Roman J. Koper filozof, pedagog, publicysta, nauczyciel akademicki. Urodzony w 1942 roku na Lubelszczyźnie. Autor audycji radiowych o tematyce biblijnej, recenzji oraz artykułów
z zakresu nauk społecznych, etyki i religii.
„Trwali oni w nauce Apostołów i we wspólnocie, w łamaniu chleba i w modlitwie”. Dz 2,42 (BT)
W ten sposób Autor Dziejów Apostolskich podsumował widzialny OwocZesłania Ducha Świętego - Pięćdziesiątnicy: Jedność Pierwotnego Kościoła.
Trwanie w nauce Apostołów Nowy Testament określa inaczej jako trwanie w Prawdzie
i Miłości - trzymanie się Słowa Życia. Pod określeniem wspólnoty możemy się domyślać organizacji życia codziennego pierwotnej gminy. Łamanie chleba może oznaczać zarówno Ucztę Eucharystyczną, jak i posiłek gościnny w domu – tzw. agapę. Modlitwa wspólnotowa
zapoczątkowała liturgię. Słowo liturgia (z gr. leitourgia od „leiton ergon”) znaczy „wspólne dzieło” (~ porządek nabożeństwa). Moglibyśmy powiedzieć, że życie pierwotnego Kościoła prawie w całości było dziełem wspólnym tj. uporządkowanym owocem Miłości.
Św. Paweł w Pierwszym Liście do Koryntian podsumował głębszy sens Uczty Eucharystycznej następująco: „ Kielich błogosławieństwa, który błogosławimy, czyż nie jest udziałem we Krwi Chrystusa? Chleb, który łamiemy, czyż nie jest udziałem w Ciele Chrystusa? Ponieważ jeden jest chleb, przeto my, liczni, tworzymy jedno Ciało. Wszyscy bowiem bierzemy
z tego samego chleba”. 1 Kor 10,16-17(BT)
Dzięki temu możemy odkryć wspólne dobro i świadomie dążyć do jedności!
„ Wszystkim zaś objawia się Duch dla [wspólnego] dobra.(.) Podobnie jak jedno jest ciało, choć składa się z wielu członków, a wszystkie członki ciała, mimo iż są liczne, stanowią jedno ciało, tak też jest i z Chrystusem. (.) Wy przeto jesteście Ciałem Chrystusa i poszczególnymi członkami”. 1 Kor 12,7;12;27.(BT) JEDNOŚĆ DUCHA TWORZY JEDNOŚĆ CIAŁA.
Zesłanie Ducha Świętego na Kościół jest dopełnieniem Pięćdziesiątnicy Starego Testamentu tj. Zesłania Prawa – Dekalogu na Synaju. Przypada ono w siedem tygodni po święcie Paschy, które rozpoczynało żniwa w Izraelu. Żniwa w pełni to Święto Tygodni nazwane później Pięćdziesiątnicą. Z podziękowaniem za dobre zbiory przynoszono do Świątyni Jerozolimskiej dwa chleby z nowego zboża.
Nowa Pięćdziesiątnica - Zesłanie Ducha Świętego - jest czasem żniwa Kościoła.
Symbolem jedności jest chleb. Chleb nie kwaszony, przaśny nawiązuje do Przaśników po święcie Paschy. (Kwas jako symbol oznaczał zepsucie, zgorzknienie, złość).
Duch jedności jest duchem miłości i prawdy . Jest wiarogodnym znakiem dla świata; wzbudza respekt: szacunek i lęk (- bojaźń bożą). Są to oznaki sacrum. Celem jest wspólne dobro!
Dzisiaj potrzebujemy przebaczenia i pojednania jak w starym małżeństwie, gdzie wskutek braku jedności bardziej od małżonków cierpią dzieci. A świat się gorszy... Por. Ef 5,32.
