"...in memory of me"

The seventeenth conversation between Fr. Tischner and Jacek Żakowski is central to the Catholic faith and touches on a subject not hitherto even mentioned in the book – Holy Communion and the Eucharist.

The notion that the communion wafer and the altar wine are transformed – during every mass – into the body and blood of Christ. Not – as Fr. Tischner points out – a mere symbol of the body and blood of Christ – but the real thing. Transubstantiation. The central tenet of Catholicism.

It is reflected in the importance of the Last Supper, at which Jesus, aware of his impending death, in the presence of his disciples, brings bread and wine together with the words: 'Do this in memory of me.' And this has been ritualistically repeated in the Roman Catholic Church for the past 1,980 years (assuming the Crucifixion took place in 33 AD).

Fr. Tischner explains the importance of the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist as being an opposition to the Greek philosophy, which in itself was an escape from the body. “And here is God Himself saying 'This is my body.' For the Greeks, promises did not live in the body. For us, they do. We love our bodies, which is why we improve them as much as we can. St Francis of Assisi called his body 'his donkey', but then he had a kindly relationship with donkeys. I see in the Eucharist an enormous appreciation of the body. It is not a burden, but a positive value, a symbol of earthly hope, and hope in the eternal life, for our bodies will one day rise again from the dead.”

Jacek Żakowski asks to what extent is the transubstantiation a physical act, and to what extent is it something agreed among people – or a symbol. Fr. Tischer responds that during Mass, God is present in the communion wafer. “Present means: conscious”. WOW! That's a powerful assertion that I never heard in decades of religious instruction or church-going. Of course! To be present means to be conscious. So Divine Consciousness resides within the communion wafer? Whether mass is mumbled by a rather dim priest mechanically going through the ritual to a small, disinterested congregation, or whether it is held in a magnificent mediaeval cathedral and the priest holds his flock in thrall with a performance of deepest spiritual intensity?

Church-going is a mixed experience; sometimes I'm uplifted to new levels of spiritual enlightenment, more often than not I'm glancing at my watch and eyeing the exit. I'm sure it's like that for most.

Fr. Tischner does maintain one of the more important threads in this book – that the Church is a community of God, in history, and God will not be there unless we invite him. “The Eucharist is that reality through which, 'creating' God among us.”

“Creating God?” asks an incredulous Żakowski.

“Yes,” replies Fr. Tischner, “because if you don't come to this mass, and I don't come, then there will not be a Eucharist, so in some sense, neither will there be God in history! For two thousand years we carry it out, for two thousand years there are people on our earth that maintain that reality. If not for them, God would not be among us.”

A short chapter, barely six pages long, that only skates over the surface of the mystery of the Eucharist. My childhood memories of classes preparing us for First Holy Communion are still strong; there is still a lingering sense of wonder at the mystery, the ritual, the unique seriousness of it. Comparing other world religions, that climatic moment of the Catholic mass – when bread and wine are said to turn into the body and blood of the Divinity – is lacking in other religious services; they are commonplace without that quintessential mystery.

While accepting the intriguing logic of Fr. Tischner's assertion that God is conscious within the transubstantiatiated wafer – my question is – “and then what?” We swallow God's consciousness... what happens to us? I can now recall Sister Pauline at St Joseph's Church telling us six and seven year-olds that we enter a state of grace – I guess you either feel it or you don't. And the surroundings of an incense-filled cathedral with sunlight streaming through the stained glass and the singing of a choir of monks is far more likely to do it for me than a drab suburban church.

This time last year:

Cleaning sensors on my Nikons

This time two years ago:
Changing seasons and one's samopoczucie

This time three years ago:
Stunning late-winter beauty
[these are among my most gorgeous winter photos ever]

This time four years ago:
Lenten fare - Jeziorki gumbo

This time five years ago:
Digging up Dawidowska

Goodness gracious

The sixteenth conversation is about a subject that I confess to being entirely lost on my – the Catholic concept of grace, which, according to the catechism, you've either got or you haven't got. After seven years of education in a Catholic secondary school, after decades of listening to sermons and gospel readings during countless masses, the notion of grace is somewhat alien to me.

'Hail Mary, full of grace', goes the prayer. Grace, gracious, graceful – like a polite swan gliding along a river – the associations with the word are positive, but not numinous. Amazing Grace – maybe a little more so.

So what in the world is grace? A state of mind (or indeed soul?) Fr. Tischner compares it trust, trust between two people; he compares it to participation, a ball, dance music is playing, a man looking at a woman, we are talking, jesting, and yet we move in time with the music... Well – sort of. More significantly, he puts the concept of grace in opposition to the ancient Greek concept of deterministic fate, fatum. I've read this section and I'm none the wiser. [A little look at this article on Wikipedia is helpful.]

