

When you are not hungry for God, then you make the choice not to think of God or spiritual things. You make the choice not to pray or go to Mass or anything. That choice is despair.

The feeling of despair is the feeling of discouragement. The sin of despair is the choice to not do anything that leads to God. So, sloth kills the hunger for God that leads to the choice not to seek Him.

That is the sin of despair. The West is in despair. 

Five

Hope

The remedy to the sin of despair is hope. Hope is the desire for God that causes us to seek Him in prayer, Mass, learning our faith and discussing it, and trying to get rid of our vices and become virtuous. That’s hope.

If our addiction to busyness and entertainment is killing our hope, that is when we have to cut out the junk and feed our souls with what they really need.  

The only way we will hunger for God is if we first cut out the junk, the busyness and entertainment. Then you will see, “Hey, that was a lot of junk I was putting in my soul. All those activities, those tasks, I didn’t need to be doing those things, my kids didn’t need to be doing all those things. And that entertainment, that was worse than a waste of time!”

Then fill your soul with what it needs.

We need a relationship with God through the Eucharist and prayer. We need work, some way to do good for others. We need physical health from sleep, nourishment, and exercise, we need good relationships with family and friends, and we need truth (you can’t get truth or reality from the news) and we need beauty (Beauty is very different from entertainment). 

Beauty is comprised of order and surprise. Beauty is where we allow ourselves to be surprised by things being true and good and right, things being according to the order of how God created the world. 

But we’re are feeding our souls a lot of junk and in many cases, we are ingesting poison, stuff that’s unconsciously killing us. 

So the first question must be: is what I am watching, listening to, or reading true, beautiful, and good or am I delighting in disorder and perversion?

So, start by cutting out of your life anything that does not fit on that list. Then fill your day, your soul, your life with the things on that list and you will move from sloth and despair to real hope and happiness!