Day 3 Warsaw Rising Museum and Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko
Today we visited the Warsaw Rising Museum. The museum is very impressive with numerous artifacts that show the determination of the Polish people in Warsaw during an incredibly difficult time in their history where they were invaded from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
I found a video from the museum in English that will provide an overview of what we experienced today. You can watch that here.
Here are some photos from our visit including the chapel where we stopped and said a prayer for all of the victims. I will try and provide a reflection of some thoughts that I had throughout the day at a later time. Unfortunately, we are on a pretty tight schedule today and I only have a few minutes for this blog entry.
After our visit to the Warsaw Rising Museum we went to a beautiful park where they have a statue dedicated to Frédéric Chopin. You can read more about it by clicking here.
We then went into old town Warsaw and had lunch at a restaurant and then Mass at the Cathedral.
We took a short walk to visit a memorial (photo below)
and then headed to a museum in honor of Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko. He is a well loved martyr who was viciously beaten to death for standing up for the rights of the people during the solidarity movement in Poland. His body was dumped in a river but later recovered. Here is an article which gives a description about him. The photos below are of the museum dedicated to him which is in the basement of the church. His grave is outside with a huge stone cross as a tombstone.
Today we will be celebrating Mass at the chapel of St. Maximilian Kolbe and then have a visit to the Congregation of Our Lady of Mercy where St. Faustina had her first revelation about Divine Mercy. In the midst of so much hardship, evil, and suffering it is a beautiful thing to remember that God's love was still breaking through the darkness in many men and women who learned to "overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:). That is always the task for a Christian. As we left the museum of Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko, I noticed that Scripture passage (Romans 12:21) in a number of languages engraved on the door. Whoever did that packed an incredibly power message in a very simple gesture. I walked out of the museum praying for the ability to put that into practice.
It's time for breakfast and then packing as we leave for Mass.
Thanks for stopping by!