Jacek Żakowski asks whether, bearing in mind the idea of human life being the Great Trial We All Face, is it fair that we must all merit salvation, but that only some people – those gifted with God's grace – have a chance of salvation?

Fr. Tischner explains that the concept of Grace was devised by the Church in the second or third Century, which may explain its absence from the Gospels. He describes the theological arguments concerning grace between St Augustine – who deemed that only those basking in God's grace would be redeemed (the rest being massa damnata), and Pelagius – who was more open-minded when it came to dividing mankind into sheep and goats. [I think to this day, there's a biological mindset differentiating conservatives and liberals – the former being more pessimistic about mankind's capacity for good.]

The question of who is deemed to be blessed with grace and who isn't is crucial. It harks back to earlier chapters in which Fr. Tischner says that the new catechism looks more favourably on those souls seeking faith through understanding, rather than unthinkingly following dogma.

Żakowski asks: “Where's the border in our lives between blind chance, merit and God's will?”

Fr. Tischner replies: “This is a great mystery, the zone of human lack of knowledge, that even the catechism cannot solve. In it, it says that those, 'who through no fault of their own, not knowing the Gospel of Christ nor the Church of Christ, yet sincerely seek God and His will by following their conscience, are striving under the influence of grace, can attain eternal salvation.' So there can be goodness and salvation outside of the Church.”

Well, that's good to know. 

This time last year:

Muddy feet, Warsaw 'pavements'

This time two years ago:
Cycling and recycling

This time three years ago:
Winter clings on to the forest

This time four years ago:
Toyota launches the iQ
[Can't say I've seen many on Poland's roads since!]

This time five years ago:
Old school Łódź

Bar mleczny formula still doing well in Warsaw

Before Western-style fast food invaded Poland, the only place to eat cheaply and quickly was the bar mleczny - literally 'milk bar'. The name would suggest a chromium counter serving various colours of the milkshake, but the Polish take on the milk bar was a self-service restaurant where you can buy home-made-style soups, pierogi, goulash, beetroot, cabbage and potatoes, a large meal for a bargain price.

Many have disappeared in Warsaw, displaced by more sophisticated eateries, but here and there you will still find a few - and they are doing well. The old-school format appeals to the young as well as to the retired.

Today, I chanced by one I'd often walked past and ignored when working on ul. Nowogrodzka - Bar Bambino on ul. Krucza. Entirely undistinguished from the outside, it was only by gazing in (I was hungry) that I could appreciate its charm.

It's busy in the kitchen at lunchtimes, a blur of activity

To use a bar mleczny, join the back of the queue to the cash-till. Select your meal, pay, collect a ticket. Take your ticket, pick up a tray and cutlery, and join another queue hanging around the serving hatch. A lady will shout 'następny!' ('next!') and you hand her your ticket. There's a blur of activity, after which a lady bustles towards the hatch shouting out your order. You collect your dishes from her and make a dash with your tray to an empty table (the place is busy!). After enjoying your meal, it's a self-clear system, and you take your plates and cutlery to the a hatch marked zwrot naczyń ('return of tableware').
 

Love that 1960s moderne decor.

The jadłospis (menu) gave a huge variety of soups, main courses, side dishes and desserts, at prices which showed that someone's really worked hard to strike the balance between profitability and affordability. I chose sorrel soup with hard-boiled egg (3.63zł), pierogi ruskie (pierogi with a cheese, mashed potato and horseradish stuffing) and buckwheat groats with a rich mushroom sauce. My order came to 13.74zł, or £2.89 for a huge and entirely filling meal. The soup was served piping hot, the pierogi came with skwarki (crunchy chunks of pork fat) which I sadly left untouched as it's Lent.

Bar Bambino compares favourably in terms of price, speed of service and spacious layout to bary mleczne from the Mleczarnia chain (there's one on ul. Bagatela, close to our offices that's tiny and usually packed).

If you are unfamiliar with bary mleczne, ask a Polish colleague to point you to the nearest one. They are a great Polish lunchtime institution.

This time last year:
Nikkor 45mm f2.8 pancake lens reviewed

This time two years ago:
Old Town, another prospect

This time three years ago:
W-wa Śródmieście - commuters' staging post

This time four years ago:
Filthy ul. Poloneza
[four years on, nothing's changed...]

This time five years ago:
A sight that heralds the coming of spring

Freedom and free will

Chapter fifteen of Tischner czyta Katechism opens the third part of the book and considers what it means to be 'free'. Fr. Tischner cites Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski who also took it upon himself to examine the new post-Vatican Council edition of the Catholic Catechism. Kołakowski was looking for traces of totalitarian thought, analysing it through the prism of the history of idea. (Me, I will look at faith from the prism of human biology, but that's later on in this series of articles).

Fr. Tischner writes: "Kołakowski, as a historian of ideas, a witness of totalitarian times, is asking whether or not the new catechism doesn't have some totalitarian temptations. If there were, they'd be found in the definitions of the word 'freedom'." He asks Jacek Żakowski if he can remember the Marxist definition of freedom. "Freedom is necessity made conscious," replies Żakowski. "In other words," says Fr. Tischner, "to be free means to understand necessity."

"Until the French Revolution carried the word freedom on its standards, people generally lived their lives understanding necessity. Understanding their place in the feudal structure, where everyone had freedom within their own measure," says Żakowski, pointing to the historical roots of Marx's thesis.

Fr. Tischner compares freedom with a canoeist paddling with the stream. "You are free to turn left or right. But, according to Marxists, when you want to canoe upstream, you only have the illusion of being free. Leszek Kolakowski asks whether there isn't something similar in the catechism. Is there not a differentiation between illusory freedom and real freedom. Do you feel what consequences this would have?"

Żakowski replies that Kołakowski saw that in the world view that gave birth to the Holy Inquisition there is the source of 20th Century totalitarianism.

"You can say to people, listen, collective ownership is a good thing. Such is objective truth. And now, in the name of this good thing, I will force you to join a collective farm," says Fr. Tischner. "And they tell you that if you do so, you will be free - you will be objectively free.

"Do you remember the play Na pełnym morzu ('At Sea', 1961) by Sławomir Mrożek? he asks. "Three starving shipwreck survivors, one of them must be eaten to save the other two. Which one? They chose the runt. They could kill him, they had the advantage. But it would be better if he agreed himself - for only when he agrees will he truly be free. They'll eat him one way or the other, but when he accepts the objective necessity, then he will liberate himself. And so the runt agrees, because they convinced him. He stands on the stage and says to the audience: 'Where is there real freedom? It's where there isn't ordinary freedom. And where is ordinary freedom? Where there isn't real freedom.' Leszek Kołakowski heard this tone in the new catechism. He felt disturbed by one sentence in particular - 'the more good a person does, the more free they become'."

" 'Real freedom'," the catechism continues, says Fr. Tischner, " 'is only freedom in the service of good.' The clause 'real freedom' gives Leszek Kołakowski further cause for being disturbed. If there can be 'real freedom', it means there can be 'false freedom'. The catechism can talk us into believing that it will teach us this real freedom. Kołakowski is questioning the experience of freedom for external judgments."

Zakowski says "I rather feel unease when we ask who is to say what true goodness is." Fr. Tischner mentions that Giertych pere replied to Kołakowski in Tygodnik Powszechny saying that the Polish translation out of the French original text contained an inaccuracy; libre arbitre should have been translated as 'free will', and not as 'freedom'. Changing one word changes the sense of the whole."

Żakowski says that the unease he feels from the line 'real freedom [or indeed 'free will'] is only freedom in the service of good' comes from the fact that this is a document published by an institution with real political power to this day. "Bishops may want to impose their vision of freedom onto society, in the same way they have tried to imposer their convictions in many other ways".

Fr. Tischner replies that the text needs to be understood in a historical context. "Ideas of freedom are formulated somewhere on the abstract level, then then we see how they fall to earth from the abstract level to hurt people. Do you feel free when you act out of necessity? Out of a necessity that you understand? Do you feel free - or only wise?"

He continues: The experience of freedom - or lack of it - only takes place in the interpersonal context. Not in the inner struggle within yourself. Freedom is not within you, or within me - only between us. You go for a walk, you come across a physical obstacle blocking your path. You cannot continue. You do not feel that your freedom has been limited. But if you're going for a walk, and someone tells you 'you are not permitted to walk here', you do feel your freedom has been limited."

Here, I have pencilled a large, fundamental 'NO!' in the margin. For we are free within ourselves to gorge ourselves with fatty fast foods, drink bucketloads of alcohol and avoid any exercise. It is our free will to take control of our own lives or not. The notion that our own actions, in that they don't impinge on others, are not a question of free will, is highly dubious - and (as Fr. Tischner said in earlier conversations) is a distinguishing feature of Protestantism. Max Weber's concept of a 'Protestant Work Ethic' posits that hard work, cleanliness and self-discipline were notions promulgated by north-west European Protestantism, separating them from the less diligent Catholics of southern and central Europe. The difference between the notion of 'freedom' (wolność) as mentioned in the Polish translation of the catechism, and 'free will' (arbitre libre) in the French translation, is crucial.

