Stories
STORY 1
My First Pilgrimage – Where the Road Truly Began
I didn’t know it at the time, but my first walking pilgrimage to Jasna Góra was going to change everything. I set off carrying a restless heart and more questions than I could count. I came back with hope, with light, and with the quiet certainty that God had been waiting for me all along.
Back in 1997, I couldn’t have explained it that way. All I had was a vague feeling – a pull to go, to search for something, anything, that might explain why everything I had learned in religion class and heard in church seemed powerless in my own life. Somewhere deep down I believed there was an answer to my personal crisis – and that answer wasn’t going to come from the world. I needed a journey of faith. I didn’t even know the term “spiritual retreat,” but
that’s exactly what I was about to begin.
Every August, pilgrims set out on foot from towns all over Poland, walking for days to reach the sanctuary in Częstochowa for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Warsaw pilgrimage is one of the oldest – the first group left on August 6, 1711, in thanksgiving for the end of a deadly typhus epidemic. Nine days on the road, year after year, through wars, political oppression, and even communism – nothing stopped it. In my hometown, many joined the Warsaw group until the Podlasie Pilgrimage was founded. My sister walked that one – a younger tradition but a tougher route: 400 kilometers in two weeks. I had always listened to the stories with polite detachment. They spoke of joy, singing, deep prayer… but I had my life in the capital and no interest in joining. Until the day came when life pressed me so hard I knew I had to go somewhere – not for sightseeing, but to journey into my own soul. And I knew exactly where that road should begin – walking with my sister to Jasna Góra.
The Weight of the Journey, the Space for God
July 30. My home parish church, now run by the Pauline Fathers. At the Eucharist, I found myself wondering how I would make it. A ski injury months earlier had left my knee unstable – sometimes it felt like it might bend the wrong way. Just after leaving town, our guide, Father Mirosław, told us: “Think about your intention. What are you walking for?” And that’s when I realized – I didn’t know. My life felt broken in too many places to name just one thing. I had no answer. And yet, that emptiness turned out to be a gift. It left room for God to step in with exactly what He knew I needed. The days blurred into a rhythm – prayer, singing, keeping pace with the group, aching feet, sore back, and the damp heaviness of tents. Each night I wondered how I’d walk in the morning, yet each morning the strength was simply there. My knee never once hurt.
It was on the second Friday, during the Stations of the Cross, that it came – the light. Not a vision, not a voice, but a sudden clarity, a shift in how I saw my life. It was so precise, so peaceful, so clearly not from me. And I knew it was the beginning of a new way forward. Walking into the Chapel of the Miraculous Icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa, I was the happiest I had ever been. I didn’t have a dramatic moment with Mary that day – that came later – but I left with unshakable hope and the deep conviction that God cared about my life and wanted to help me.
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