Catholic Voice

There are some people who think that there are only three Marian Shrines in the world, Fatima, Lourdes and Knock and that Our Blessed Lady appeared in no other place. The reality however is that She appeared on every continent down through the ages, intervening in the course of human history, bringing the good news of the gospel message and of how much God loves each one of us. She also tells us that we are going astray and giving into sin and, as a true Mother, admonishes us to turn back to God in prayer, penance and praise.

 

One such apparition was in Lichen in Poland, where Our Lady is honoured as “The Sorrowful Queen of the Church and the World.” This shrine is one of Poland’s most important pilgrimage shrines and attracts over 2 million pilgrims per year.

 

Historically it is believed that in the mid -19^th century, there was a series of apparitions of Our Lady in Lichen whereby She came with a message of consolation, but also with a warning to mankind which was soon to face the tribulations of two great world wars along with other regional conflicts, famines etc.

 

Initially this message of care gave a lot of comfort to the Polish people who were even then suffering from a period known as the Partitions, when it was deprived of National Independence around the years 1795-1918. Poland was still to suffer more from other totalitarian regimes, like Nazism, Communism, and now Capitalism.

 

Pope John Paul II, in his book “Gift and Mystery,” recalls how, when he studied in Rome, he stayed at the Pontifical Belgium College. He recounts how he had a conversation with the Rector at that time, around 1948-1950, about his beloved Poland, and how it might not survive under Communism. Considering how much was suffered already under the Nazis. The Rector’s reply was stunning and the Pope would never forget it, in fact it stayed with him all his life. The Rector said “Poland can take it, they are good and tough people, but if the Communists ever took hold of Western Europe, it would totally destroy it.” Thus the Polish people have proved to be a tough people, strong in the faith, and faithful to God and to His Church. In fact if one were to visit Krakow today, one might imagine for a moment that you were in Rome. This beautiful city is known as the “Rome of the East.”

 

Part of the strength of the faith in Poland comes from knowing that Our Lady is there to help them as Mother, for truly it was Her who led them through the abyss of oppression and affliction. She appeared to a farmer and to a soldier to foretell the terrors awaiting mankind and to offer Her guidance and safe-keeping.

 

Here in this heavenly shrine in Lichen, some of the greatest miracles are taking place in human souls, with conversions by the thousands, a change of lives for sinners, momentous reconciliations in families, help in marriage, friends and neighbours who have been at war with one another over last wills, land, and something that might have been said over 50 years ago. Here at this shrine many important decisions in life have been and are being taken, vocations to the many forms of mission, to the priesthood and religious life. Here man is “able” to reconcile with his fellow-man, himself, and with God. The forte if you like of this shrine is the devout celebration of the liturgy 24 hours per day, 7 days a week with all night adoration, prayers, etc, but more that anything else, is the availability and time for a “general confession” whereby one makes a confession about their whole life and how they might have gone wrong, wronged others, and sinned before God. There is a lot of healing in this and one learns to forgive oneself and move on, upwards with quantum steps toward heaven. That special grace of maturity abounds in this wonderful sacrament of confession, because more than anything else, it causes us to practice humility at its most profound level.

 

Our Lady appeared first to Tomasz Klossowski who was a soldier wounded in battle. Tomasz was born in the late 18^th century and was once a country gentleman, owner of a stately mansion and large farmlands. He was good to those who had worked for him. Given the invasion and loss of independence, he joined the army to defend Poland and its integrity. His property had already been confiscated and he was threatened with imprisonment and death by the invaders. He was to witness the death of his commander in battle, Prince Jozef Poniatowski, in the battle of Leipzig in 1813. Tomasz was then shot through his right leg, his right side and he suffered a head injury which left him dying on the battlefield. He called on Our Lady to help him, asking her, to help him home to his family, so that he didn’t have to die alone and never see his wife and children again and whom he loved so much. In his own account he states what happens next “almost with haste, She came to me, having heard my cries for help, I saw her coming, crossing the battlefield, dressed in a dark red gown and a golden cloak on which were the emblems of the Holy Passion of Our Lord and She wore a beautiful golden crown on Her head” In that moment at seeing Her, so beautiful did She look, all pain left him. “The Virgin’s ecstatically beautiful face was inexpressibly sorrowful; Her sad eyes looked down from under half closed eyelids onto a white eagle which, the Mother of God clasped to Her bosom.” “She came to me and promised me my health,” says Tomasz, “She also promised that I could return to my family, but to have an image of Her made” He said that Our Lady instructed him to “take a good look at me so that in that image I may appear just as I look now” He was further instructed to place the image in a public place so that “ My people will pray before this image and shall draw many graces at My hands in the hardest times of trial.”

 

Tomasz went about for the next 13 years looking for some image which was close to the image of the mother of God as he remembered her, but could find none. In 1836 he decided to go on a walking pilgrimage to Czestochowa for the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the 8^th of September. He prayed and complained to Our Lady that he could find nothing similar in any picture that he saw in any Church in the past 13 years and he looked everywhere. He decided to return home the next day, the 9^th of September, and got as far as the village of Ligota when he noticed a small picture in a little shrine nailed to a tree, and realised that this was the picture he was looking for and that his prayers were indeed answered. In this picture he say Our Lady as She went to help him on the battlefield, from her half closed eyes looking down on the white eagle, Her sad look, Her countenance was full of serenity, majesty, and beauty, yet reassuring and full of hope. The Golden cloak did indeed have all the emblems of the Passion, the crown of thorns, the whips, the nails, and the spear that lanced the side of Jesus. On the head of the image was a golden crown with an inscription “Queen of Poland, Grant peace to us”

 

For the next eight years Tomasz placed this image in his home where he prayed before it and accorded it full reverence and veneration. It is said that the image wept every day and that Tomasz just wiped the tears away. However in 1844 he fell ill and needed help, and the priest and doctor were called. Tomasz was left alone in his room for a time when he heard a voice, coming from the picture “Tomasz take Me out of this house, into the forest.” He complained that he was too ill and could not move when he heard again “you will recover.” He was cured immediately and jumped out of bed to meet all in the parlour of his house who were making arrangements for his funeral, to their surprise. He eventually did make a small chapel in the forest and placed the miraculous image there. He would visit the chapel every Sunday, where he was often seen in conversation alone with the image. He died on the 7^th of August in 1848.

 

The second man to receive an apparition was a local farmer by the name of Mikolaj Sikatka who was born in Grablin in 1787. He used to graze his cattle in the forest and stayed with them day and night in the summer. He had a good reputation for being honest, pious, prudent and a truthful man, he was also said to be deeply religious. He came across the small chapel that Tomasz had put up in the forest and he would go there to pray. On the 15^th of August in 1850 Mikolaj told people that an extraordinary beautiful woman had appeared to him on several occasions in the forest near the picture. The villagers called in the local parish priest, Father Kosinski, who wrote an official declaration which stated that for a few years in his parish, there was a picture of Our Lady in a small chapel in the forest. For the past two years a local farmer has said that he has been seeing an unknown, but beautiful woman from another world, who has been trying to get a message across through this farmer (actually called “cowherd” in Polish), stating that the people should sincerely do penance, to change their lives and to go to mass and have offered to God, three masses to implore God to turn away the imminent threat of punishment and disease hanging over the wicked. The farmer was subject to arrest and interrogation by the authorities on several occasions, but stood fast to the same story. He admitted that the woman asked this request many times and in fact insisting on it.

