December 9
Matka Boża Pocieszenia, Cracow, Poland
In 1349, King Casimir of Poland killed the messenger who
brought news that the Bishop was excommunicating him for public
immorality. He had a hole cut in the ice on the Vistula and the man thrown
in to drown. Then, in penance for the murder, Casimir began the building
programs that helped make him "the Great." He founded the
University of Cracow, the first in northern Europe. In the town of
Kazimierz, which he had named for himself in 1335 (then outside Cracow and
now in it), he founded the Augustinian Church of St. Catherine of
Alexandria. Begun by 1363, the church took nearly a century to complete,
then suffered a series of earthquakes, floods, fires, and invasions. In
the Mother of God of Consolation Chapel, a 1400s fresco saved from the damaged
cloister shows the Virgin with long golden-brown hair, a
gold damask robe, and a blue mantle with rose reverse, holding a naked
Child, and standing on a crescent moon between Sts. Augustine and Nicholas
of Tolentino, amid smaller panes illustrating her miracles. This is the
patronal chapel of the Archconfraternity of the Matka Boża
Pocieszenia. In
1950, under Communism, the Polish Augustinians were forced to disband. In
1989 they returned to St. Catherine's and soon began yet another restoration
of the again deteriorating buildings. On December 9, 2000, on Pope John Paul
II's
authority, Franciszek Cardinal Macharski, Archbishop
of Cracow, crowned the image of the Mother of God of Consolation. St. Catherine's and its confraternity celebrate her feast day on September 4. (Information
from the church's site, parafia.augustianie.pl, and other sources;
image from "Kazimierz – zydowska dzielnica Krakowa," Ciekawe
Miejsca, nr 9 (18), Wrzesien 2008, www.ciekawe-miejsca.net.)
Also commemorated this date:
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