Strona redakcyjna

Original edition

Wiara czyni cuda

Translated from Polish by Anthony Sloan

Photo/cover Barbara Zielonka

Layout

Bogdan Żukowski

Editor

Sister Iwona Meger SAC

Technical editor

Bogumiła Szczupakowska

Proofreader

Paweł Borkowski

Typesetting

Elżbieta Fajdek

© Copyright by Fr. Ireneusz Łukanowski, 2015

© Copyright by Wydawnictwo APOSTOLICUM, Ząbki 2015

ISBN 978-83-7031-956-4

Wszelkie prawa zastrzeżone. Rozpowszechnianie i kopiowanie całości lub części publikacji zabronione bez pisemnej zgody autora.

Kontakt:

www.rozpisani.pl

info@rozpisani.pl

Publikacja elektroniczna

FOREWORD

During his years of public activity, the Lord Jesus worked many miracles. He healed the sick, gave the deaf back their hearing, the blind their sight, and the mute their power of speech. He even raised the dead. Yet he always required faith. The Canaanite woman who suffered from a hemorrhage had such deep faith that she said, ”If I only touch his garment, I shall be made well” (Matthew 9:21). She pushed her way through the crowd surrounding Jesus, touched the fringe of his garment, and was instantly healed, for her faith was great, as Jesus Himself emphasised. The head of a synagogue, Jair, asked Jesus to heal his sick daughter, but was then told not to trouble the Master, for the girl had already died. Jesus told the grieving father, ”Just have faith”. And Jair believed. Jesus went with him and brought his daughter back to life. In Nazareth, in contrast, he only healed a small number of the sick, and worked no other miracles. Why was this? Because there they lacked faith. The Nazarenes saw in Jesus only an ordinary man, for he had grown up among them as the son of a carpenter. They only wondered how he had obtained such wisdom.

Through the testimonies on healing this book contains, we are encouraged to put our trust in the Lord in every situation. And we are called on to treat the question of faith very seriously. The author, Father Ireneusz Lukanowski SAC, chaplain at the Specialist Hospital in Międzylesie, Poland, has not written a theological treatise, but a series of examples taken from life — and not from the distant past, but from our own times — of living faith and trust which is crowned with the grace of physical and spiritual healing. I repeat — spiritual healing — for converting after decades of turning away from God may very well be a greater miracle than being cured of an ailment of the body.

Fr Stanisław Martuszewski SAC

INTRODUCTION

”Faith works wonders” — just about everyone knows this saying, but few understand its deeper sense. For a long time sociological studies have shown that people who are faced with a serious illness or a difficult situation cope better when they believe in something than when they believe in nothing and are left alone with an inner emptiness. Strong faith brings comfort and tranquillity.

As long as people exist, questions about the sense of life and suffering are relevant, and we will stubbornly persist in seeking answers to them. What is the sense of life? What should be our attitude towards the drama of illness? Why is there suffering? Why am I the one who is ill, and not someone else? What was my sin? Where is the sense of it all? In seeking answers, we have to stand in the light of the whole truth, without concealment, without embellishment. All human suffering is (at least in part) a mystery. At the sight of a blind man, the disciples asked Jesus, ”Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, ”It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him” (John 9:2-3). To the question of the sense of suffering, there is no single, clear, full answer. We struggle with this disturbing question by looking at Jesus — at His Life, suffering, death and resurrection.

God allows suffering and the trials of life, yet He never abandons us — he gives us the strength to carry on. It is extremely important to trust Him without reserve, for only then can His words be fulfilled, ”Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

In our fear and suffering, we turn in trust to God. No one wants to suffer, but along with happiness, suffering is inscribed in our lives, since ”Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble” (Job 14:1).

”Illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness, man experiences his own powerlessness, his limitations, and his finitude” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1500).

”Illness can lead to anguish, self-absorption, sometimes even despair and revolt against God. It can also make a person more mature, helping him discern in his life what is not essential so that he can turn toward that which is. Very often illness provokes a search for God and a return to Him” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1501).

This book is a collection of testimonies by people who entrusted their pain, worry and life to Divine Providence, that is, they trusted God without reservation. It was not easy for them, for we often tend more to trust in ourselves, that we know what’s best.

I was encouraged by many people to write down what I myself have witnessed in order to show what great wonders God works in people’s lives. I want to share this with others, just as Peter and John did when they stood before the Sanhedrin. With them I repeat: ” ...we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” The testimonies gathered together in this book may become a beautiful, powerful means of evangelization, for they are not theoretical — they are life itself.

