Cardinal Wyszyński about MAN

photo. Primate Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski Institute

Pearls and Aphorisms of Blessed Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński about MAN.

23. Your life will also bear fruit, even if everyone considers it over. There is only one thing you need, my beloved, to believe, as Christ believed, that he will rise again on the third day. Whatever life may be, it ultimately ends not in death, but a new life.[i]
24. When a man feels that God has called him into existence through love, he tries to respond to love with love. The better and more fully man—the work of God’s love—responds to God’s love, the more fully he bears fruit, the holier he becomes.[ii]
25. Inner peace is always born as a result of the fulfillment of God’s will, in which we have full confidence.[iii]
26. Grace is essentially unifying, despite personal differences and qualities. It produces life in a person, gives inner freedom, spiritual initiative, creates the whole inner world, but without isolation, autonomy, or separation from other people.[iv]
27. Faith instills in a man the feeling that he is not just anyone, or nothing, that he is not manure, with which everyone can do as he pleases, but that he is a child of God, shaped by God’s hands, that God himself—through Jesus bends over this handful of clay to fashion the most wonderful of his works, which is the immortal human soul, called not only to live in the body on this earth but to go through life this earth and be united with God for all eternity.[v]
28. …Supernatural life is the most precious gift of God’s love, it is a condition of eternal happiness, a defense against eternal torment. It is so often forgotten that a bad, sinful, and wicked person will also live forever.[vi]
29. Christianity implies fighting not against the world and with our neighbors, but with ourselves. The most difficult thing is to gain victory over oneself.[vii]
30. He sometimes looks like a burning candle with a faint flame at its top. It can fade away at any moment, like what is hidden from us—our fragile and uncertain future. Now, it is burning, but we do not know if it will still be on fire in a moment. This is human life (…). However, we are never sure what is or will be, and for how long it will be. This is the mystery of time and the life of man, completely locked in the hand of the King of ages, who does not die and whose times do not end.[viii]
31. Our works constitute the gradual implementation of God’s plan in relation to a specific part of His people. God is involved in our history and acts in it through people, according to human laws, of which he himself is the Giver and all of us achievers.[ix]
32. We must be calm in faith. The stronger our faith is, the deeper our trust, and the fuller our love for God and people, the more useful we all are for the Church, for the People of God, for the Nation, and for the state, and even for economic life.[x]
33. We are called to the holiness towards which we strive by grace. Why? Because God is three times holy, infinitely holy, and we are His children. So, we must become like our Father. We are helped in this by Christ, who calls us: Be holy as I am holy. He would like us not to consider holiness as a program for chosen and exceptional people. It is a task for each of us to accomplish.[xi]
34. Christian life is full of joy. It gives complete joy that is greater the more we know how to relate to God.[xii]
35. God is constantly looking for us! We can get lost in the hardships of the day (…), but we must always remember that only one thing is necessary: the awareness that God is not abandoning me. I can leave Him, I can forget about Him, I can betray Him. He always stays, He always remains.[xiii]
36. Every mother who gives birth to a child follows her way of the cross, but it ends with great joy. Every father, working in the field, in the forest, in a factory, in an office, at school, in any place of work, goes the way of the cross. On this path, all must lean on Christ’s Cross and repeat in their soul: Hail, Cross, only hope. So, children of God, uniting today in common prayer, leaning on the Cross of Christ, following the Pope’s example on the Way of the Cross, we will cry: Hail, Cross, only hope in times of anguish and suffering.[xiv]
37. …Courage makes people citizens because a brave man is aware of his rights in society and of the obligations that are his. A man is a citizen when he stands up for his rights in society, when he defends them and, based on them, he accomplishes professional, family, state, and religious duties. If a citizen abandons the virtue of bravery, he becomes a slave and causes the greatest harm to himself, to his human personality, family, professional group, nation, state, and to the Church, although he would be won over for fear and fear, for bread and for incidental reasons.[xv]
38. Man is great not when he has a great task assigned to him, but when he humbly fulfills his task, with inner submission. Then, the true value of man is revealed. Many people have great tasks to fulfill, but not all are capable of doing them with humility.[xvi]