 

This letter of the Parish Priest was eventually published and therefore leaves a record of what happened. It is of course in greater detail than the account given here. Mikolaj says that he saw Our Lady on the 13^th of May 1850 for the first time. He says he was kneeling down and praying the rosary, when She appeared and said “Praised be Jesus Christ” He replied “Amen,” then he stood looking at Her in awe and silence. She called him by name “Mikolaj, tell people that God’s retribution for their sins is at hand. An infectious disease will trouble all the population of the locality. Thousands of people will die suddenly in the fields and in their houses. Encourage them to do penance and to pray, if they repent, the punishment will be averted. Let them pray by saying the rosary and contemplating the Life and Passion of Jesus” The Lady showed Mikolaj a long Rosary beads of fifteen mysteries and continued talking, saying “ People have been depraved. If they do not repent, there will come soon a terrible war (Crimean war) and many will suffer, a contagious disease will come and many will die.(cholera) I ask you to attend to this Holy Image and for people to come here and draw from it a stream of graces through it.” After these instructions the Lady remained Mikolaj says that “She stood there very sad and full of suffering, almost weeping. She took another sorrowful glance at me and began to move away” He noticed that Her feet did not touch the ground but they seemed to be floating on a golden cloud, as She moved away, he tried to call her back but was unable to and knelt down realising who it was that spoke with him. Mikolaj took to heart what Our Lady said and did penance, prayed the Rosary, went to mass and confession, but apparently did not pass on the message, because he was afraid of malicious people and mocking tongues.

A second apparition in August when he was at prayer, and She appeared to him and rebuked him for not having called the people to penance and prayer. The Lady said “people have become very bad; they are offending God with grave sins, My Son is very angry. He will punish the guilty very severely. I am begging My Son to refrain for a while still, and have Mercy, but I can no longer hold off His just retribution.”

After a very lengthy message She continued “let the people recite the Rosary and beg for God’s mercy, Mikolaj you must collect offerings for Masses of expiation, let everyone make an offering, even the poorest for almsgiving, Masses are what saves sinners. So let the people listen to their priests and suffer not to be parted from them, for then they will be lost and perish” and Our Lady gives a very special message for priests “ O my priests, pray and bless the people, always bless the people, do not become discouraged. I am the most loving and caring of mothers for every priest. If he prays and does penance I shall lift him up and cleanse him, I shall strengthen and protect him, I shall fill his heart with joy. Multitudes of priests will come to this place. Here I shall endow them with special graces, and here they will recover their constancy of spirit and their pristine zeal”

 

Mikolaj went about giving the message with a new found zeal but nobody wanted to listen and in 1852 an epidemic of cholera broke out in Poland and then all over Europe, young and old died. Then people began to heed the message and turned back to God in prayer and penance.

 

Over the years devotion grew to Our Lady of Lichen as the number of recorded miracles and graces grew.

 

In 1965 Pope Paul VI issued an edict announcing the conformation of the gracious image of Our Lady of Lichen as miraculous and ordered its crowning with the Pope’s crown. On August 15^th Cardinal Stephan Wyszynski helped by Cardinal Karol Wojtyla solemnly crowned the image of Our Lady, Queen of Poland, in Lichen.

 

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lichen is the largest church in Poland, the seventh largest in Europe and the tenth largest in the world. It was constructed from 1994 through 2004 covering an area 120 m (393 ft) long and 77 m (252 ft) wide. It was built in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is home to a miraculous image known as “Our Lady of Sorrows, Queen of Poland.”

 

Pope John Paul II, the Great, blessed the cornerstone in 1999 and it was built in great splendour to house the miraculous image of Our Lady, Queen of Poland. On the day it opened, it was paid for, with all the pennies that had been contributed over the years under the stewardship of Father Eugeniusz Makulski. The Shrine is run by the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, which were founded by Blessed Stanislaus Papczynski, and who was beatified in this Shrine on the 16^th of September 2007.

 

Inside the basilica one will not only find the 4^th largest pipe organ in the world but 20 other chapels and shrines on different levels, one of these is the chapel of the miraculous spring, and another housing the footprint of Our Lady, another the chapel of the 108 Martyrs of World War II and the beautiful chapel of the Most Blessed Trinity.

 

The nearest airport is Warsaw and the Shrine can be contacted through their website www.lichen.pl and the e-mail is, lichen@lichen.pl there is also the Arka hotel right at the shrine, newly built for pilgrims www.arka.lichen.pl

This feature is categorised under Marian Shrines