It's crucial not to waste your life

– In more than forty-five years, through prayer and educational actions in the intention of defending the conceived lives children, thanks to God's aid and many people, especially priests, we have reached many millions of people in Poland and in the planet – says Dr. Adam Kisiel, this year's winner of the “Friend of Life” Award.

When the Crusade of Prayer was created in the defence of the Concepted Children, you were a young man. Why did you decide to get involved? pro-life?

Dr. Adam KisielWhy? due to the fact that I was very lucky. That's how I feel today. The beginning of my activities was a time of large spiritual transformation of our nation, the main influence of which was the election of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla to the capital of Peter and his first pilgrimage to his homeland.

Did you take the value of protecting life from conception out of the house?

No doubt. I had six siblings, we lived in modest conditions, but we were raised in respect for the Catholic religion and to another man. Mom always thought of others. For any time after the war, an orphaned boy and poorer cousins lived with us. Even though we had 1 room, kitchen and vestibule, we did not deficiency what was most important, namely love and good patterns.

I'll just mention that all of us, and there were 5 brothers, were altar boys. This service at the altar I continued in college and even later. Today, too, I besides happen to be an altar boy, if necessary. I'm certain our parent prayed for us. I remember that in the evenings, after a day of hard work, she was kneeling by her bed for prayer. This evidence of her religion and trust in God was essential in shaping attitudes in our adult lives.

In 1 of your fresh interviews, you spoke of your parent being urged to have an abortion.

I was under thirteen erstwhile my mom was seven. Then people came to our home who told Mom that this “problem” could be “solved”. Of course, conditions were not easy, but parents did not consider abortion. The day Mom was expected to see a doctor InvestigationsI put a card on her coat that said we wanted to have siblings and that we were gonna aid Mom. It was a natural instinct, but I didn't truly realize what it looked like yet. abortion. Today, our youngest brother is simply a happy father of 4 children, very active, visits us and assists us in various ways. He has the most strength and health, an example of his household bears witness to faith.

In the 1960s, abortion in Poland was legal and universal. Have you always met anyone who had an abortion at the time?

My aunt, among others, told me about how common this phenomenon was. erstwhile I was in college and took my first steps to defend the lives of conceived children, I had a shocking conversation with her. Well, for a time she worked as a household helper to a laryngologist. She told me that this laryngologist (sic!) was doing, as it was said, "scrubs" in his home. And my aunt had to throw the dead kids in the bathroom. Of course, abortions were besides performed in hospitals and in state offices. any preferred to pretend they didn't know anything, but unfortunately – it would be hard to find a individual who, in his immediate or further surroundings, did not encounter the killing of conceived children.

W Cracow You joined the academic pastoral ministry of Saint Anna and there met another people who were not indifferent Life defence of the conception.

It is actual that there was quite a few talk in pastoral care. Our pastor, Fr Francis Płonka, was a distinguished, A priest of God who was not afraid to discuss hard subjects. He taught us persistent prayer, formed our consciences, and cared for our spiritual development. He rode with us on canoes, on camps, on mountain expeditions. These events straight prepared us for what was to happen in our homeland – for the spiritual transformation of the nation, a stir which was due to the election of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla to the capital of Peter.

The Holy Father was a large advocate of the conceived life!

And at the time of his first pilgrimage, he called for us to be active in the defence of life. In June 1979, in Nowy Targ, he said: “And I wish, and I pray constantly, that the Polish household may give life to be faithful to the holy law of life. If it breaks right the man to live at the minute at which he begins as a man under his mother's heart, reconciles indirectly to the full moral order that serves to safe the inviolable possessions of man. Life is the first of these goods." And the day before, in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, he said that the most crucial papal call, the most crucial message, is the call to prayer. These words were a direct impulse for prayer and action to defend life.

You could have been working side by side with people like Mrs. Wanda Połtawska or Mr. Engineer Antoni Zięba. They're peculiar characters who have been recorded in the past of the conflict for the life of unborn children.

At the time, Dr. Wanda Połtawska was conducting a survey of household Theology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty (later the Papal Theological Academy), she worked in the household Ministry operating at the Krakow Curia and I met her there. In turn, I met engineer Antoni Zięba at the Cracow University of Technology, where he was an assistant at the Department of Building Mechanics. The engineer Zięba after the first pilgrimage of the Holy Father came to be known as a skillful organizer and defender of life. It was he who brought from Vienna colorful photographs of a large format, which depicted the prenatal improvement of the child, as well as frightening pictures of the remains of children killed in the wombs of mothers. erstwhile he showed them to me, I knew immediately that we had to act. We decided to prepare specified an exhibition in Krakow.

Where's the first show?

We decided that we would set it up at the Missionary Fathers' Church on Student Town in Krakow, immediately after student juvenals. We chose this place due to the fact that we learned that in 1979 about 2 100 students of various Krakow universities performed abortions. Sometimes they didn't really know who their baby was. The abortion was encouraged by friends, partners, frequently parents. It was the moral tragedy of the city.

What was the social reception of this first exhibition?

The inspiration of God was that at the exhibition we left a large, stucard book, which was to be a memorial book. There were just quite a few signatures in it, but there were besides specified annotations that individual thanked us for showing the fact about the conceived life. And most importantly, there were 4 entries of women, college girls who decided to have a baby, even though they were induced to have an abortion. We later showed this book to Cardinal Francis Macharski, and he decided that the work would continue. He besides confirmed to us that we must act in 2 ways: through action, but besides through prayer.

