The patron saints of the project – three saints and pope emeritus – were chosen because of their involvement in the life of the church and their intellectual and scientific legacy. What they have in common is an achievement of personal synthesis between faith and culture. Synthesis which we also somehow seek.
- Saint John Paul II
- Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
- Saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska
- Benedict the XVI
Saint John Paul II – born in 1920 as Karol Wojtyła in Wadowice, Poland. Pope, the best known Pole of the 20th century. He identified himself intellectually with the Thomistic tradition enriched by other resources: mysticism of saint John of the Cross, phenomenology and philosophy of the dialog as well as Marian devotions of the saint Louis de Montfort. Theologist, playwright, poet, enthusiast of the Norwid’s poetry, at the same time dedicated sportsperson. Accept for the intellectual thoughts he was able to include personal experience in his reflections, e. g. coercive physical work in a stone quarry. Not only was he a scientists, he was a man of prayer and poetry. He was able to appreciate contact with nature as a sportsperson and admired it as a gift from God, the Creator. He had a unique talent to combine complexity of scientific approach with simple words and gestures, which allowed him to get closer to his followers. He could laugh at himself without mocking the functions he was given.
He is the main patron of our project as he is culturally closest to us, because of a significant for us concept of Christian personalism and as the clearest example of a personal integrity.
Teresa Benedicta of the Cross OCD – born in 1891 as Edith Stein in a Jewish family in Breslau (today’s Wrocław). She lost her faith as a teenage girl, but has kept seeking the truth with great determination, especially the truth about human. The search led her from studying philosophy in Breslau through phd studies by the initiator of the phenomenology Edmund Husserl (she was refused the postdoctoral degree because she was a woman), to discover Jesus Christ and the Carmelite spirituality. The saint is also one of the figures of the early feminism, focusing on the phenomenon of a woman. In her works she combined phenomenology with a Thomistic concept of truth, later she translated into German some books of the Carmelite mistics. A woman of scientific research and contemplative life. Murdered in Auschwitz in 1942, one of the patron saints of Europe.
Our inspiration in this figure is seeking the truth.
Maria Faustyna Kowalska ZMBM – born in 1905 in Głogowiec as Helena Kowalska, died in 1938. On the outside – a common nun, working in a garden of the convent, without any specific talents of education. Internally – a mystic for whom a direct, honest and straightforward conversation with Jesus belonged to daily life. She grew up in a country, although she was intellectually an uninteresting nun, her not entirely correct notes where translated into 30 languages. In her person fides shows as a very unique and personal experience, which exceeds ratio in both unusual and problematic way for the people around and leads to a discovery of a new religious form of the God’s most important quality – His mercy.
The message of the Divine Mercy which she received is being announced all around the world, and Divine Mercy Sunday is the third solemnity (after Corpus Christi and the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart) established in the Church after a private apparition. Faustyna, who wouldn’t have had much to say on her own behalf, as a “Secretary of the Divine Mercy” shapes the spirituality and forms of godliness of today’s Church, through which she influences cultura.
What touches as in this saint is her unique intimate relationship with Christ, where the secret of the person is shown.
Benedict XVI – born as Joseph Ratzinger in 1927 in Marktl, professor of fundamental and dogmatic theology, belonging to the head theologists of the 20th century. He was one of the youngest participants of the Second Vatican Council, firstly as an expert assistant of archbishop Joseph Frings. His scientific resources were tradition of saint Augustine and saint Bonaventure, critic of Neo-Scholasticism, willing to derive from modern philosophy, however not without criticism. As a master of theological phrase he had a talent to express complex theological issues in simple but essential words. Although they had two different theological bottom lines, Joseph Ratzinger cooperated with John Paul II for many years as the archbishop of Munich, next as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, to follow him as a pope.
What distinguished him was his humility before the reality which was expressed in fulfilling the function he was trusted with, regardless unpleasant consequences as well as his resignation, when his health became a serious obstacle.