The album features fragments from the pope’s homilies delivered during his pilgrimages to his homeland, interspersed with his poems, recorded by leading Polish actors.
The first CD opens with the closing words of his homily during a mass in Warsaw on June 2, 1979: “I cry – I who am a son of the land of Poland and who am also Pope John Paul II – I cry from all the depths of this millennium, I cry on the vigil of Pentecost: Let you Spirit descend, and renew the face of the earth – the face of his earth. Amen.”
It was the start of the pontiff’s first pilgrimage through the then-communist Poland.
The album also offers insights into key events in the pope’s subsequent pilgrimages, including visits to the Black Madonna shrine in Częstochowa, his native town of Wadowice, and his beloved Tatra mountains in southern Poland, where he was given a tumultuous welcome by local highlanders. It also includes his last poignant visit to his homeland in August 2002, when he talked about death.
The album also includes excerpts from the pope’s address to Polish parliamentarians in 1999, during which he reiterated the Church’s support for Poland’s integration with the European Union, but warned against a vision of Europe confined to its economic and political aspects.
Karol Wojtyła’s poems featured in the album represent a cross-section of his writing from his pre-Vatican years, including several of his youthful sonnets, “The Quarry” (inspired by his time war-time experience as a labourer in a quarry), and “Thoughts on Death”.
The recordings come from Polish Radio archives. Polish Radio has thanked the Holy See for granting permission to use excerpts from Pope John Paul II’s homilies.
(mk/pk)