The Moral Duty of Getting at the Truth
Bishop Stanislaw Stefanek

Polish version
 
translated by: Bozena Mercik

The Homily made by His Excellency bishop Stanislaw Stefanek,/ S.Ch./, the Ordinary of Lomza, during the mass in the parish church in Jedwabne on 11 March, 2001.

"This is my Son, whom I have chosen - listen to Him!" ( Lk 9.35 )

Dearest in the Lord!

The Liturgy of the Second Sunday in Lent takes us to Mount Tabor, the Hill of Transfiguration and then, after such a deeply mystical sensation, it says the farewell with the following instruction: This is my Son, whom I have chosen - listen to Him. After experiencing the High Mass and singing the Lenten Psalms we would like to leave the congregation bearing that instruction in mind. Today we are having a special commentary referring to Mount Tabor: at this very moment the mass, during which 233 martyrs have been canonized, is coming to an end in St.Peter's Square in Rome. They are the martyrs for faith who were murdered during the civil war in Spain in the thirties. We shall remember that fact since it is not only the latest event in the universal Church but also the fulfillment of the consideration pointed out by the Holy Liturgy as well. There is also a social context in our meeting here which is being experienced by all of us and by many residents of our homeland: the unprecedented attack at Jedwabne. As a matter of fact that is the attack at the comprehension of World War II, at the comprehension of the latest history of Europe and the world. Jedwabne is a symbol, it is a sign. In virtue of that your bishop is standing among you here today to pray together. We are in the eye of the unleashed cyclone meant by its initiators to inflame the minds by the spiral of accusations and hatred all over again.

This is my beloved Son - listen to Him.

We are on Mount Golgotha and Mount Tabor. On Golgotha the Son, sent to his Father, uttered his last words: "It is finished!" On Mount Tabor Jesus Christ has revealed his Deity. The way to God, the way to glory goes through Golgotha. The beloved Son, the chosen Son has been put to the test of suffering. That is the way of glory. That is the way of the martyrs from Spain, of the Polish martyrs canonized two years ago in Warsaw, and of many other martyrs. That is the way to God: it leads through the experience of love.
Love put to the test, as is gold in the fire, love put to the test up to the martyrdom. That kind of love ultimately builds history and lasts as permanent cultural and material heritage, since where there is love, all durable material goods are made and all cultural works are preserved. That way leads through the trial which originates from sin. Sin creates hatred. The hatred forced Nero to set Rome on fire, blame the Christians and then murder them. That was the first generation of martyrs of the Church then.
The Holy Father reminded the youth gathered in the square in front of the Basilica of St.Peter's in the Lateran about that just after the meeting had started. That was the beginning of the martyrdom of the Church. The sin, the crime of the insane caesar and the slander used at the Christians. Golgotha has been following the Church throughout the ages.
Just after the war a very interesting book "Between heroism and bestiality" by a great philosopher and thinker - father prof. Konstanty Michalski, rector of the Jagiellonian University for a period of time - was published. It states that the road of history, the road of a human being, the road of a nation leads just between heroism and bestiality. We interpret the words spoken a week ago exactly in that context. The statement of a Jewish rabbi from a Jewish congregation in Warsaw was: "The murder of the innocent people is not a local tragedy, it is a tragedy of the whole world ". Referring to those words the Polish Primate cardinal Jozef Glemp said: " We grieve over the innocent bloodshed of any nation. The murder of the innocent in Jedwabne, Katyn, Dachau and Auschwitz make us, as members of the human race, suffer in the same way as does the genocide in Rwanda, in the Balkans or between neighbors in the Palestine". Such is the history of love and hatred, heroism and bestiality.

Where is the source of such a tremendous aggression towards man?

The source is the father of all evil and his rebellion against God. Man is the first to be struck by the blow of that aggressiveness since he is the very image and resemblance of God. That is why man falls first, assaulted by the repugnance of God. The only origin of evil is the hate of God. The mechanisms of that offense may vary. The Holy Bible depicts three kinds of greed: power, money and pleasure. Nothing has changed since the times of St.John's. The father of all evil, the adversary of God who despises people, acts by means of the same mechanisms: power, money and pleasure. The innocent man is the victim, the martyr. The martyr, regardless of ancestry or religion, is the sufferer of hatred. The latest history has brought in new ideas in accordance with the routine we have been watching over the ages. They are genocidal this time, since people have become equipped with the global technology. Revolutions and world wars are the arenas where the eternal sources of struggle with God gush with a stream of repugnance and bear new martyrs. Two cities became centers of the genocidal technology within the last century: Moscow and Berlin. They are the cities - symbols, which are associated with the two totalitarian systems. Nowadays none of us would certainly dare blame neither the residents of Berlin of the atrocities of nazism nor the residents of Moscow of the outrage of bolshevism. That would be highly unfair. We often use the names Berlin - Moscow as symbolic words to denote the headquarters of international genocide. We have learnt to understand our history much deeper and we never simplify the scheme of the father of all evil to a single nation, a name or a city.