Żakowski reads another fragment of the catechism. "The more submissive/ compliant/ dutiful/ deferential [the Polish word 'uległy' means all these] we are to the movements of grace, the more our internal freedom rises and our certainty in the face of difficulties which are imposed by the pressures and constraints of the external world."

We will go into the notion of 'grace' in the next conversation, says Fr. Tischner. "See how freedom does not appear as free will, but as a challenge. It's interesting whether in the human experience there is something as pure freedom. There is only challenge. The challenge from under external force, and also from internal constraint. And this is the root of the dialectic of grace and freedom. In metaphorical language, freedom is associated with wings. You're free when you have wings. You're free when it's not about whether you go left or right - but whether you can rise - go up. You experience freedom when you know 'you can'. Even when you don't make use of this freedom, you feel that you are free. You can say: freedom is a way of life; even when you're not doing anything, you either are or you are not free".

Phew. I feel Fr. Tischner has looped himself round in circles on this one. Freedom or free will? Freedom within one's own self - or only between people? Not clear. One word was missing from this important conversation - conscience. I wonder if the notion of conscience will be considered in forthcoming conversations.

This time last year:
Orwell's Politics and Language

This time two years ago:
A late start to Lent

This time three years ago:
Midway through Lent

This time five years ago:
Pace of spring's approach accelerates

A selfless faith

The 14th conversation takes us, I think, back on track. Fr. Tischner and Jacek Żakowski are discussing the future of Christianity. Fr. Tischner is optimistic; for him, all the dead-ends on the road to God have been exhausted in the first two millennia. "Only the straight road remains."

Żakowski suggests that abandoning worship of an absolute (which entails different intepretations that lead to murder and massacre), we should not instead focus on the matters of day-to-day life.

Fr. Tischner suggests that misunderstandings stem from what it is that we ask for from God. "God loves us selflessly. And we? We love Him in a selfish way; and this distorts our image of God. It's not when we turn to God and ask of him for life everlasting for ourselves. It's when we pray to God to help overcome our enemies or rule over others. When you approach God to help you tread your neighbour down into the mud. Then God turns his back on you."

Żakowski turns this around: "Are you saying that God brought you into this world so that you could  bother Him with your petty problems; requests for money, for weapons against your neighbours, for a bowl of manna from heaven - only so that you could be put to the test, to prove that you are worthy of life eternal?"

"So that you'd pass the test of love!" replies Fr. Tischner. "How many times, in the history of Christianity, have people sought help from God in order to have power over others?"

"So - two thousand years after the birth of Christ, our mentality is still basically the same as the mentality of pre-Christian Greeks?" asks Żakowski. "When God fulfils people's requests, it turns out they are still far from happiness."

"There's a one-word answer - selflessness. Just as God loves us magnanimously, so we must love God magnanimously," replies Fr. Tischner.

"So - don't bother asking Him for anything?" retorts Żakowski.

"Sometimes you should ask. If you love someone, you're not afraid of asking."

"But if someone loves you - and you say that God loves us - then that person doesn't wait until you have to ask."

"But there's something deeper in real magnanimity. Magnanimity loves because you are. That you are as you are. And we, engaged in the endless games we play, have untaught ourselves selflessness, says Fr. Tischner. He concludes with the words of St John the Evangelist: "And if your heart is to blame, know that God is greater than your heart and knows everything."

Though the meaning of that quote is lost on me, I get the drift, the sense of what Fr. Tischner is trying to say, and agree with it within my own spiritual experience. As I've written here and here, I have the habit of praying - talking to God - twice a day, while washing my teeth. It begins with a simple act of giving thanks for my health, then praying for the health of those close to me. Gratitude should be the starting point for dialogue with God. And God will not grant you the lottery win you pray for, nor the big, black SUV with darkened rear windows. Destroying your enemy is another prayer that God will not make come true - you should have no enemies.

But those basic things you need in life to move forward, from zero towards one, God will grant you - if you pray for them.

This time last year:
Ul. Profesorska after the remont

This time two years ago:
Lent kicks off again, for the 20th year in a row for me

This time three years ago:
Half way through Lent

This time five years ago:
Spring much closer

God's risk

Into the second half of Lent, into the second half of Tischner czyta Katechism. The 13th conversation is a puzzling one. I've read it now three times and cannot quite see how it fits with the others; it contains no valuable pointers as to how we should cope with the drama of life, what is the nature of God, how we should seek God, the importance of dialogue, or how we should pray. All we get in this chapter is a sterile and inconclusive philosophical argument about how God - in revealing Himself to Man - took the risk that people would go around cutting off the heads or setting fire to all those that didn't interpret His Word in exactly the same way they did.

