From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Press on until the goal is reached   
      
   In a race, it is when the goal is in sight that heart and nerves and   
   muscles and courage are strained almost to the breaking point. So with   
   us, the goal of the spiritual life is in sight. All we need is the   
   final effort. The saddest records are made by people who ran well,   
   with brave, stout hearts, until the sight of the goal and then some   
   weakness or self-indulgence held them back. They never knew how near   
   the goal they were or how near they were to victory. I pray that I may   
   press on until the goal is reached. I pray that I may not give up in   
   the final stretch.   
   —From Twenty-Four Hours a Day   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   19 October – Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko   
      
    Priest and Martyr, Worker for Social Justice – born on 14 September   
   1947 in Okopy, Podlaskie, Poland, was kidnapped on 19 October 1984 by   
   the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (Security Service of the Ministry of   
   Internal Affairs), the Communist Polish secret police and beaten to   
   death from 19 to 20 October 1984 near Wloclawek, Pomorskie, Poland.   
   Patronage – Solidarity.   
      
   Fr Jerzy was born on 14 September 1947 in Okopy near Suchowola. After   
   finishing school, he attended the priests’ seminary at Warsaw. He   
   served his army duties in a special force, aimed to keep young men   
   from becoming priests. This treatment had no effect on Popiełuszko,   
   as, after finishing his army service, he continued his studies. As a   
   young priest he served in parishes in Warsaw, which consisted of the   
   common people as well as students. In 1981, Jerzy Popiełuszko joined   
   the workers, taking part in strikes in the Warsaw Steelworks.   
   Thereafter, he was associated with workers and trade unionists from   
   the Solidarity movement who opposed the Communist regime in Poland.   
      
   He was a staunch anti-communist and in his sermons, interwove   
   spiritual exhortations with political messages, criticising the   
   Communist system and motivating people to protest. During the period   
   of martial law the Catholic Church was the only force that could voice   
   protest comparatively openly, with the regular celebration of Mass   
   presenting opportunities for public gatherings in churches.   
      
   Popiełuszko’s sermons were routinely broadcast by Radio Free Europe,   
   and thus became famous throughout Poland for their uncompromising   
   stance against the regime. The secret police tried to silence or   
   intimidate him. When those techniques did not work, they fabricated   
   evidence against him, he was arrested in 1983 but soon released on   
   intervention of the clergy and pardoned by an amnesty.   
      
   A car accident was set up to kill Jerzy Popiełuszko on 13 October 1984   
   but he evaded it. The alternative plan was to kidnap him, it was   
   carried out on 19 October 1984. The priest was beaten to death by   
   three Security Police officers – Captain Grzegorz Piotrowski, Leszek   
   Pękala, and Waldemar Chmielewski. They pretended to have problems with   
   their car and flagged down Fr Jerzy’s car for help. They proceeded to   
   attack him – he was severely beaten – to death, tied up and put in the   
   trunk of the car.  The officers bound a stone to his feet and dropped   
   him into the Vistula Water Reservoir near Włocławek from where his   
   body was recovered on 30 October 1984.   
      
   News of the political murder caused an uproar throughout Poland and   
   the murderers and one of their superiors, Colonel Adam Pietruszka,   
   were convicted of the crime. More than 250,000 people, including Lech   
   Wałęsa, attended his funeral on 3 November 1984. Despite the murder   
   and its repercussions, the Communist regime remained in power until   
   1989.  Fr Jerzy’s murderers – Captain Grzegorz Piotrowski, Leszek   
   Pękala, Waldemar Chmielewski and Colonel Adam Pietruszka, responsible   
   for giving the order to kill – were jailed but released later as part   
   of an amnesty.   
      
   Popiełuszko was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Eagle,   
   Poland’s highest decoration, in 2009. After death, he was buried in St   
   Stanislaus Kostka Church, Warsaw where millions of visitors had paid   
   tribute at his tomb.   
      
   He was Beatified by Archbishop Angelo Amato as the representative of   
   Pope Bernedict XVI on 6 June 2010 in Warsaw’s Piłsudski Square. His   
   mother, Marianna Popiełuszko was present at the event. More than 1   
   000,000 people attended the open-air mass in the Polish capital Warsaw   
   to beatify Father Jerzy Popieluszko. Poland Post issued a set of   
   stamps on that same day to mark the beatification.   
      
   In October 2013, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz – the Archbishop of Warsaw,   
   the diocese where Popiełuszko was killed – announced that a miracle   
   attributed to the intercession of the Polish priest has been   
   identified and confirmed in France. Thus Cardinal Nycz predicts that   
   Popiełuszko will likely be canonised soon based on the credibility of   
   the case presented. A miracle was investigated in a diocesan process   
   in France and the results of that investigation turned over to the   
   Vatican for assessment.   
      
   At his funeral, an estimated one million people surrounded his church   
   in Warsaw and as one, they promised to continue his struggle for   
   freedom through non-violence thus living his motto “overcome evil with   
   good” and we know that they won!   
      
   “Rest in peace, Father Jerzy. Solidarity is alive because you gave   
   your life for it.”   
   Lech Wałęsa   
      
    From Anastpaul 2019   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Prayer, good reading, the frequentation of the sacraments, with the   
   proper dispositions, and particularly the flight of idleness--these   
   are, believe me, the means of sanctifying yourself.   
   --St. Paul of the Cross   
      
   Bible Quote:   
    For bodily exercise is profitable to little: but godliness is   
   profitable to all things, having promise of the life that now is and   
   of that which is to come.  [1 Timothy 4:8] DRB   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Holy Mary, help the helpless, strengthen the faithful,   
   comfort the sorrowful, pray for the people,   
   plead for the clergy, intercede for all women   
   consecrated to God; may all who keep thy   
   sacred commemoration experience the   
   might of thine assurance.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)