Two horrendous waves of genocidal strategy organized by nazism and bolshevism have passed through the land given to us by God's will to administer.

That is the reason why there are so many heroes in those lands - soldiers, totally exterminated villages, as well as exiles and displaced persons, prisoners of war and martyrs of the post-war era, the time when everything associated with the word"freedom" was being destroyed. There are our Jewish brothers in this land , especially loved and respected by us, who were burnt alive here. This land is so rich and so exhausted.
How were the genocidal technologies established then and how have they been organized at present? That is a very modern organization. The times when a king headed his soldiers and confronted another king, when the front line and the methods of fighting were clear, are all gone. Nowadays the offer of all kinds of propaganda is very abundant; there are groups specialized in sabotage, provocation, lies, document destruction or myth invention, dressed in a gown of historic research. There is a new way of destruction of man. Therefore it is extremely hard to get at the truth. Consequently, a thorough historic research and data search must be compulsory, with the full responsibility taken for that investigation. Hence the moral duty of getting at the truth, the duty of participating in data search, as the contemporary history is extraordinarily distorted in its external account.

I have been experiencing Jedwabne myself since I came to Lomza.

Only four years have passed. First, I payed visits to all the decanates. Then, just a few days after I had been assigned to my service in Lomza, among other facts, I got to know that fragment of our painful history. I experienced Jedwabne, Radzilow, Wasosz, Wizna, Lomza and Krasowo Czestki from Piekuty parish, where all the village was slaughtered. I have learnt a lesson. This is my land, the land pointed out by the Providence for my duty. My performance and my solicitude here will be evaluated at the Final Judgement.
I have been experiencing Jedwabne for over a year now, since the time I was told by my friends in Warsaw in a discreet conversation, in a subdued voice: - An extensive attack at Jedwabne is going to take place, it is a question of money. I was also told that, as a bishop, I would be very annoyed. Hence, I started to be on the watch; I began to enquire about who and how could possibly make money on our economical, quiet land. I have been experiencing Jedwabne in a very particular way since the campaign against Jedwabne, inconceivable in its methods, was actually unleashed - as I had been foretold by my friends.

Who gains by a war? Who makes a fortune on a war?

We know that manufacturers of weapons, technical equipment, food and clothing have been making money on a war. Gigantic concerns are usually visible at the subsidiaries of any great wars. They are well hidden. Moreover, they are respected by both fighting sides. Sometimes they deliver weapons to both fronts. That is a privilege of manufacturers of the tools run by the blood of innocent martyrs, the soldiers. There are others there, who make great fortunes as plunderers, getting rich by looting. Looting is a well known phenomenon . It occurs at any unrest; any protest march, any barricade is enough - and we have got a burnt police car and a few looted stores right away. That is a well known mechanism in the whole human history. Robbers and thieves are everywhere nowadays. There is also a new way of making money on a war - by mischief . A term "Shoah business" has emerged in the United States. I have tried to get its meaning. I have to admit there has been nobody who could fully explain it to me. The brief interpretation was: the best business profit right now is made on the innocent blood of the slaughtered Jews and we have to be aware of whose displeasure we expose ourselves to when we talk about it loud. That is why such enormous mechanisms have been started. Jedwabne is neither the first nor the last one. That predatory and hypocritical campaign, so very modern in its technique, reaches far and aims far. Anyhow, we are not going to devote the reflections of today's liturgy to that matter right now. We are to come back here to Jedwabne, to this martyrdom land and ask ourselves a question: -What is our task today? What are the duties of the land we run?

Altars have been raised and Holy Masses have been said on the graves of martyrs.

Since the times of Nero the Sacrifice of the Risen Jesus Christ Who has overcome death, Who is mightier than a lie, Who is the King of the World , has indicated the significance of martyrs' blood. The altar has been raised on martyrs' blood. That is why the beatification of 233 Spanish Martyrs is taking place in Rome today. The place of Christ's Sacrifice is the place of prayers to the glory of the Almighty, the place of prayers to honor and remember the martyrs for ever. That is the highest ennoblement of the martyrdom. The liturgy commemorating martyrs is the greatest and the most lasting record in history which brings every stage of the fight between good and evil to an end.

We do a self-examination on the graves of martyrs.

