{"id":330,"date":"2025-11-16T12:55:51","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T11:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/springs.testtojest.pl\/?p=330"},"modified":"2025-11-26T23:48:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T22:48:43","slug":"stories-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"Stories 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Stories<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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STORY 1<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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My First Pilgrimage \u2013 Where the Road Truly Began<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I didn\u2019t know it at the time, but my first walking pilgrimage to Jasna G\u00f3ra 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.<\/p>

Back in 1997, I couldn\u2019t have explained it that way. All I had was a vague feeling \u2013 a pull to go, to search for something, anything, that might explain why everything I had learned in\u00a0 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 \u2013 and that answer wasn\u2019t going to come\u00a0 from the world. I needed a journey of faith. I didn\u2019t even know the term \u201cspiritual retreat,\u201d but
that\u2019s exactly what I was about to begin.<\/p>

Every August, pilgrims set out on foot from towns all over Poland, walking for days to reach the sanctuary in Cz\u0119stochowa for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Warsaw pilgrimage is one of the oldest \u2013 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 \u2013 nothing stopped it. In my hometown, many joined the Warsaw group until the Podlasie Pilgrimage was founded. My sister walked that one \u2013 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\u2026 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 \u2013 not for sightseeing, but to journey into my own soul. And I knew exactly where that road should begin \u2013 walking with my sister to Jasna G\u00f3ra.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The Weight of the Journey, the Space for God<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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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 \u2013 sometimes it felt like it might bend the wrong way. Just after leaving town, our guide, Father Miros\u0142aw, told us: \u201cThink about your intention. What are you walking for?\u201d And that\u2019s when I realized \u2013 I didn\u2019t 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 \u2013 prayer, singing, keeping pace with the group, aching feet, sore back, and the damp heaviness of tents. Each night I wondered how I\u2019d 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 \u2013 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 Cz\u0119stochowa, I was the happiest I had ever been. I didn\u2019t have a dramatic moment with Mary that day \u2013 that came later \u2013 but I left with unshakable hope and the deep conviction that God cared about my life and wanted to help me.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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NN<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stories STORY 1 My First Pilgrimage \u2013 Where the Road Truly Began I didn\u2019t know it at the time, but my first walking pilgrimage to Jasna G\u00f3ra 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":453,"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springs.iftest.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}