Today, on the 16th of October, our parish celebrates the solemnity of its patron: St. Hedwig of Silesia – św. Jadwiga Śląska.
It is interesting that today, Divine Providence gives us two saints in the General Calendar of the Church – St. Hedwig of Silesia, and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. To that, we should add Pope St. John Paul II, who was elected to the papacy on October 16th. Is this just a coincidence, or is there a link between these three saints, all on October 16th? Let us spend some time reflecting on this.
St. Hedwig was born in Bavaria and moved to the territory of what is now Poland, after marrying duke Henry the Bearded. The name Hedwig, at times spelled “Hethwigis”, means “the one who fights”. We can say that St. Hedwig straddled two peoples – the Polish and the German. Being born in Germany, she had to learn the Polish language and national customs from scratch. St. Hedwig also straddled two states of life – the lay and the religious. She was married, and the mother of 7 children, whom she not only bore but educated. She also buried six of her seven children. Toward the end of her life, she entered a convent near Trzebnica, and lived a life in faithfulness to religious vows.
St. Hedwig distinguished herself by works of charity: last week we heard about lepers – in the year 1230, Saint Hedwig opened up a hospital for lepers in the town of Środa Śląska. Still, for Saint Hedwig, charity began at home: in the acts of her canonization, we read, “She considered the marital state a gift from heaven and lived it in a godly way. She was faithful in love to the Duke, until his untimely death, not by way of the fire of sensual passion, but through a prudent and heartfelt dedication”. [In the Polish original: „Ponieważ stan małżeński uważała za dar nieba, żyła w nim bardzo świętobliwie. Księciu była wierna w miłości aż do jego nagłej śmierci i to nie poprzez żar zmysłowej namiętności, lecz poprzez roztropne serdeczne oddanie”http://www.liturgies.net/saints/margaretmaryalacoque/readings.htm) Sometimes in our prayer we feel like Moses, from the first reading, who had to sit down, because his hands were getting tired. At other times we lose confidence in the good that our prayers are doing, and need to hear Our Lord reminding us “to pray always and not to lose heart”, as He said in today’s Gospel (Luke 18:1). Holy Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, come pray in me, when I do not know how to pray, when I get tired and lose confidence in God’s great power to act.
The other person whom we remember this day is Karol Wojtyła, the Cardinal Archbishop of Kraków, who was elected to the Papacy on October 16th, 1978, and took the name John Paul II. He was a great disciple of Divine Mercy.
There is yet something else that we should add. These three saints maintained their trust in a good and loving God even when the circumstances of their lives seemed to say the opposite. Saint Hedwig buried all but one of her seven children, and her husband. They all died before she did. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque lost her father as a child, and then had to suffer because of poverty in her family, and continued to suffer after she entered the convent. It is said that, when she had her visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the other sisters in her community were convinced that she was possessed by the devil, and used to sprinkle Holy Water on her when they passed her in the hallway. St. John Paul II lost all of his immediate family by the age of 21: his sister, mother, older brother, and father. He lived through the cataclysm of the Second World War. These events were capable of tempting these saints to doubt in a good and loving God, these events could persuade someone to distrust God and His plan. And yet, St. Hedwig, after her son was killed in a battle with the Mongols, was able to say “This is the will of God and must be pleasing to us, what God wants, and what is pleasing to God”. (In the Polish original: “To jest wolą Bożą i musi nam się podobać to, czego Bóg chce i to, co się Bogu podoba”). (http://jadwigaslaska.pl/o-jadwidze) A paraphrase of this sentence – “Co Bóg da, niech nam miło będzie” (What God grants, let that be pleasing to us) appears on the parish crest of St. Hedwig.
So maybe it is the thread of mercy and trust in the goodness of God, that unites these three Saints: St. Hedwig of Silesia, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and St. John Paul II. One of our federal cabinet ministers said several days ago that “our world is getting darker” (https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/anita-anand-military-aid-ukraine-1.6615215). Yes, when we consider euthanasia, even for infants, then our world, our country is getting colder and darker, spiritually and morally. Perhaps in such a world, the mission of the church of St. Hedwig’s is to be a place where Divine Mercy flowing from a good God is freely dispensed. Let this church be a place where people find mercy in the confessional, in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament, but also in the conversations, in the interactions, that they have with fellow parishioners, visitors and others. Let us ask our powerful patroness, St. Hedwig of Silesia, as well as St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and St. John Paul II, to assist us in this mission.
(Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, Oct. 16, 2022)