It is a chapter of abstruse apologetics, touching on Nietzsche, Abraham and Isaac (again) and notions of deicide ("only if we consider God as Man can we kill God").

One thread of the chapter, however, is worth considering in detail.

"Look at all the changes of order in Europe - all the revolutions... technical progress, the European critical faculty of reason which has no equal - which states that everything that is obvious can be questioned, criticised, even attacked," says Fr. Tischner. "Do you see the Christian revelation at the root of Europe's tendencies to create great social illusions, great ideologies, utopias and dangerous delusions? It is from the soil of Christianity that communism, fascism and the rights of man have all stemmed - not from Islam or Buddhism," continues Jacek Żakowski. "Do you not see the sin of Christianity in the great destabilisation of the world?" he asks. [Remember, these conversations took place more than five years before 9/11.]

Fr. Tischner takes us back to the Gospels and the Disciples urging Christ to set fire to the towns that had spurned their evangelising. "He who scorns and offends the servants of God scorns and offends God," they said. "That is what the apostles felt. Of course, Christ questioned their logic, but it is deeply rooted in the nature of those gods that arose across Europe," says Fr. Tischner, "And successive apostles will continue saying: 'And if you, Lord God, do not do it yourself, we will do it for you.' And they will burn cities in His name."

The argument becomes circular and inconclusive. A lot of evil has descended upon man in the name of Christ, because of faulty interpretation of Christ's will. Fr. Tischner concludes: "There are no easy solutions here. It would be absurd to suggest so in this conversation. So I think that we should remain with that awareness of that great tension between sin and good that Christianity has brought into this world."

So we leave Chapter 13 none the wiser. God, revealing His love for man through the revelation of his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, took the risk that by doing so, He'd be unleashing two millennia (at least!) of killing people in His son's name. 'Please, accept the mystery'.

This time last year:
A third of the way through Lent

This time time two years ago:
Balancing surfeit and shortage

This time three years ago:
Congruent consciousness

Gdynia Główna station after its remont

Although I had to be in Gdańsk this morning, I did not relish arriving there at 5am on the night train from Warsaw. My ticket was for Gdańsk, but I paid a small consideration to travel onto Gdynia, from where I'd return to Gdańsk in good time for the event I was moderating. This gave me 45 minutes extra sleep on the train, which was welcome.

At Gdynia, I found the station I'd last visited the previous summer fully reopened after its comprehensive remont. The post-war architecture has been sensitively restored to something approximating its original state, though with contemporary white-on-blue signage and raised floor guide-markings for the visually impaired.

Arrival at Gdynia Główna, just before six am. My night train is on the left.

One of the five restored mosaics; this one depicts the coastal economy.

Waiting room and ticket hall

Mosaic with the winged wheel symbol of PKP, Pegasus, and the Zodiac.

The station frontage: façade as seen from Gdynia's Pl. Konstytucji.

Mosaics from 1957 had been uncovered and the socialist-realist lamp fittings are working. And the crisp, cloudless morn, shortly before sunrise, offered the ideal conditions in which to admire the restored station.

Post-industrial Gdańsk

I arrived in Gdańsk by night train early this morning, and before indulging in a Lenten breakfast at the Scottish restaurant (egg and cheese McMuffin, salad w/ yoghurt & dill dressing, pure orange juice), I paid a visit to the Cradle of Solidarność, the Gdańsk Shipyard.

The place is winding down, but there's still some activity with a handful of workers coming and going. There was a debate last year as to the possibility of keeping the iconic cranes that characterise Gdańsk's skyline. The scrap value of the steel is far outweighed by leaving the cranes in place. Like Łódź, Gdańsk's industrial heritage has enormous potential - leave it in place and use it as an identifiable focal point for new development. I hope the cranes will stay, as well as the brick-built tenements that surround the shipyard.

Footbridge. Gdańsk Stocznia station.

Shipyard gates, famous worldwide during 1981 strikes

There's little happening now in the bankrupt shipyard

Save the cranes - an iconic part of Gdańsk's skyline

Resting and rusting: communist-era status symbol

Brick tenements, at the end of the street, the shipyard.

8x8 armoured personnel carrier used by communist Militia in 1981

Crosses commemorating dead shipyard workers killed in 1970

There's more to Gdańsk's history than just its old town.

This time last year:
The watercolours of Isaac Quinton

This time two year:
Silver birches and blue skies

This time four years ago:
Jeziorki's wetlands in late winter (2009)

This time five years ago:
Jeziorki's wetlands in late winter (2008)