39. The world cannot be saved by God alone, without our participation. And man cannot be saved without his own participation. Nothing will change in my soul without personal effort, without cooperation with God’s grace. So, man must bear the cross of redemption. We cannot free ourselves from this obligation. We cannot stand on the sidelines like a crowd of spectators. We must take an active part in God’s efforts to save the world.[xvii]
40. If a unifying love between two people is necessary to awaken a new life, it is precisely because man exists through love and has his origin in the Father’s love. The will of God, who wants man’s existence and precisely that person, reveals itself in him.[xviii]
41. It is not enough to be born human; it is also necessary to become human. It is evident that a man can be human or inhumane.[xix]
42. A man reveals his personality in the way he treats his fellow neighbors.[xx]
43. It is not enough to be born of the body! We have to be born of the spirit.[xxi]
44. Even if a man is holy, even if he has the greatest strength and power, he must be helped by other people. This is the natural structure of this world.[xxii]
45. The human person is the most important being in the state, in the nation, in the family, and in himself, so much so that God, the Eternal Word, comes to earth to serve man. This is Christianity![xxiii]
46. The Church reveals to man the vast horizons that give him a sense of great personal importance and such high dignity that everyone understands that life must be lived decently because there is only one! Life must be lived with dignity because there is only one![xxiv]
47. The man who seeks righteousness with all his heart can find rest only in God’s loving heart.[xxv]
48. A man is constantly fighting with himself. The spirit lusts against the body, the body against the spirit. It is a real duel, a deadly battle that we declare within ourselves.[xxvi]
49. A man even surpasses the national community. Even if he loved the nation the most; even if he gave his life in defense of his country, it is true that the Nation which he needs for the full development of his national culture is, nevertheless, mortal, and man is immortal. Admittedly, people die, and nations remain, but on the last day, not nations but people will not rise from the dead. Man surpasses even the most powerful nation because, in the end, it does not have full power over the human person.[xxvii]
50. Help is the fundamental and correct human attitude. It is better to help than to expect help. It is better to give than to take. Even before original sin, man could not do without the help of another. So, this is a simple, correct attitude that directs us towards God and other people. By this attitude, we most faithfully do His will.[xxviii]
51. Man is a great, wonderful “architecture,” whose “concrete structure” was conceived by God himself. God only commissions man to fill this structure, through his reason, will, and heart, with faith and love and so make it a temple. If a man does not believe, if he lives in doubt, then, instead of God’s temple, the construction is artless, broken, bland, whose meaning is imperceptible.[xxix]
52. it is said that modern man lacks joy, although he has a lot of divertissements. He looks for them, but all disappoint him, and after each one he is sadder. He is overcome by discouragement, mental deflation. For, one can have joy in God, who wants it for his children. When God absent is absent from our souls, we will not be able to rejoice or be glad.[xxx]
53. What great anxiety there is in people’s hearts! Man is torn from the inside, he gets tired because he trusts too much the impulses of his own heart, and subordinates them too little to the action of the Heart of God and the maternal style of the Heart of the Mother of Christ. That is why there is so much misery and misfortune in people’s lives.[xxxi]
54. Man on earth – in the family, in the homeland, in the nation, and in the state – is the most important value. It is only thanks to man’s personal worth that other goals and social values can be achieved. If there were no man, there would be no family, no society, no nation, no state.[xxxii]
55. If the truth that is preached to you does not lead to love and does not move you to acts of love, it is not true. If doctrine assumes the magnification of differences and oppositions, if it fuels hatred, it is not doctrine.[xxxiii]
56. I have met people educated through television. What have they achieved? Besides the loss of their eyes, the shallowness of the brain. Now, all that remains is a comfortable armchair, slippers, the recipient’s position. What will grow out of such a generation that is not committed to any effort? (…) When a man does not reach a certain moral level but uses technology, it can be disasterous for him.[xxxiv]

 

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[i] The Responsibilities of a Christian Following Christ. Warsaw, seminary church, 17 April 1962. Ibid., 294-295.

