The above Sorrowful of "Worried" Christ is found on many roadside shrines that dot the Polish countryside.  Jesus, crowned with thorns before the scourging, is looking at what human beings, today, have done to the world he died for.

No Easter without death,

No joy without bitter sorrow,

No Resurrection without Lament (Gorzkie Żale)

Rev. Czeslaw M Krysa, SLD

Rector, The Church of St. Casimir, Buffalo, NY

Have you ever felt bitter sorrow, the kind that rips your heart out of your chest at a loss of a loving relationship?   The kind that keeps you up for nights, many sleepless nights, and seems endless?  Have you ever felt a sorrow that borders on despair? A sharp pain, deep in your stomach or a listlessness that makes you want to give up?

This is the pain that Jesus suffered: that God suffered.  And why?  He suffered it for you, to become your healer and hope-bringer.  This is the pain which the devotion, Bitter Lamentations, celebrates.  Yes, celebrates. 

This mystical devotion, called Bitter Cries or Laments, celebrates Jesus’ suffering for you.  Coming close to his suffering in prayer is healing in itself.  This devotion heals in its bitterness, because the human comes to know a God who, though not guilty, tasted gruesome pain to heal us.  By his wounds we are healed, Isaiah the prophet reminds us.

Don’t cheat yourself this Easter thinking you can run from left-over Christmas cookies, frozen pierogi, a Mardi Gras beer, chocolate hearts, to Pączki Day, fish with fries, and marshmallow vernal rodents, sausage, placki and then, have a “Happy Easter”.  Don’t fool yourself. This vicious cycle fills you up with favorites, but can leave you empty inside.

If your Easters, Christmases, anniversaries, valentines, family parties, etc. have become hum-drum, and have lost their luster, and soon tarnish, quickly becoming drab, old-hat, even a bore… you need a shock-treatment. Yes, a shock treatment of Jesus’ hard love for you celebrated in the Bitter Lamentations which affirm:

      Wake me Jesus from complacence,
           Cure the wounds of my indifference2x. 
      Cleanse and heal my shattered soul. 
           In Your blood, O, make me whole2x. 
      One short step into Your Passion. 
          Cools the flame of desperation.2x.

Come and experience how this uniquely Polish, bi-lingually chanted, Lenten devotion can heal your most bitter sorrow.  Allow Jesus and his Sorrowful Mother to embrace you in their pain.  It was born out of the crucible of the suffering of the Catholic Nation of our heritage, in the church where Chopin was organist. There is no English counterpart to this experience. It’s not found in the burbs.  Once you experience this Lenten devotion, then the Easter Resurrection is on the horizon for you, like it has never been before.  You’ll be surprised into hope.

 

[Pic: Statue of Christ carrying his Cross survived the intense and systematic bombing of Warsaw. After the Germans completed leveling 95% of Poland’s capital, the extended arm of Jesus rose from the street above the rubble. Proclaiming the Eucharistic salutation,  SursumCorda  or “Lift up your hearts,” it inspired the undefeated nation with resilience that comes from faith. In this decimated Church of the Holy Cross, about 200 years earlier, as the Russians occupied and ravaged Poland, the devotion, Bitter Lamentations was born.  Yet another reason these melodies and words bring healing grace.]

Bitter Lamentations                          Gorzkie Żale

Sundays of Lent at 9:30AM

The Church of St. Casimir, Buffalo, NY ─ Lent 2014

The sun, moon, and celestial lights, fade into shameful darkness. Mountain rocks crumble. Angels of heaven weep.  Our hearts are stirred with compassion, as all creation witnesses the execution of the Son of God.

These mystical sentiments surface in the stirring melodies and vivid poetry of the beloved Polish devotion or Lenten or Bitter Laments. The coldest and hardest heart cannot help but be moved from indifference or apathy, to deepest sorrow and love for God, and contrition for our sins.

