Studia Pastoralne
Rocznik Wydziału Teologicznego UŚ

FAMILY AS COMMUNION OF LIFE AND LOVE IN THE HOME CHURCH OF LIGHT MOVEMEN.
Summary
Family in itself is the fulfilment of one of the most basic human needs, since a man in his ontological dimension is homo familiaris. It may serve its purpose due to the fact that it is a privileged place of realization of human love and at the same time a place opened to receiving life. Thanks to this family is able to fulfil the need of an emotional bond with one’s neighbours, mutual understanding, security, a desire to have children as well as religious needs, including initiation into mysteries of religious and ecclesial life. In order to meet these aims a family must become „a community of life and love” (KDK 48). The foundation of this community is a communion of spouses with God which in turn will manifest itself in communion between spouses and communion between parents and their children. This personal vision of marriage and a Christian family, based on the idea of father Franciszek Blachnicki, is the aim of the Home Church. For families participating in the movement a nuptial communion is the foundation of communion of the whole family, and from even broader perspective, an opportunity to build an ecclesial community. This is why a family can and should call itself a home Church. In view of the above the basic aspect of the charism of the Home Church was described as „the self-gift in a marriage and a family”. The basis of formation of a marriage and a family is a nuptial spirituality, which is aspiring to holiness together with one’s spouse. The nuptial communion is built through the so called obligations. They are as follows: daily private prayer, daily family prayer, monthly nuptial dialogue, the rule of life and participation, at least once a year, in a formation retreat. Thanks to implementation of these tasks spouses get closer to one another and to God. The obligations are met by a daily effort of spouses and mutual support of other married couples gathered in the circles of the Home Church.

THE PRESBYTERIAT IN SERVICE OF A COMMUNION IN LIGHT OF THE POST-COUNCIL TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH.
Summary
Contemporary ecclesiology postulates: „the Church as communion might be more clearly understood and concretely incorporated into life” (The Final Report of the Extraordinary Synod). This idea should pervade all actions of presbyters and influence a new style of priesthood. This is confirmed both by post-council teaching of the Church and the teaching of the Church in Poland. It was particularly developed in a post-synodal exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis (1992) in which John Paul II emphasised that „the ecclesiology of communion becomes decisive for understanding the identity of the priest, his essential dignity, and his vocation and mission”. Other documents of Magisterium Ecclesiae followed this direction. Three documents of the Congregation for the Clergy deserve special attention: Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests (1994), a letter The Priest and the Third Christian Millennium, Teacher of the Word, Minister of the Sacraments and Leader of the Community (1999) and an instruction The Priest, Pastor and Leader of the Parish Community (2002). Among Polish documents there are two written by the Second Polish Plenary Synod that deserve special attention: Needs and Tasks of a New Evangelisation at the Break of the Second and the Third Christian Millennium and Priesthood and Consecrated Life as Community of Life and Ministry with Christ. The documents emphasise that a priest should always remember that he „sanctifies himself by his care for a community which had been entrusted to him. This care should be manifested in being with a community and in a community”. Therefore the synod suggests that „in nominating parish priests one should take into account not so much and not only seniority and achievements but practical pastoral skills, especially the ability of team-work and a social sensitivity”.

