SW News: Bishops in Poland will entrust the nation and the Church to the protection of St Joseph on October 7. The ceremony will take place at the National Shrine of St Joseph in Kalisz, central Poland.
The entrustment will take place before the famous image of St Joseph in the shrine which is a centre for prayer for the unborn children and families. It hosted Pope Saint John Paul II in 1997 who described it as having a special place in the history of the Church and Poland.
According to the shrine’s custodian Fr Jacek Plota, they carry out the testament of “St. John Paul II which he left during his stay in 1997.” He said thousands of prayer intentions reach the shrine every month from all over Poland.
The shrine, which had conducted a novena before the solemnity of St Joseph on March 19, said it will host a series of events known as “March evenings with St Joseph” when priests deliver homilies on the foster father of Lord Jesus.
Apart from a national retreat, the shrine will also host a great novena from May 28 to June 5.
The shrine is connected to the Second World War when Polish priests and monks were incarcerated at Dachau. In the concentration camp, they consecrated themselves to St Joseph on April 22, 1945, as they feared the Nazis were planning to kill them as the Allied troops advanced.
They vowed to make an annual pilgrimage to the shrine in Kalisz. Miraculously, just two hours before they were slated to be finished off in what is described as the largest priest cemetery in the world, a US Army patrol unit saved all of them.
Years later, the survivors made a pilgrimage to Kalisz to offer thanks to St Joseph and they made it an annual tradition by visiting the shrine on April 29.