[ii] The Eternal Actuality of the Saint. Warsaw, Church of St. Clement, 30 September 1970. KP 35, 123.

[iii] Miłość I, 233.

[iv] List II, 158-159.

[v] Sermon on the 11^th Sunday after Pentecost. Laski, 10 September 1944. Typescript.

[vi] Pastoral Letter On the Catholic Will for Life. Lublin, Easter 1947. Listy, 60.

[vii] The Bright Rays of Dachau. Kalisz, Church of Saint Joseph, 29 April 1965. Ibid., 200.

[viii] A Year of Gratitude and Joy for the Millennium. Gniezno, Primate’s house, 31 December 1965. KP 21, 354.

[ix] A Pastoral Word on the Millennium of the Baptism of Poland. Gniezno, 27 February 1966. Ibid., 483.

[x] The Victory of Our Faith. Warsaw, Primate’s house, 24 December 1973. Primate, 137.

[xi] On the 25^th anniversary of Poland’s Consecration to the Heart of Jesus. Warsaw, 21 November 1976. KP 56, 72.

[xii] Rejoice and be Glad With All Your Heart… Warsaw, 23 December 1976. Ibid., 167.

[xiii] The Mother of the God-man is Taken to Heaven. Jasna Góra, 15 August 1977. Głos, 414.

[xiv] Homily during the dedication of the commemorative plaque in honor of John Paul II and the Stations of the Cross. Czerniejewo near Września, 12 August 1980. KP 65, 27.

[xv] … So that you may be brave and steadfast in the defense of man. Warsaw, Church of the Nuns of the Visistation, 3 April 1960. KP 6, 111; Uświęcenie, 191-192.

[xvi] Speech on Women’s Day. Warsaw, Primate’s house, 8 March 1968. KP 28, 125.

[xvii] Droga, 25-27.

[xviii] Miłość I, 83.

[xix] Ibid., 108.

[xx] Ibid., 236.

[xxi] To Catholic Warsaw during the Corpus Christi procession. Warsaw, in front of St. Anna’s academic church, June 20, 1957. Ibid., 208.

[xxii] Way of the Cross for Lawyers. Jasna Góra, 3 November 1957. Ibid., 158.

[xxiii] That you may be brave and steadfast. Warsaw, Church of the Nuns of the Visistation, 3 April 1960. Ibid., 195-196.

[xxiv] Every day for the better! Jasna Góra, 28 May 1961. Ibid., 262.

[xxv] Exhortation Pastoral Call to Lenten Work on Combating Social Defects. Lent 1964. Listy, 451.

[xxvi] Way of the Cross for Doctors. Laski, 28 March 1965. KP 468.

[xxvii] Pastoral constitution on the Presence of the Church in the Modern World. Warsaw, Cathedral Basilica of Saint John, 20 March 1966. KP 23, 113.

[xxviii] The Primate of Poland calls on people of good will to help the Church and the Christian Homeland through the Mother of God, the Mother of the Church. Jasna Góra, 26 August 1969. KP 32, 91.

[xxix] Architects and Educators in the Polish Bethlehem. Warsaw, Primate’s house, 7 January 1971. KP 36, 27.

[xxx] Let love go to Poland. Warsaw, Cathedral Basilica of Saint John, 6 December 1976. KP 56, 113-114.

[xxxi] Humanity’s Last Hope – An Open Heart! Warsaw, the sanctuary of Saint Andrew Bobola, 13 June 1980. KP 64, 253-254.

[xxxii] The Great Construction of God’s Order in the World. Góra Świętej Anny, 29 June 1980 Ibid., 275.

[xxxiii] Exhortation To Academic Youth for the New Year of Work. Warsaw, 26 September 1960. Listy, 369.

[xxxiv] That you may be sons of light. Warsaw, St. Anne’s Church, 21 March 1959. Uświęcenie, 282.