EUCHARISTIC GATHERING AS THE HEART OF CELEBRATING „THE EIGHTH DAY” IN A PARISH
Summary
It is true that in free Poland Sunday became relativized. More and more Poles spend this holy day in new „temples of consumption” which are supermarkets. Hundreds of thousands of people are forced to work. It is sad that the apostolic letter of the pope, Dies Domini, in which John Paul II appealed for respecting Sunday did not trigger any legal repercussions in Poland. In view of desacralised time and a lack of a deeper understanding of the meaning of Sunday as the day of celebration, one can see a necessity of a permanent upbringing to celebrating Sunday.
The Eucharist is, in a sense, the aim of a religious life because from the Christian perspective the purpose of life is getting involved in God’s redemptive plans. Their pivotal point is Jesus Christ and His Passover mystery which is constantly being personalised in the Church. It is done especially in a Eucharistic gathering thanks to which people get unified with Christ in the word and the sacrament and with one another. In this way it is the Eucharist where the community with God and among people becomes real and gets deepened. This type of a communion is the purpose of the whole history of salvation. Of course in the eschatological perspective it is also the source towards the purpose since this is the sign pointing at the ultimate community which will get realised at the end of the history of salvation. Being the source, however, it already includes its own purpose to which it is supposed to lead.
In view of the above it seems that both in teaching and upbringing the link between Sunday and what can be called „the theology of the eighth day” is insufficiently emphasised. For Sunday, as John Paul II emphasises in Dies Domini: “is not only the first day, it is also „the eighth day”, set within the sevenfold succession of days in a unique and transcendent position which evokes not only the beginning of time, but also its end in „the age to come”. [...] Sunday symbolizes that truly singular day which will follow the present time, the day without end which will know neither evening nor morning, the imperishable age which will never grow old; Sunday is the ceaseless foretelling of life without end which renews the hope of Christians and encourages them on their way (No. 26).“
On the other hand eschatological dimension of the Eucharist, emphasised by the theology of the eighth day, expresses the very nature of a Christian existence on the earth. It is a privileged moment in which the Church experiences itself as „the pilgrim”. The Mass stimulates Christians to live in an eschatological way, as pilgrims, with their eyes and hearts turned upwards. Therefore the Sunday Eucharist should be a real celebration. Theology of the eighth day may be reflected concretely in the pastoral practice of a parish community. For the world does not need a parish in which you can find all sorts of convenient facilities, actions and entertainment which are produced and distributed by the world, but the place of a pilgrimage and joy. The place where one can experience the presence of the Holy Spirit and where someone coming for the first time is forced to notice something else and shout like those who were entering the first Christian communities Truly God is among you! (1 Co 14:25).

Parish Renewal – Pastoral Guidelines of John Paul II
Summary
The need for a decent vision of the parish rooted in the teaching of the Church which results from a deep theological reflection and is based on pastoral experi¬ence, opened on its suggestions to the contemporary context and able to reach out to the future is one of the most important needs of the contemporary Church. It is precisely the theological and pastoral vision created and propagated with dedication by John Paul II during almost twenty-eight years of his pontificating. The vision has a major motive – it is supposed to become a missionary community on the one hand, and from the practical point of view it should become a community of communities. The conditioning of the parish is mutual in this respect. If one wishes to put into practice this model of a parish, one has to bear in mind the four dimensions of pastoral activities: the Trinitarian dimension – the mystery of God; the ecclesiological dimension – the mystery of the Church; the canonical dimen¬sion – the legal and structural reality; and the humanistic dimension. This theology of a parish should be the purpose of its renewal and should be treated as a perpetual process, a specific lifestyle and mode of acting and, as consequence, should also serve as an impulse for the development of practical implementations of parishes that function in a specific social and cultural context.

Methodology of promoting the Spirituality of Communion in the Light of “Novo millennio ineunta” and the letter of John Paul II to priests for Holy Thursday 2005, “A Formula of Consecration: A ‘Formula of life’”
Summary
At the close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 in his letter Novo millennio ineunte John Paul II pointed at pastoral priorities and paths to follow (compare: NMI 29-41) to make the Church the home and the school of communion. He issued a strong warning against the temptation of activism: “Before making prac-tical plans, we need to promote a spirituality of communion […]. Let us have no illusions: unless we follow this spiritual path, external structures of communion will serve very little purpose. They would become mechanisms without a soul, ‘masks’ of communion rather than its means of expression and growth” (NMI 43). It follows that promoting the spirituality of communion should be “the guiding principle of education wherever individuals and Christians are formed, wherev¬er ministers of the altar, consecrated persons, and pastoral workers are trained, wherever families and communities are being built up” (NMI 43). According to the pastoral priorities defined by the Pope, the perspective of sainthood can be related to the attitude of “believing”; the priority of prayer can be associated with “remembering”; the sacrament of reconciliation with “forgiving”; listening to the word of God with “receiving”; Eucharist with “giving thanks”; the priority of grace with “giving”; preaching the word of God with “going out”. Similarly, following the suggestion made by John Paul II, a tool to implement the spirituality of com¬munion can be “a formula of life” hidden in the words of the consecration: “to take bread in one’s hand” is to let the Holy Spirit lead us especially in prayer; “saying the blessing” means to listen; “broke” means to be purified; “giving bread away” means to evangelize; “this is my Body” means to create communion; “take this, all of you, and eat of it” means to spread mercy; “do this in memory of me” means to love by the love of Christ and in the power of the Spirit of God. Following the said attitudes, we have become promoters of the spirituality of communion on the basis of which we are able “to make the Church the home and the school of communion” (NMI 43).

