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Most Reverend Father
Adam KOZŁOWSKI OSB
Abbot of Tyniec
This year the Benedictine Abbey in Tyniec celebrates the Jubilee of 950 years of its existence. Tyniec has written magnificent pages in the history of the Church in Poland and also in the history of Polish culture. The jubilee celebrations remind us that we should reflect on this excellent spiritual heritage continually anew with an awareness of responsibility and with gratitude towards God, who is the Giver of all good.
To understand the full significance of the Jubilee we should return to the very source - that means the person and work of St. Benedict, the Father of western monasticism and Patron of Europe. What does his exceptional significance consist in? A very accurate and compact answer to this question is given us by the breviary liturgy of his feast:
When the end of the former order had come
And when the new earth had been born in pain
Thou, Father, stood up on the border of times
To protect the good (Hymn of Vigils).
God called Benedict in those days, when at the turn of the 5th century, on the border of times, a new Europe had been born in pain, in a climate of confusion and uncertainty. The former order had collapsed, and a new one had not yet been born. That is when Benedict stood up - as the liturgy says - to protect the good. What good is meant first of all? The good of the Gospel and the good of European culture. These values were particularly in danger. Benedict stood up, in this difficult time of transition, to protect what was of the greatest importance for the human being. The maxim he formulated, Ora et labora - pray and work - was to lay down the basic direction of the development of European culture.
In the Abbey at Monte Cassino the heart of the new Europe had begun to beat. From there throughout many centuries an authentic European spirit was to radiate and there it was to revive. There too, in May 1944, from the ashes of the famous Abbey, the united Europe arose, which after the painful experiences of the 2nd World War derived the inspiration and power of spiritual resurrection from its Christian roots. The Battle for Monte Cassino, the anniversary of which we have celebrated recently, and where Poles distinguished themselves so gloriously, was in fact a fight for the spirit of Europe. This spirit of Europe as it was in Benedict's time - is often in danger from different sides and one should defend it even at the cost of highest sacrifices.
And here we come back to the Vistula, to the ancient Benedictine Abbey in Tyniec, which celebrates its 950th anniversary this year. This is a Jubilee of unusual significance both for the Church in Poland and for the whole of our Fatherland. In the former times, when the foundations of Polish national and cultural identity were coming into being, Tyniec Abbey became a centre from which - thanks to the prayer and work of the spiritual sons of St. Benedict - the spirit of Gospel and of Christian culture, the spirit of Christian Europe irradiated the young Polish state and Church. This mission Tyniec has fulfilled for centuries and does so still today. In this way is confirmed the truth about how deeply we Poles have been rooted in Europe from the very beginning of our history: we have permitted it to shape us and simultaneously we have been contributing our creative gifts to the common treasury of European culture.
Today it is necessary to remind ourselves of this. If one argues about the identity of Europe, one argues also about the identity of Poland and its history. It is not a purely theoretical argument, because here in fact the human being is at stake: his inner truth and his vocation as well as the Nation and its truth.
There are forces today that have powerful means at their disposal and the spirit of Christian Europe is inconvenient, is a stumbling-block for them. Therefore they want to destroy it by all possible means. But can we go so far as to be deprived of this great heritage? Can we renounce it so easily - as Europeans and Poles? What other foundation can secure support and survival for us? St. Paul says plainly: For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3,11). Thus this Tyniec Jubilee leads our thought far from the walls of this ancient Abbey. It makes us look in the light of faith at Europe and at Poland in Europe. It makes us stand up in the rank of those who, like Benedict, protect the good.
Writing these words I have before my eyes the enchanting silhouette of Tyniec Abbey, which like a fortress overlooks the Vistula near Cracow. I have before my eyes the community of Tyniec monks. Many of them I know personally from the period of my ministry in Cracow Archdiocese. At various occasion we had an opportunity to work together. I remember their sensitiveness for the pastoral needs of the Church.
The contributions of Tyniec Abbey to the Church in our Homeland are great. After the 2nd Vatican Council Tyniec became a particularly vital centre, from where the liturgical renewal radiated throughout the whole of Poland. With Tyniec is also connected the latest Polish translation of the Bible from the original languages - the so called Tyniec Bible. Liturgy and Bible are the two domains in which the Benedictine spirituality finds its particular expression.
In the time of the Jubilee we span the entire almost thousand year past of Tyniec Abbey - as well as its present - and we worship the One God in the Trinity for His magnificent deeds that He has done in our Fatherland through-out the centuries. I join spiritually in this jubilee Te Deum and bless whole-heartedly the Abbey in Tyniec, all Polish Benedictines and all participants of the jubilee celebrations:
in the Name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.
Vatican, June 7th, 1994.
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