The righteous conscience has to account for the hatred in the depth of one's heart. Each of us examines his or her inner self; even the slightest trace of hate and retaliation , which may be triggered by apparent harm, has to be thoroughly searched for and tracked down. We master the righteous conscience on the graves of martyrs.
A famous writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has participated in fighting which employed different kinds of methods. He was a soldier of the Red Army. After his arrest he started wondering if he was really able to join the murderers' side. Would he do it? He conducts a very deep and interesting analysis of his inner conscience. He draws on his own experience of arrest and gulags. His attitude towards others is analyzed at the very moment he is not only being stripped of his officer rank but of his chances for his personal safety as well. He comes to a very interesting conclusion: "the boundary between good and evil goes through the very middle of my heart. It is up to me which side - good or evil - overcomes my heart." The boundary between good and evil goes through the very middle of our heart. Therefore a self-examination of our own reaction and our own response to a provocation is essential.

We have to start a school of wisdom on the graves of martyrs.

This is my beloved Son, listen to Him. Only God will let us avoid a new temptation, a new spiral of hatred. The provocation is very well prepared. Let the school of wisdom be set up at the altar and on each place where the innocent bloodshed of man has occurred. It has been a blessing for me lately that I was able to talk to someone who witnessed those dramatic moments of 1941 here, in the square of Jedwabne. Thanks to those conversations I may say I felt as if I were in the middle of that procession of innocent people led to be burnt, with the revered figure of the rabbi of Jedwabne among them. The school of wisdom. One must go deep into the innermost recesses of the heart, as the provocation has been arranged very well.

We establish a school of community love on the graves of martyrs.

In His letter "Novo millennio ineunte" the Holy Father calls that school the spirituality of communion. The true brotherhood of people is also the brotherhood of blood. Last year I had a chance to bless a newly restored, huge grave in Kolno, with the representatives of two different nations, Russians and Germans, present. The most precious treasure has been laid in that grave by history: the human blood. That is a school of communion, a school of social life, a school of brotherhood, true brotherhood.
The borderland we live in is the best to form a new spirituality. Here the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Russians, the Belorussians and the Ukrainians are not far away from each other. The representatives of the Jewish nation from other countries and from this area are close by here, too. All are not far away from each other here. That is why one can think of establishing a school of community life in this place, of creating such programs and organizing such communities which would be able to study the adoration of the truth and life in the truth. The undisturbed respect towards the other human being comes from the love of the truth. The truth and respect. Even if we do not want to follow the Bible in the use of the word "love", the love which gives life, the love which also embraces the enemy with its redeeming power. The school of social life, the school of establishing a new relationship of great Europe and the whole world.

Finally, the foundations of "The Sanctuary of the Innocent Blood" have to be reposed on the graves of martyrs.

The place steeped with blood must be honored. It must rank as a sanctuary. The Sanctuary of the Innocent Blood. With respect to religious beliefs, with regard to the cult symbols and the kind of rituals which have been worked out by each religion throughout the ages. I was happy to learn that efforts had been made to honor the places: the place of worship of the Jewish congregation, the last resting place - the cemetery and the grave of the murdered - the burnt ones. That is a program. That is a very vital program.

I often ask myself: how does the Lord write His simple message on those crooked lines of provocation; what are we required to do then?

What does the Lord require from You, from Your priest, who faces that many unfair opinions with such dignity? What task does the Lord assign for me, the bishop of Lomza, on those crooked lines? When I was listening to the God's voice very intently, I heard today's word : This is my beloved Son, listen to Him.
The Transfiguration, Mount Tabor we are climbing again, is an ideal setting, or one could say a movie screenplay, a social program assigned for us by God for tomorrow. There is Moses on Mount Tabor: the law, the tradition, the Jewish faith, the tale of salvation, the Chosen People, Jahwe's Messianic role and everything the word "Moses tradition" comprises. There is Elijah, the prophet, the truth, the Lord's Word Servant, the teacher, as well as the school of praying, the master of contemplation, mysticism, creativity of the spirit, culture and furthermore, all those treasures which have been brought to the Jewish nation heritage by those two great figures. There are two trends, Moses and Elijah, and He the Altered, with the radiance on His face and the luminous clothing, standing between them. The topic of the conversation is His departure which is going to occur in Jerusalem, that is Golgotha, that is Passion and Resurrection. There is no better screenplay, there are no better programs: He and the plentitude of time.

Jedwabne, once a place of peaceful neighborly cooperation.

My interlocutor I have quoted before told me about Eucharistic processions and the rituals of the Jewish Liturgy with the Holy Book, which were passing through these very streets. The neighbors understood each other then.
The enemies of God made Jedwabne the place of martyrdom and the laboratory of stirring up hatred. This is also the place of heroic gestures of coming to the rescue to the neighbors and acquaintances, as it was in the case of a Jewish girl handed over to a Polish neighbor's care, who spent over a year in the Polish household; or the case of Berek, an adolescent man who had been in touch with the Jewish youth since the very beginning and who was bravely organizing possibilities of defense. There have been many such gestures there.
This is the place of making up conscience, the school of shaping character, the point of developing a new society. That is Jedwabne's future. That is the future of Poland and the prospect of all those places where the innocent have undergone suffering.
Amen.

back to the english home page

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1