Polish visionary promotes devotion to saint in Dudley

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

DUDLEY – A priest came from Poland to spread devotion to St. Andrew Bobola, who he said appeared to him repeatedly.

Other people blessed by this 17th century Jesuit martyr came from Chicago and South Boston to St. Andrew Bobola Parish here for the priest’s talk Saturday.
 
And a local woman said the event clinched her family’s decision to join the parish and led them to ask for baptism for the children.

The occasion was a visit by Msgr. Józef Niznik, rector of the St. Andrew Bobola shrine in Strachocina, the saint’s childhood home in Poland.
 
Father Krzysztof Korcz, pastor of St. Andrew Bobola Parish here, met Msgr. Niznik at the shrine in Poland and is working to establish a shrine at his own parish.

While here, Msgr. Niznik gave a retreat and celebrated Masses in Polish, and spoke Saturday to English-speaking people through a translator, Father Grzegorz Chodkowski, pastor of St. Joseph Basilica in Webster. More than 70 people, including Bishop McManus and a few other clergy, came to the presentation and lunch.

 
The bishop blessed attendees with a relic of St. Andrew Bobola and read an apostolic blessing from Pope Francis for “members of the faithful who assist at the first novena in honor of St. Andrew Bobola” at the Dudley parish May 16. (Bishop McManus is to celebrate Mass that day for the Feast of St. Andrew Bobola, which follows the May 7-15 novena.)

“Maybe the first miracle of St. Andrew Bobola” was that this blessing “arrived in my office just the other day,” in time for the novena, Bishop McManus said, explaining that it takes time to receive documents from Rome and he had made a call to speed up the process.

Msgr. Niznik attributed miracles to the intercession of St. Andrew Bobola, who he said came to him many times, starting in 1983. That year Msgr. Niznik began serving at the parish and shrine in Strachocina, where people thought the rectory was haunted because a priest was appearing.

Msgr. Niznik said that when he first saw the priest, dressed in dark clothes, he thought someone was breaking into the rectory, and tried to defend himself by fighting, but fell. 
    
In 1987, awakened from sleep, he finally asked the priest, “Who are you and how can I help?” He said he was very surprised by the answers: “I’m St. Andrew Bobola. Please begin venerating me.”
 
The parish and shrine received a relic of St. Andrew Bobola and now there are more than 2,000 testimonies of gifts bestowed by this patron of Poland, he said. He thought the greatest miracle was the healing of a child with an enlarged head, and also told of an alcoholic becoming sober.

Msgr. Niznik told listeners on Saturday that earlier that day he found out that seven buses and five priests came to his parish in Poland. St. Andrew Bobola is encouraging people to put God first in their lives, he said.

Andrew and Anna Medrek, and Slawek and Margaret Szuba, drove from Chicago to Dudley, arriving last Friday. Due to language barriers, Mr. Szuba told The Catholic Free Press the story of the Medreks, his fellow parishioners at St. Francis Borgia Parish in Chicago. He marveled at having heard the story directly from “the person who was touched” by a miracle.

More than a year ago, the Medreks found a St. Andrew Bobola holy card under the ice while on a walk, retrieved it, cleaned it and asked for the saint’s prayers, Mr. Szuba said.

After Mrs. Medrek had a stroke and was unable to speak or move, her husband put the holy card on her as she lay in the hospital. One day he found medical professionals surrounding her; she had suddenly regained speech and movement.

One night he dreamed that St. Andrew Bobola was telling him, “Find my church in the United States and ask for a Mass for Anna.” Research led him to call St. Andrew Bobola Parish in Dudley.
 
His story moved Father Korcz to read more about their patron.
 
Father Korcz said he got the idea that St. Andrew was calling him to start devotions to him, that the saint would help their struggling parish survive, and that he might even want a shrine here.

When Father Korcz’ rescheduled meeting with Bishop McManus was held after this, the pastor proposed a shrine instead of the merger he had previously considered suggesting.

Mr. Szuba said he wanted to visit a place in the United States where a St. Andrew Bobola shrine is planned; he and his wife visited the one in Strachocina. They also came to help the Medreks; Mrs. Medrek still cannot walk, he said.

Ewa Sobinska, of Dudley, said she was touched by Msgr. Niznik’s testimony, because it came from his heart, and that her family had been seeking a church to call home. Saturday’s event “was a final message to join this parish,” she said; she even asked to have her grandchildren baptized here.

Dana Daniels, a Polish woman married to an American, said she didn’t get to hear Msgr. Niznik when he spoke at her parish, Our Lady of Czestochowa in South Boston April 21. She and her husband, Gerard Marrocco, came to Dudley Saturday. It was important to have something for the English-speaking, she said. “Americans love Polish saints,” she said, including St. John Paul II and St. Faustina.
 
“So now there’s another saint” and another place to visit, she said, noting that not everybody can go to Poland. (Father Korcz said that this month he will start welcoming pilgrims to Masses at the parish, with a blessing with the saint’s relic, every Sunday, in English at 10:30 a.m. and in Polish at noon.)

Mrs. Daniels said she wasn’t particularly interested in St. Andrew until she saw a movie about him which touched her.

She called him “a saint for our times, promoting unity among Christians,” as he attempted to do in his lifetime.

“There’s more of a need than ever for Christians to come together,” said Thaddeus Szkoda, of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Webster. “We live in a divided world and it’s destroying us. I think St. Andrew Bobola has an answer for us.”