Today Jesus is still using disciples chosen by Him to spread the Good News, to cast out demons, to lay their hands on the sick, and to heal. ”He who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it”. (John 14:12-14).

I begin the book with my own testimony about the grace of healing and the vocation bestowed upon me by God.

JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU

On my ordination picture it is written:

I will praise you for ever, because you have done it

(Psalm 52:9)

I was born in Biała Podlaska, the ninth child of Krystyna and Adam. I was very sick as a baby and my parents took me from hospital to hospital.

I was given very little chance of recovery, and my parents were in despair. All they could do was turn to God for help. They decided to baptize me very quickly because I was on the point of death, so they took me to the nearest church in Biała Podlaska, which was next to the railway station.

The priest looked at me aghast and cried, ”He needs a doctor immediately!” There were no godparents with my parents, so my mother went outside the church to ask passers-by to act as my godparents. Coincidentally, my aunt was passing by just at that time, and willingly agreed to be my godmother. A moment later two men passed by the church. It turned out they were students returning home for Christmas. My mother asked one of them to be my godfather, and heagreed.

So my baptism could go ahead. But first my parents offered me to God, saying: ”Lord, if you want to take him to Yourself, Your will be done, and if You want him to live, let it be to serve You.”

After the ceremony I was taken back to the hospital. The doctors held out little hope, and told my parents, not for the first time, that ”if he survives until tomorrow, he may pull through.”

The doctors were puzzled when they saw that my health was improving day by day. All the ailments that I had suffered from disappeared. God touched me with His grace, and I was completely healed.

As my mother used to tell me, the doctors were concerned about my health for a long time and contacted my parents regularly. Since my infancy I have not been seriously ill. On the contrary, I did a lot of sports in primary and secondary school, with good results. I continued sports at the seminary and ever since (nowadays I play football on a team of priests).

Though I didn’t know it, a lot of people in my family knew that my parents had offered me to God. They told me I would become a priest, but I didn’t want to listen such things and rejected the idea completely.

What did I want to become?! I had plenty of ideas for my future life: a confectioner, a sportsman... My teacher encouraged me to develop my athletic abilities and skills at the Physical Education Academy. I also had a girlfriend then. Yet, I gradually discovered my vocation to be a priest, and felt that I had been chosen by God. In high school I first contacted the Pallottine Society, and right after my high school final exams, strengthened by the voice of an inner calling, I joined the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (Pallottine Priests and Brothers). It was only then I learned from my parents that they had offered me to God in the first days of my life.

I remember that day well; the tears flowed as it dawned on me how God had been calling me, leading me step by step. I heard the voice of God in my heart for the first time at the end of my third year of high school. God was knocking gently, and later, just before my high school final exams, His voice called ever louder: ”Follow me”. He gave me His signs, and His love filled my heart with joy and peace. Seven years later, I was ordained as a priest by His Eminence, the Polish Primate, Cardinal Józef Glemp.

I thank God endlessly for giving me life, for healing me, and for calling me into the priesthood.

I am afraid of my own priesthood,

I fear my own priesthood

I fall down in the dust before it,

I kneel before it

On the July morning of my Ordination,

no doubt grey for others —

Some enormous power

Arose in me suddenly

I ride with others in the tram —

I rush along with others in the street —

Marvelling at

the mystery of my soul.

Fr Jan Twardowski

Koniec wersji demonstracyjnej.

SOCIETY OF THE CATHOLIC APOSTOLATE (PALLOTINE PRIESTS AND BROTHERS)

Founded by St. Vincent Pallotti and confirmed by the Holy See in 1846, the Society has belonged to the central section of the Union since its inception.

If you would like to dedicate yourself to serving God in the Pallotine community, you should provide the following documents in person:

an application for acceptance

your own handwritten biography

a copy of: your birth certificate

your baptismal and confirmation certificates

your certificate of completion of catechism

your high school graduation diploma (candidates for the priesthood) or certificate of completion of basic education (candidates for the brotherhood)

a letter of reference from your parish priest

2 photographs in ID card format

a medical certificate

Candidates for the priesthood (after high school graduation) or the brotherhood (after basic schooling) may apply to:

Casa Generalizia

Societa dell’Apostolato Cattolico

Piazza S. Vincenzo Pallotti, 204

00186 ROMA

Italia

http://sac.info/geografia-pallottina/?lang=en