I knew I was dying. “I want to die peacefully like John Paul II.” When he was alive, he meant nothing to me.
It was the evening before Christmas Eve, 2005. That day they had drained my body of two bags of blood. I knew I was dying. On that decisive night I wanted to be alone. I said good-bye to my family, saying, “I want to die peacefully like John Paul II.”
Earlier that year I had remarked at the serenity with which the Pope was dying before the eyes of the world. I quite forgot that while he was alive he had meant nothing to me—apart from the pride I took in a fellow countryman holding such an office at the Vatican.
I went to my room. Yes, I really was afraid of death, and here it was about to take me away. It was fear that prompted me to say the Our Father, Hail Mary, the Credo, and the Angelus prayer. The same fear prompted me to appeal in silent prayer to John Paul II. I asked him that at the moment of death I might pass away as serenely as he. Strangely enough, directly after making this request I began to talk to him in my mind as if he were there right beside me.
I have no idea how long I spoke. How much time do you need to relate without haste, in an atmosphere of trust and security, the history of a seventy-year-long life—a life without God? I went on with my story until I felt a sense of peace, and then I fell asleep.
The next morning—to the astonishment of my family—I appeared for breakfast. In perfect health! To this day I enjoy the robust health of a fit and athletic man. I still work. The doctor said it was a miracle. So did my wife. Since I had no idea what a miracle was, I did not describe it so. I was an atheist, a militant communist. I had a hard-nosed view of life. I knew very well that advanced prostate cancer spelled but one thing—death. And yet, despite everything, here I was—alive. I took a responsible job and went on with my life with the mystery of the healing burning in my heart.
Extraordinary circumstance, you say? I agree. But that was only the marvelous finale of the disease—a supremely shocking finale given the experiences that had formed my life until then.
I was born in 1934 into a well-off and devout family. During WWII, assisted by the inmates, I used to steal in and out of the concentration camp close to our town. I was all of seven years old. (I must have been brave.) My dear mother taught me my prayers. To these, out of love for her, I have remained faithful to this day. One of my older sisters served in the Polish resistance, the other married an important communist official. It was she who—after the death of my mother shortly after the war—took me from my father and placed me in a state-run children’s home where religion had no part.
The post-war period in our country was a time of ideological struggle with God and for national independence. They soon turned me into a fervent member of the communist Polish Youth Association (ZMP)—although (and that was a great deal) my other sister, the one who fought in the resistance, had taken me out once for my first confession and Holy Communion.
After finishing high school, I was sent off to a Party-run military college. Six months later I held a commanding position in the ZMP. I served in the Bieszczady region fighting the Ukrainian nationalists. It amazes me that I still remember tearing a large cross from a woman’s neck and casting it into an open hearth.
In the drive for collectivization, we had fun going after the peasant women who defended their acres and lay down under the wheels of the tractors with their holy images. Evidently I gave a good account of myself, for they sent me to study in the Soviet Union. Four years. Don’t ask me where I went and what the studies were. I acquitted myself well. I know what hunger is and how to survive. I’m as tough as a seasoned commando.
When I returned to Poland, they put me in charge of a state-run children’s home, where with brutal conviction I destroyed the inmates’ consciences. Opponents of the system—which included Catholics—were my enemies. Later, as a full-time ZMP worker, and later as a communist party committee member, I mocked the Church and tore down her crosses. As I say, the Pope meant nothing to me. During one of his pilgrimages to Poland I stood so close to him that I received a holy medal from his hand, but since it meant nothing to me, I gave it to a colleague—a fervent Catholic.
In 2004 I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I delayed in going to the hospital. When my son finally took me there by force, the surgeon told me, “Another three minute’s delay and your bladder would have punctured.” After that, it was chemotherapy, incontinent briefs, Pampers—a whole year of this until that memorable day before Christmas Eve.
Interestingly enough, while fighting the disease, I followed John Paul II’s final agonies and death on TV—this with a degree of interest that surprised me. But nothing would come of this interest until the day before Christmas Eve, when I was healed.
My family informed a visiting priest of my healing, but then it was too early to think about documenting the event and changing my spiritual life. Never say that life consists of nothing but accidents. I am deeply convinced that the good Lord watches over every step we take. The rest of my story attests to this.
On the first Sunday of Advent of 2005, at 6:15 am, I—an elderly, somewhat wasted-looking gentleman with an open pack of cigarettes in my hand—was taking the elevator down to my office. On the way down a nun entered the elevator (she was on her way to morning Mass). I had never seen her before. There were only the two of us in the elevator. I greeted her in the usual pious way and then said to her, “Sister, the Holy Father John Paul II has healed me.”
We talked for a while outside the building. I told her, “But, Sister, really, I have lived a shameless life.” The nun said I had to document the miracle and send it to Kraków. Ready to cooperate, I gave her my address; and we parted. As the nun told me later, our talk made such an impression on her that she quite forgot where I lived. But she remembered thinking, “I should have asked the fellow about confession.” The next day I ran into her in front of the building where I lived. We agreed to meet and talk. And so, after more than fifty years, began my preparation for confession and Holy Communion. This was John Paul II’s second miracle—greater than the first. At Midnight Mass in 2006, both my wife and I received Holy Communion (her first time in 36 years).
Ever since then, I have been making my confession every month and attending Holy Mass at least once a week. I am never parted from my rosary. Some days I recite all five mysteries. I carry not only sandwiches in my briefcase but also a prayer book, from which I pray whenever I have the chance. I pray every day: in the morning, on the bus, in the streetcar, before going to sleep. Never will I forget how powerfully the word of God spoke to me when I began the catechetical sessions preparing me for confession. God speaks to me personally! I still turn to Blessed John Paul II in prayer. Always I receive his help. I will add one more thing: all my life, to the extent that I was aware of it, I have tried to help people.
A converted atheist