DIE HAUSKIRCHE ALS GRUNDLEGENDES GEBIET DER FAMILIENKATECHESE.
Zusammenfassung
Die Lehre der Kirche über die Hauskirche beruft sich heute oft auf den Hl. Johannes Chrysostom, der die Familie als „kleine Kirche” benannte, in sie die religiösen Tätigkeiten aus der liturgischen Vereinigung überträgt und die Fortführung des Lesens und der Lehre in der Häuslichkeit empfiehlt. Im Vaterhaus soll nämlich die Anfangskatechese, wie auch die Vertiefung der religiösen Kenntnisse und Ergänzung der religiösen Erziehung stattfinden, das ist die Familienkatechese. Keine andere Katechese wird heutzutage die erwarteten Resultate, ohne eine bewusste und verantwortungsvolle Mitwirkung der Familie erlangen. Dem hat auch Papst Johannes Paul II Ausdruck gegeben, indem er unterstrich, dass sogar das einfache Treffen von Eltern und Kindern nicht nur eine Gelegenheit zum gegenseitigen sich Öffnen und zum Dialog ist, sondern auch zur gemeinsamen tiefen Reflexion, die gewisse formative Elemente einführen kann. Besonders ein in der Familie herrschendes angemessenes Klima schafft eine Chance für die Aufnahme der Familienkatechese.
Eine weittragende Bedeutung hat hier auch die ständige Zusammenarbeit der Eltern mit den Seelsorgern und Katecheten in der Pfarrei. Diese Zusammenarbeit sollte dazu aus dem Rahmen der Katechese herauslaufen, das heißt inhaltlich und formell die humanistischpädagogischen Gebiete des Wissens und der Formation umfassen, die die Familie zur Ausfüllung bestimmter erzieherischer und religiöser Funktionen vorbereiten.
Mit der Wiedereinführung der Katechese in den Schulen stellte sich in Polen eine Lage ein, die die Katechese nicht nur im Pfarr-Kontext, sondern auch im neuen Familien-Kontext darstellen muss. Das Gebiet der Bildung und Erziehung gehört nämlich ohne Zweifel zu den wichtigsten Gebieten des Menschenlebens. Die erste und entscheidende Stimme in der Erziehung muss man der Familie geben. Diese Katechese ist auch durch das II Vatikanische Konzil als wichtigste behandelt. Durch ihre Erfüllung in der Familie wird ein eigenartiges „Katechumenat” geführt, welches die Kinder in die Anfangs-Christenheit einführt und sie lehrt, das ganze Leben mit Christus weiterzugehen.

JOHANNES PAUL II - DER LEHRER DER MORAL
Papst Johannes Paul II war und ist weiter ein großer Lehrer der Moral. Der vorliegende Artikel hat ein Ziel, diese Wahrheit zu zeigen. Karol Wojtyla und später Johannes Paul der Zweite geht davon aus, dass der Mensch eine Person ist. Der Ausgangspunkt seiner Analyse ist die Erfahrung der Person. Diese Erfahrung zeigt die Würde des Menschen und seine Transzendenz durch die Taten. Der Mensch kann entdecken in seinem Gewissen die Wahr-heit über sich selbst. Sein Hauptwerk die Person und die Tat öffnet den Weg zur personalis-tischen Auffassung der Moral in der ganzen Lehre des späteren Papstes Johannes Paul der Zweiten. In dieser Lehre die Moral ist eng verbunden mit der menschlichen und christli-chen Berufung, mit der Umkehrung in der pluralistischen Welt und mit dem Prinzip des Christus Nachahmens. Dieser "christomorfizm" der Moral ist eng verbunden in der Lehre des Papstes mit der erneuten Vision der christlichen Eschatologie.

