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      4–8 July 1975 Retreat at Bachledówka¹

      

       4 July: Anniversary of the Cathedral’s Consecration

      (First Friday): preparation of the ‘material’, arrival at Bachledówka about 9.00 p.m.

      Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament; Compline

       5 July

      Morning prayers; (First Saturday) Introductory meditation 1, in which the following topic emerges: Creator – Judge – God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

      First reading; Lauds; Holy Mass; Thanksgiving

      Reading: Analecta Cracov. 1975: ‘Nowa interpretacja dogmatów’²

      Rosary (petitions); Prayer to the Holy Spirit

      Morning meditation 2: ‘I thank Thee, Father, Creator (Lord) of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hidden these things from the great and revealed them to babes’³ – The truth about creation and the truth about God as the Creator is the first step the human mind takes towards God. This first step seems very difficult to many people today due to certain cognitive assumptions that have developed in the modern understanding of the world. This understanding is devoid of transcendence. ‘The great’ in a way become the slaves of such an understanding. In the same reality, ‘babes’ discover being, beauty, goodness, coincidence, creativeness – all that St Thomas so successfully described in an objective way. Man indispensably needs this first step through the visible creation (the world) towards the invisible Creator (compare Wisdom, Romans).

      The discovery of the Creator is not only the belief in the First Cause, which is Esse Subsistens [Being Itself]. It is also – and first and foremost – the discovery of love. To create means not only to reveal power, omnipotence that surpasses all, but also it means: to give being, existence and goodness, therefore – to love!

      The Way of the Cross: In quam verba Mariae vel de Maria introducuntur (XII: Misit Deus Filium suum natum ex Muliere … Signum magnum apparuit … et verba e Magnificat, ex Annuntiatione) [In which Mary’s words or words about Mary are introduced (Station XII: God sent forth His Son, born of woman … And a great portent appeared … and Mary’s words from the Magnificat, from the Annunciation)].⁴

      Meanwhile: Terce; Sext; None; Reading (as above)

      Adoration: The Eucharist makes it possible for our life still to revolve around ‘the dimension of the living God’.

      Vespers; Rosary; Petitionary prayer

      Meditation 3: According to St John, man turns away from God, the Creator and Father, through concupiscence, which is not ‘of the Father’, but ‘of the world’.⁵ It deprives us of true and full joy of creation and joy derived from creation. It diminishes the perspectives of experience.

      I considered the entire issue of A.T.⁶ against this background, trying thoroughly to understand it, and above all begging for the right steps. (To some extent also A.P.) and others, considered previously.

      (Anticipated) Matins for Sunday after Holy Mass; Paul VI’s encyclical on joy⁷

      Concluding meditation of the day [Meditation 4]: Mary as the fullness of the Creator’s experience, the fullness of creation and one’s own creativeness: fecit mihi magna … [has done great things for me].⁸ Because the fullness of creation is grace: God wishes to create, but He even more wishes to create ‘things’, to give Himself personally. Mary is the one who is the most open to it. Mary teaches us openness to God’s work. Let us imitate her without failure!

      The Jasna Góra Appeal; Compline (after reading)

       6 July

      Morning prayers; Intention; In relation to the Divine Presence (the beginning of the meditation): God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ

      Lauds; Holy Mass; Thanksgiving; Rosary

      Reading: the journal Analecta Cracoviensia

      Prayer to the Holy Spirit

      Meditation 5: Further contemplation of the Creator’s mystery concentrates on the creation of the human being, who is made in the image and likeness of God. Awareness and freedom, hence also conscience, enter the world of visible creatures. God–Creator reveals Himself as God–Judge through conscience. We will discuss this theme of the retreat later. One needs to enter more deeply into the dynamism of creation, which is revealed together with the creation of man. Proto-evangelium (Genesis 1–3) has to be interpreted more fully.

      The essence of the mystery of creation does not consist only in creation out of nothing. It is present more fully in givenness: Existence is a gift – it becomes a gift in creation. And it reaches man as a gift. In him the act of creation signifies such dynamism of givenness on the part of the Creator that cannot be exhausted in existence, life or even spiritual likeness. Through all this and beside all this, God gives Himself to man in such a way that is possible only in friendship. The dynamism of creation leads to grace. At the same time, friendship attains the features of a covenant: There cannot be any friendship without certain expectations. Nevertheless, the created man remains in the fullness of the dynamism of givenness and enters the communion (communio) with God–man (Adam–Eve), and the communion entails a gift and mutual givenness. Sin – the breaking of the covenant – destroys this order. Concupiscence is in a way a renunciation of the gift.

      The structure of creation as free givenness (out of nothing) and the dynamism which follows from this allow us to introduce an evolutionary theme (creation is immanently directed towards fullness) into our considerations of the mystery.

      First and foremost, however, the entire dynamism of creation (cf. Genesis 1–3) allows us to see in it a kind of pouring out of the love with which the Father has eternally embraced the Son–Word. ‘Without Him was not anything made that was made.’⁹ The mystery of creation has a Trinitarian character and, in a further perspective, a Christological character: ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’.¹⁰ The omnipotent Father creates ‘through Him and with Him and in Him’ – in order to make the entire creation, above all man, ‘through Him and with Him and in Him’ – ‘return’ to the Father.

      The Way of the Cross – the Trinitarian and Christological dimensions

      Terce; Sext; None; Reading etc., Rosary; Vespers

      Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament: Jesus is present and acts: let me not waste any word nor any inspiration of the Holy Spirit

      Meditation 6: The pride of life is not of the Father, but of the world (BT translation),¹¹ and the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever.¹²

      Reflection: (a) petition for a proper discernment of specific problems in the spirit of humility, i.e. the spirit of

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