marian anniversaries     may

Second Sunday in May (Mothers Day)

Matka Dobrej Drogi, Gliwice, Silesia, Poland

For some time, a painting of the Mother and Child had hung in the high cavity of an oak along the road from Ruda to Zhydachiv, in what is now western Ukraine, when in 1646 it became famous for miracles.[1]

That year, according to local records, as Anna Wojankowska approached the site en route from her estate in Ruda, her horses knelt down and refused to move until she got out of the carriage to pray. Word spread that an unusual radiance drew her attention to the image, and that her attendant fell from his ladder trying to get to the icon but was miraculously unhurt. Another story, similar to countless legends of other shrines, related that Anna took the image to the church in Ruda, but three times it disappeared from the church and returned to its place in the oak.[2] The site soon became a pilgrimage destination.

Styled after the ancient icon of Our Lady of the Snows in Rome, the image (left) is called the Mother of the Good Way because of a Latin inscription at the bottom of the painting, "O MATER DEI ELECTA / ESTO NOBIS VIA RECTA" (O chosen Mother of God / be our straight road).[3]

Around 1680, church officials did move the image to a wooden chapel funded by local nobility near the tree. The village of Kohavyno, now within the town of Hnizdychiv, grew up around the chapel. In 1749, Carmelite friars became custodians of the pilgrimage site and began building a larger church there, to which the painting moved in 1755.[4]

In 1772, the first partition of Poland gave the area to the Habsburg Empire, co-ruled by Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II of Austria. In 1780, Maria Theresa's death left Emperor Joseph II free to pursue a radical program of "enlightenment." He dissolved the Carmelite foundation at Kohavyno along with many other monasteries in his realm, and the shrine became the seat of a Catholic parish under the regular clergy.[5]

Pilgrimages declined, but miracles continued, and the 1800s saw a Catholic revival which led to groundwork for a new church in 1861. Slow progress was made until a devoted priest, Jan Trzopiński, oversaw completion of the work in 1894. Pastor from 1898 until his death in 1931, Fr. Trzopiński presided over a flowering of the shrine. He founded an orphanage in Kohavyno and new churches for Polish settlements in nearby villages.[6] He arranged for the canonical coronation of the icon, made by the archbishop on August 15, 1912 in the presence of over 100,000 pilgrims. After that, there was always a silver cloak over the painted mother and child, and golden crowns on their heads.

When Jan Trzopiński died, the Jesuit order took responsibility for the shrine in Kohavyno and immediately arranged for restoration of the icon, altering its appearance. Their tenure was interrupted in World War II. The last pastor, Józef Piecuch, had a replica of the painting made for the church in Kohavyno and at the approach of the Soviet army escaped with the original to the Jesuit foundation in Stara Wieś, Subcarpathia, Poland, where it was installed on May 25, 1944.[7]

When the war ended, the USSR took over Kohavyno's region. Under Stalin, the church was desecrated and then used as a flax barn. The monastery became a boarding school for the developmentally disabled.[8]

The icon of the Mother of the Good Way stayed in Stara Wieś for 21 years, then moved to Cracow, where a 1965 renovation removed the alterations of 1931. In 1974, the painting moved to the parish of St. Bartholomew in Gliwice, some 60 miles west, where on May 12 it was solemnly enthroned. [10]

In 1991, not long before the Soviet Union broke up, the Redemptorist Order renovated and reconsecrated the church in Kohavyno to the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin, and the monastery to St. Gerard. It is now the novitiate for the Redemptorist Lviv Province.[11]

In the same year, the Jesuits began construction of a church to the Kohavyno Mother of God in the developing Copernicus neighborhood in Gliwice. In 1994 it became the seat of a new Catholic parish and the new home of the painting. Since its renovation in 2008, the icon of the Mother of Kohavyno (Kochawina in Polish) has been displayed in its original form, without its ornaments, which are stored separately. The church celebrates its feast day on the second Sunday in May, in commemoration of the painting's move to Gliwice in 1974, with masses, rosary, and a procession.[12] 

Also commemorated this date: