The word “środowisko”, you’ll recall, is tricky to translate. Milieu or environment captures something of it, but community or circle add a necessary human/relational quality that certainly is part of how Fr. Karol Wojtyła used the word. It comes from the root word “środek” meaning center, and the suffix “-isko” which adds the connotation of location or context. Środowisko is something we all have, it is the relationships, activities, and outlook that locate and center us, that support and solidify us. I say we all have this, but certainly the quality of our srodowisko can vary a lot! A few questions that might help to dig into this:
- Who do you call if you have a flat tire?
- Does anyone else know the heaviest cross you’re carrying right now?
- When is the last time you laughed, or danced, or played, or hiked with abandon?
- Do you ever pray with someone else?
Take these as simple, gentle, questions that probe the depth of the relationships and friendships that you have around you right now – a sketch of your środowisko. They’re just the questions that come to the top of my mind, certainly incomplete, probably prompted by my own experience of community. I think all of us may want more here, perhaps a lot more. Maybe you’re thinking that you don’t have anybody around you right now. Take a deep breath, God has plans for your good, your joy, and it includes providing the entire środowisko that you’ll need to become a saint (and He has a splendid środowisko that He is readying for you in eternity). AND, keep in mind the heartbroken young Karol who, it seemed, had lost everyone that he loved at twenty, or several years later as a young priest when (1st) he was reassigned from his first parish after only a few months or (2nd) when he was asked to begin doctoral studies just as all his student ministry was starting to flower – God had plans for him just as he does for you.
Ok. That reaffirmed, let’s look at Fr. Karol Wojtyła’s life for a first step we can all take in the right direction. A few anecdotes that I think point towards a simple theme: When playing soccer as a youngster, he noticed that the Jewish boys often joined together on one team and did not have a goalie. Little Lolek did not hesitate to jump in as their keeper to balance the sides. As a seminarian, while boarding the train he saw a bedraggled girl freezing on the platform. He brought her some food and tea, carried her onto the train, and wrapped his own cloak around her. She was Edith Zierer, 13 years old, escaped from the labor camp near Czestochowa,
starving, infested with lice, and credits Karol with saving her life. She wrote to him when he became pope and visited him at the Vatican, and they kept up a written correspondence until he died. Jerzy Ciesielski would become one of the coordinators of the many outdoor expeditions of Środowisko, was the one who taught Karol how to kayak, and was also an engineer. Fr. Wojtyła would spend hours letting the young man lecture him on mathematics and breakthroughs in engineering, perhaps not the first inclination for a want to be actor and philologist, but he never cut Jerzy’s ramblings off. (Actually, when writing an article for a Catholic magazine in 1957 about his ministry in the mountains, Fr. Karol asked Jerzy to be a co-author with him). For his entire time in Krakow, including as Bishop, whenever one of his students was expecting he gave a personal day of recollection for the mother. From Witness to Hope by George Weigel: “He always had time,” Teresa Malecka recalled. “He understood that to baptize means to come home, to be with the family, to bless the baby sleeping in the bed. We didn’t have to ask him to do this; he wanted to do it.”
A final story (from John Paul the Great, His Five Loves by Jason Evert): During an ad limina visit to Rome, Bishop Robert Brom was surprised when Pope John Paul II looked at him and said, “I think we have met before.” Brom, certain they hadn’t, politely disagreed. The Pope persisted, and days later, his secretary, Monsignor Stanisław Dziwisz, told Brom, “Don’t argue with the Pope, he remembers when he met you.” The meeting had taken place in November 1963 (decades before), outside the Church of the Gesù in Rome. Brom, then a seminarian at the North American College during the Second Vatican Council, had briefly crossed paths with Bishop Karol Wojtyła, the auxiliary bishop of Kraków, as they entered and exited the church with their respective groups. The moment had slipped Brom’s mind, but not Wojtyła’s. When Brom asked how the Pope could remember such an encounter, Dziwisz replied, “For John Paul, to meet another person is to encounter God.” Years later, near the end of the Pope’s life, John Paul brought it up again: “How many times have we met, and when was the first time?” This time, Brom got it right. John Paul slapped his desk, smiled, and said, “Finally you remember!”
And so the takeaway: JPII cared about everyone that he met. He had all the time in the world for them and never let the next thing take his concern away from them. What if you or I did the same? This is not a super-power, but it is something that requires grace! The fact is we don’t have enough love for everyone if we’re trying to do so under our own steam, BUT what if we began each day simply asking the Lord to love each person through us? What if God provided the love?
It might be a step towards the środowisko God wants for you!
Fr. Dominic