Czestochowa: For your salvation

If you were wondering where the centre of religious life was in Poland, and I am only talking about the Roman Catholics here, then should go to Czestochowa. One of the most interesting times to go is the 15th of August for the Ascension of Mary holiday, when people arrive from all over the country on foot as part of large pilgrimages. Well, everyone needs a 'local' place to make pilgrimages to, they are such a great way to escape from the reality of daily life and to spend time with other people with similar aims.

My only visit to Czestochowa was in 1995, and when I arrived on my own I only had a basic guidebook knowledge of what I was supposed to find there. Those were days before the internet took off, when one had to scour the shelves of the local library and then probably illegally, certainly irresponsibly, take a book with you on your trip. I sometimes wonder how many travel books made frequent trips to the places they described - some of them may well have been more seasoned travellers than I was. The city was a bit of a disappointment, a rather drab looking monastery on toop of a worn grassy hillock set amongst a sad district in that Socialist way. Once inside I found myself among a group of believers at the beginning of a mass - for a moment I nearly turned round and left by the nearest exit, but then I decided that nobody would notice me, a foriegner, among this group of strangers. There was not much fuss, and from my position at the back of the church I could hardly see the star of the show, the Black Madonna, although what I could see of this early painting left me puzzled as to why they had dressed it up in jewels. I believe that God cares for me as an individual, and that he is always there, whether he wants it or not, but I am aware that I am surrounded by people who are happier believing that their god is elsewhere, safely concealed from observing their actual life by a thick barrier of priests and idols. Maybe that helps explain why I have low levels of jakraj?

On the walls of the monastery church, which since my Polish was almost non-existent I had plenty of time to examine, were covered in crutches and all manner of silver and gold medallions, many given to the church by grateful former sufferers of a wide range of diseases. Perhaps their god cured them, perhaps my God did, or maybe the actual time spent focussing on hope of a cure did the work all by itself. After leaving the monastery, I was mooching around on the hillock, wondering how I could fill in the next four hours or so when my train was due to leave. At this point I met a couple who were sitting on a bench nearby, they were Polish, but living in Sweden. We went back to the apartment they were staying at, loaned to them from some of their friends, and spent the evening eating blueberries from a huge bowl and chatting.

Faith, then, is a remarkable thing, and not something we are going to understand in the near future as it remains as undefineable as it was to primitive man. Having something to believe in can make the most remarkable of changes to your life, although you having one belief is no justification for insisting that anyone else in the world has to have the same one. I recently read of some research where they showed a picture of Mary to a number of Roman Catholics and athiests, and then applied electric shocks to them. The Roman Catholics felt less pain after being shown the image of Mary, and that is the power of faith, and useful for more than warding off stray electric shocks. There are other alternative faiths, even for Poles, even for Roman Catholic Poles.

I have on the table here a booklet in English and German advertising a honey from the deep and ancient forests of Bialowieza... I know of dozens and dozens of small farms and individuals producing honey in my region, some of them also producing mead, but since it still lacks much in the way of support don't expect to see much in the way of Polish honey in your local store. The Polish word for honey is miod, and the English name for the honey-based fermented drink is mead, just another example of how words have always drifted from nation to nation.

Back to the booklet, it has four pages describing the honey product and its benefits, then one page as a welcome letter, followed by a dozen pages of excerpts from letters sent the honey producer. Personally, I would have preferred the welcome letter on the first page, more information about the product with perhaps some history and something about the bees, hives and the plants the bees use, and then far fewer grateful letters. Well, that is what I would have preferred had not the translation been so bad that it is often hilarious, like "I have two children who frequently catch diseases." leaving you wondering how many they have who don't catch diseases, or "I have a pleasure to inform you that since my children started eating your Honey, I do not need to visit doctors any more." - I wonder who would be cured if I started eating the honey?

The truth is that with such miraculous products as this honey, sorry Honey, on the market, who needs religion? Given a choice between sitting in a cold church every Sunday where no one will talk to you and sitting around a warm table eating Honey with your family and friends, I know where my preference lies. Seriously, if faith in Czestochowa is matched by faith in Honey, what value does religion have, except to those who are allergic to honey or who simply do not enjoy its taste? With all the manpower that religion can wield, why can they still not surpass a few hives of bees? Ah, you may say, but religion also includes some valuable afterlife options, and you would be right to an extent, except that the Roman Catholic church in Poland focusses its parisioners energy on the miraculous in the present and prayers for the already dead, and puts as many barriers as it can to prevent parisioners understanding enough of their religion to make any intelligent decision that will improve their chances in the afterlife. You are, it seems, better off putting your faith and your money in the Honey to solve your problems in your current life, and simple faith in your god for your afterlife, religion having nothing better to offer either way.