DIE FIRMUNG IM GESAMTBILD DER CHRISTLICHEN MORAL

HOMO SUPERMERCATUS – A MAJOR MORAL CHALLENGE FOR PREACHING.
Summary
Human is „moral being” regardless of conditions and the times in which he lives. It results from the fact, that human is a person, it means that he is spiritual-corporeal being, someone who is rational and independen. Despite the fact that the man is exposed to McDonaldization, subjected to numerous crises, it should be noted that he is still religious being and occurred processes did not deprive him of religious sense. Human is still sensitive to religious questions, even though he looks very often for answer outside Christianity, which is old – fashioned in media. It is essential challenge not only for preaching but also for whole Christian formation.
A long time ago, Maurice Blondel said, that: „the times are the same like people are”. As it is known people are either moral good or moral bad. Tertium non datur. This also applies to human morality, which today is sometimes labeled as homo supermercatus. An important challenge is consumerist life style of many people, who live most of the time without awareness of development of appropriate hierarchy of values and necessary spiritual needs. These people usually satisfy their material needs without thinking of human dignity and their Christian vocation.
Homo consumens – is a person, who is suspended between gift and commodity. Detailed sociological and psychological analysis give us a lot of arguments about the behavior of present – day human. This man seems to have many features, which indicate that, „he desires to have more”, instead of „to be a human more and more”. Today, principle is known: I consume, therefore I am.
Strong influence of ethical utilitarianism on daily culture of life was noticed long ago. For example – in the book The New Economic Gospel of Consumption, written by E. Cowdrick in 1927, we can find interesting opinion, that we live in times, when people are forced to regular consume of goods and services. It also impinges on assessment of current homiletic thinking.
Author emphasizes, using criteria from ethic of J. Woroniecki, that the human always was and is just jealous, mistrustful, suspicious and first and foremost selfish and very greedy. It causes, that he is a person of many crises, which can be solved effectively by homiletic teaching.
Analyzing behavior, attitudes and basic sources of numerous crisis (identity crisis, family crisis, political crisis, educational crisis etc.) of consumerist human, author develop thought of Marciano Vidal, that this person is a man of „lost ethical home”.
Under the pulpit and before the alter – we do not have today – saying colloquially – „empty people” and „neuter people”. We have deeply hurt people in their humanity. Moreover we have people with many difficulties in faith. There are difficulties arising from human life experience and civilization’s difficulties. It turns out that only Christianity, with its integrity of salvation, is able to help such people effectively.

MORALITY AND LIVING THROUGH A HISTORIC TIME
Summary
A human existence is inevitably inscribed in experiencing time. „For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). Historicity of man and awareness of this historicity makes him special among the creation. The same applies to human morality.
Human morality, as the author assumes after Saint Augustine, is conditioned by the past, present but also the future of man (Confessions XI, 14,17). Experiencing a historic time can be seen in the so called cirmunstantiae vitae. They are decisive when it comes to quality of each „moral deed”. What is also at stake here, is the fact, that experiencing a historic time decides upon moral quality of human thoughts, deeds and lifestyles. There is no man outside time and history. The same applies to human morality. Moral „biographies” are always historic. It means that „times are as morality of men is like”: good or evil. This calls for responsibility for the gift of time.
A man is mortal (homo viator), but his earthly existence is a „preparation” and „introduction” to eternity. Hence responsibility for eternal salvation is the most important moral responsibility of every man.
In the second part of the paper the author claims, following Maurice Blondel, that „times in each generation are hard...”. Human morality therefore can be found „between heroism and bestiality...”.
It is not insignificant that history „may flow against the current of human conscience...”. This is the truth derived from poetry of young Karol Wojtyła by Karl Dedecius.
A man, each in his own way, experiences his time. One can live through one’s time in various ways: chaotically, confusedly and randomly, or very responsibly. „Time perspective” is another important factor for human consciousness. In „long -time perspective” for example one can see more clearly „quality” of human life. One has a better view on bygone phenomena and experience, since they are viewed as continuity „towards eternity”. Among multiplicity of historical phenomena one of the most pivotal ones are experience of failures, catastrophes, but also heroic deeds. It is said that „history is a teacher of life”, but it is also true that „there is few, who are able and willing to learn these lessons...”.
There is no human biographies „outside history”. This allows us to discover specific „strings of events”, but also lines of evangelical development, in spite of numerous weaknesses. Ultimately eternity awaits all of us. May God grant us all a happy one.