About one-hundred years before America’s Revolutionary War and Poland’s disappearance from the map of Europe, these sung meditations were first sung in Warsaw’s Church of the Holy Cross, where the famed composer Frederick Chopin later served as organist and Blessed Mary Angela Truszkowska, foundress of the Felician Sisters prayed with her street kids. For centuries they have stood in testimony to a powerful intimacy with Jesus, the Suffering Servant Lord, characteristic of the Polish heritage and experience of faith.

During World War II, Nazi Germany unleashed a vicious campaign of unparalleled death on the citizens of Poland. Torture, death camps and shooting squads awaited Catholic Poles who defended their homes and land.  Hitler’s army systematically bombed and street-by-street dynamited government buildings, historic churches and parishes, national landmarks and monuments of Warsaw, Poland’s capital.   

After ninety percent of the beloved city was leveled, the famous Sursum Corda statue of Church of the Holy Cross lay amidst the rubble (see photo). One of the image’s arms still embraced the cross; the other hand rose above the destruction. Over century the statue stood on the steps of the church where the Lenten Lamentations were first sung. Now, more than ever, Jesus called from the street, through the country’s open wound: Lift up your hearts!

Not many devotions can so bond deep human trauma, loss, pain, and sadness with the bitter gall of Jesus’ passion and the compassion of his Sorrowful Mother. These melodies pray: Come, bitter sorrows, lamentations, wreathe my soul in contemplation…. One short step into Your Passion, cools my flames of desperation.

I welcome you, friends and members of The Church of St. Casimir, to embrace the bi-lingual translation of the song and lyrics of this thundering, universal lament for justice and personal healing. 

Hold these prayer-chants close to your own pain, disappointments, rifts, and misfortune. Apply your own wounds to the miraculous wounds, the curative lashes, the mocking execution and redemptive passion of Jesus.  He will stir your heart to true love of those in our families and neighborhood whose hope has been challenged.  At the same time tears of repentance can move us to confess our insensitivity, our harsh and ruthless judgments of each other.

These meditations can move us from complacency to recognize Jesus in the lonely, the homeless and homebound, the sick and all who hunger for love, joy and hope.  Having walked with him in the desert of forty days of Lenten Lament, united with Jesus, he continues to carry our pain. Therefore, we shall recognize him at the end of the road breaking bread at resurrection table of Emmaus.

The Cup of Life

Two years ago, St. Casimir’s members started gathering the fruits of the fast in favorite cups. It began in Lent, on our first-annual Feast Day celebration. 

Cups became daily reminders to empty ourselves of the un-needed, un-necessary, the clutter & burdens of our life.  This led us to fill the lives of those in need, just as our Patron, the Prince of the Poor did some six-hundred years ago.

With St. Casimir’s Feast Day only a week away, here’s a reminder to bring your favorite cup or mug to the Feast Day Mass with Bishop Malone.  At the end of the Mass Bishop Malone will dedicate the Family Vine Memorial Chapel (formerly the St, Joseph Chapel) and bless the cups you placed on the chapel table during the procession of the Preparation of the Gifts.  Emptying yourself into your Cup of Life gradually transforms it into your Resurrection “gift box”.  You’ll empty your 40-day Cup at the Lord’s Tomb—the one rejected by humanity, at the Holy Saturday food blessing. Jesus transforms fast to feast helping needy families in our Outreach Program.

Remember, there is a depiction of our Cup of Life tradition on the right wall of the Vine Chapel. After our Bishop blesses the cups, return home with them home and place them in a special place in your view for the all of Lent.

“Cup of Life” meditations will appear throughout Lent in the weekly Chronicle and on mystablog80.blogspot.com.  They may help you to encounter God in daily living.  Use your favorite cup as a place to empty the fruit of your 40-Day Fast with Jesus in the desert. And consider following the on-line or in bulletin meditations and gathering the bountiful fruits of your Lenten sacrifices.

Gathering the Fruits of your Fast 2014