Casimiri exiles continue to assemble

supra: setting up for another service in exile
infra: holy cards of Bl. Jerzy Popiełuszko, Mother of God—Katyn

















  
The churches have been taken away from many people in the counties of Cuyahoga, Lorain and Summit in the diocese of Lennongrad, Ohio. Parishioners of St. James, St. Emeric, St. Patrick (West Park), and St. Casimir continue to band together, no matter what the weather. The Patricios call the Casimiri shortly after 11.30 a.m. to greet each other and commence their vigils of prayer and constancy.

The Magyars(Hungarians) to-day also gathered for Mass at St. Colman's. Father Robert Begin has tutored himself to be able to voice the words of the Divine Liturgy in Magyarul. This is act of Christian charity and ministry. People usually love their native tongue. Some languages are easier to pick up than others. Hungarian is not an indo-european language, and few non-nationals have become students of it.

At St. Casimir the exiles began immediately upon their eviction in early November of '09 to pray and sing the streets. Those at the first session were Poles from post-war Poland. They have accumulated other individuals since then, some with no slavonic kinship. They are continuing a community.

At the start of prayer the wind blew from the cold lake, Wojciech then maneuvered his vehicle to provide a windbreak, and they began then. They prayed and sang. Friday past, was the patronal feast. They were remembered in Masses at Immaculate Heart and Colman's (at least). They spoke of the upcoming Patrick's parade.

One of their number, Elizabieta, passed out the holy cards. Richard Lennon, who mercilessly shuttered their church and kicked them to the street cannot fathom their devotion. Solidarity of feeling crosses oceans and decades. Fr. Popiełuszko, as the card says, is a martyr[witness] to freedom. He, with Oscar Romero of the Americas, will join Thomas Becket and Stanislaus of Krakow as saints for social and political justice.

The other card has Mary, the Mother of God, embracing one of the thousands of Poles massacred in the forests near Katyn, in Belorussia, by the soviet secret police of Lavrentij Beria and his fellow Georgian, Stalin in the spring of 1940. Prior to fall of communism in 1989, it was not to be mentioned in public. Those of the Solidarity movement did.

In the Body of the Christ, the community of Christians, is of the past and present, of the dead and the living. We are in it together. Distance and time does not break the ties.