Kraków before Christmas – when Dzika Figa slows down

I had not planned this trip as a pilgrimage.

We came to Kraków for the Havasi concert, which we had been waiting for over a year to see.

But God often works in exactly this way.

You set off for one thing.

You come back with something else entirely.

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A city that remembers Poland

Kraków is not an ordinary city.

For hundreds of years it was the capital of Poland.

It was here that kings were crowned.

It was here that decisions were taken which changed the country’s history.

And perhaps that is why, walking its streets, you have the impression of moving through a place that remembers more than any other city in Poland.

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St Mary’s Basilica and thousands of human stories

Every time I stand in St Mary’s Basilica, I try to imagine the people who were here before me.

Merchants.

Townspeople.

Soldiers.

Mothers praying for their children.

Fathers returning from war.

Saints and sinners.

St Mary’s Basilica took shape over centuries thanks to the people of Kraków. It was not the project of one king or one benefactor.

It was the work of people who wanted to leave behind something greater than their own lives.

And they did.

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Carols sung by highlanders

The most beautiful moment, however, was not any monument.

It was the carols.

Sung by highlanders.

Simple.

Genuine.

Without pretence.

The kind that remind you that Christmas does not begin with presents, but with waiting for God.

For a moment I stopped and thought that this is exactly how I imagine Poland.

A Poland that still sings.

A Poland that remembers.

A Poland that believes.

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The Basilica of Corpus Christi

The second place that lodged itself especially deeply in my heart was the Basilica of Corpus Christi in Kazimierz.

Old walls.

The scent of incense.

Silence.

And confessionals.

My beloved confessionals.

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Witnesses of miracles

They always move me more than the altars do.

I look at the old wood and I think:

how many tears has it seen?

How many marriages have been saved?

How many people came back to God right here?

How many times did someone come convinced that everything was lost?

And then walked out free.

I do not know the answers.

But I know that these old confessionals have witnessed more miracles than many a famous monument.

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A bauble shaped like a fig

Among the Christmas stalls we found a bauble shaped like a fig.

I smiled.

As if Kraków had left a little message for Dzika Figa.

A reminder.

That everything ripens in its own time.

Like a fig.

Like a marriage.

Like a person.

Like faith.

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Lord, thank you

Thank you for eyes that can look upon beauty.

For ears that can listen to carols.

For old churches that have survived wars, fires and human madness.

For the people who built them thinking of those they would never meet.

For Poland.

For Kraków.

For the man to whom, many years ago, I said „yes”.

And for the fact that after so many years we can still marvel at the world together.

Because perhaps that is one of the most beautiful definitions of marriage:

to have beside you someone with whom, after all these years, you still want to look in the same direction.