And so arose the first Crusade of Prayer in the defence of the Concepted Children.

We started on October 12, 1980, on the planet Day of Prayer in the Intention of Families, which John Paul II established. It was besides the eve of the next anniversary of the apparitions of Fatima. At the time, in addition to prayer, we were going to compose letters to the people for whom we prayed, but the cardinal refused to give approval to send letters. Providing – due to the fact that precisely fourteen months later the martial law began in Poland. If we were sending letters, the Communist authorities would have the addresses of all members of the Crusade. As past has shown, it could end in harassment, internment and any another repression. God saved us from this. We decided to embrace the spiritual concern of all who depended on social and political decisions in Poland. We prayed for KC secretaries, prime minister, ministers, judges, gynecologists, as well as bishop priests and priest primates. The list included about 3,000 names.

How did you gather the first members of this prayerful stir?

We'd go to dozens of meetings with priests, pastoral services. We spoke in churches, frequently during parish announcements. We have managed to gather 1 and a half 1000 people who have taken part in the Holy Mass regular and to offer Holy Communion in the intention of defending life and over a 1000 sick people who have offered their suffering in this intention. The first Crusade lasted 3 months.

After that, you decided to proceed your prayer.

We understood that changing social awareness and abolishing the law allowing abortion would not be easy, that persistent prayer and large educational work would be needed. We relaxed the requirements: we asked for the 10 Rosaries, Litania Loretanska, to make sacrifices all day throughout the year, and we limited the work to attend the Holy Mass to 1 day in the period of the week. Subsequent years of Crusades we began before the Miraculous Image of Our woman of Czestochowa during pilgrimages to Jasna Góra, first on 3 May, and after a fewer years on the Day of the Feast of Life – on Saturday preceding the celebration of the Annunciation of the Lord.

The work of the Crusade was developing, the conditions for joining this movement were besides changing, but 1 thing did not change – the thought of spiritual concern for conceived life and threatened with abortion. How many people have joined the Crusade over forty-five years?

I'm certain we can talk about 100,000 Crusaders. However, it should be stressed that these estimates are incomplete, due to the fact that not everyone who prayed in the intentions of the Crusade formally reported his participation to the organizers. Often, for example, full classes of advanced school students, as a teacher, decided to pray in the intentions of the Crusade.

Were there moments in your service to defend your life erstwhile you wanted to resign?

No, never quit. But of course there were times erstwhile I was very tired. We frequently did exhibitions at night, especially in the state of war erstwhile due to curfew it was not possible to return home late. We had the chance to work in the basement of the parish home at St. Anne's college. It wasn't easy, but I never thought our actions made sense. Letters, leaflets, information material in the state of war had to be prescribed on typewriters or sitoprint techniques, due to the fact that photocopiers were sealed and printing was censored. Thank God there were people there to help.

Prayer was the foundation and axis of your actions, but you have spent just as much time on educational activities.

This was due to the fact that I turned in specified an environment alternatively than another. The engineer Zięba began to act with momentum and in a natural way we worked side by side. So we prepared leaflets, exhibitions, lectures, lectures, photos and films. After the abolition of censorship in the 1990s, the anticipation of publishing a pro-life magazine, printing books and brochures arose. Over the past forty-five years, we have surely reached millions of people in Poland, as well as in the world. Our printed materials were not only in Polish, but besides in English, German, French or Russian.

Finally, since we talk so much about prayer, do you have any favourite form of prayer?

First of all, I attend the Holy Mass all day. During the day I pray the rosary, on Sunday I always refuse 4 parts of it. On another days of the week, it depends on how many intentions request to be “avoided”, usually I refuse more than part of the Holy Rosary. all day around 3:00 p.m. I refuse the lace to God's Mercy, and in the morning the lace to the Sacred Heart of Jesus arranged by Holy Father Pio. I frequently pray with litany: Loretian, which I have known by heart since my youth, to the Holy Spirit, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to Saint Joseph. I cannot neglect to mention the prayer of Saint Bernard, which begins with the words, “Remember, O Blessed Virgin Mary...”. I besides read the Bible...

We must pray incessantly, as Jesus taught us: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and they will open to you. For whoever asks receives; he who seeks finds; and they will open to the knocker" (Mt 7,7–8). We must not forget that we are to ask God for everything. Of course, we should besides thank and worship the Lord God: for the miracle of life, for all breath, for all the graces which we are richly endowed with. But I frequently realize myself that mostly I'm asking due to the fact that there are so many problems that we can't solve ourselves... Very often, another people, erstwhile they find themselves in a hard situation, ask us to pray. And we should present these requests to God. Hence the time for begging prayer is extended, and yet we besides ask for intercession of the Blessed parent and of various saints... The most crucial thing is that everyone prays persistently, and the form chooses the 1 that suits him most. And at the end of his life, he could hear that his life wasn't wasted.

To conclude, I would like to quote a passage of the beatification prayer of the Worshipful Servant of God, the small Sister of Jesus Magdalene, the founder of the small Sisters of Jesus:

“Lord, I am asking you to have religion that moves mountains and rips up rocks... With this religion I tell you, I am nothing, but you are everything. I have nothing, but you have everything. I can't do anything, but you can do anything. What I am asking you present by intercession of the small sister of Jesus Magdalene... is much easier than the transfer of the mountain, and you promised in exchange for the religion the size of a mustard seed. Lord, with infinite assurance I tell you "thank you." Amen’.