Jeszcze raz posłużę się wnioskiem św. Pawła: „Usiłujcie zachować jedność ducha dzięki więzi jaką jest pokój. (.) Bądźcie dla siebie nawzajem dobrzy i miłosierni! Przebaczajcie sobie, tak jak
After the holidays season I came back home tired, tanned and, as it seemed to me, satisfied. After returning from mountains, on flat terrain I ran like a small car. The way back from Krościenko also had its charm. You can imagine, when the term of the great Oasis ‘New Jerusalem’ ends and in one day Pogórze Sudeckie leave a few thousand of participants of all constituent formations and groups at the same time. – The first effect: The town is short of bread, then bakers triumph! Multiplied takings. Similarly public transport adjusts to a new situation, on one condition, that travellers are not on purpose increasing this crisis caused, let’s say, by temporary ‘demographic explosion’. Nowadays maybe some ‘Anti-crisis staff’ would be created. It is also a way! (– The point is that the end of the term is not a crisis, like let’s say ‘harvest disaster’ – I do not know who invented such a scoff. I only advise to remember a story of Josef from the Bible, who was a vice-regent of Pharaoh. He used abundant harvest in good years to save many people from starvation in time of famine. Look: Genesis, chapter 41-47)
I remember when we were walking with priest Jacek and other ‘the Oasis’ people from our diocese along Kościuszki Street in Krościenko to Kopia Gorka and at the foot of the mountain stood two big lorries (white lorries from Holland, if I am right). I joked, indicating at one of the lorries standing on the high shoulder: ‘ By this lorry we will come back to Krakow!’ Everybody was laughing. Just in case, in the evening priest Jacek asked the driver if he was going to go in that direction and if he could take us. When he had got confirmation he asked us ‘to be ready’. We were travelling in ‘the room’ behind the driver’s cabin. (we were communicating with gestures and a little bit in English). The driver offered us peanuts and chocolate. He was very glad when the priest gave him a cassette with songs of worship. At about twelve o’clock at night, not asking anybody for directions, he dropped us at the railway station in Krakow, we said good-bye like old friends, and (without any crowds) everyone went its own way.[1]( I do not know, if this will be an appropriate analogy, but I felt like the courtier, who ‘went on his way rejoicing’ Comp. Acts 8,39.)
The return to work had similar effect to ‘smelling-salts’ on me. It does not mean that I lead some ‘double life’ – ordinary and festive, or even worse: in reality and in dreams. Maybe... I learned that psychological comfort consists, in a small part, of suffering. I start to understand what Leszek Kołakowski ment talking about ‘constitutional indigence of temporality’ and that ‘the absolute in mundane sphere is impossible to achieve’. – Still, ‘what was impossible for people, God accomplished’... The tough reality of Trade School is like a field of ripped crop, a sport stadium and firing ground in one. Without a good school there are no well educated people – it sounds like a slogan, maybe it is better and more cautious to say: Like a proverb! – A vicious circle – after all the teacher himself must be (well) brought up. In the‘Light- Life Movement’ work within the same age group in compulsory. We just had a meeting in such a group. Apart from evangelical conversations in the Small Group, we were practising (from time to time) evangelical revision of life. (– This is some godly exercise in a small group. Even more godly exercise, and even smaller, is probably the sacrament of confession. – ‘This should be done and that should not be omitted!’ – Advisers keep saying.) I must be a lucky blighter, because I became friends with a Verbist Missionary from Africa. It is not a coincidence. He had time for conversation and coffee, considering circumstances. And like a real missionary he was very generous and ready to help. He told me about dramatical extermination of his Mission among the tribes of Konkomba during tribal war.
(He suffered more than the father of ‘plague-stricken’, because hate is maybe even worse than the plague!) I told him about my meeting with Ahmed on the train on my way to Krakow. Subconsciously I hoped that he would help me to solve that problem.
The beginning of a school year in a school library, where students borrow all course-books has got, as it usually happens, its own ‘splendours and miseries’. (– Apart from rather symbolic payments for student practice for ‘young workers’, the free course-books and uniforms were a type of ‘social’ benefits.) It is a good ‘habit’... In statistics the course-books are included in, so called, ‘the average of reading’. It is not a mistake, in order to use well the compulsory course-books it is necessary to know how to read (at least on a basic level). In order to read ‘set books’ not only good encouragement is needed, but also good habits, and such problems have not only the ‘young workers’ from ‘trade school’, who have not ‘succeeded’ somewhere else. Such difficulties have, as far as I know, also people with higher education: with titles, diplomas and jobs, who in everyday rush do not have the time to ‘sit’, but reading ‘needs’ just that. ‘Set books on video’ and so called ‘audio books’ are the next invention ‘masking’ low reading levels. It is a great luxury that in some professions we can get more education while working. These and similar thoughts come to my head, when the noise of break time dies out. Also a problem from before holidays comes back. At the end of school year I first finished up with returning books (e.i. collecting them from students) the course-books, obligatory cards and the year statistics. Now I have to do one more check of ‘the structure of the library’. In a ‘ministerial’ Polish Language programme the Bible was included in a syllabus of basic set books. Before the summer holidays I seriously thought of buying a hundred of Bibles. (– According to the library rules one book should be shared by three students. I knew I would be short of money. It might seem suspicious for the headmaster that I want to buy so many copies of the Bible –Is this supposed to be a new place for ‘the Great Oasis’?! – And, who knows...)
At the end, I was ready to proceed with the purchase without agreement or knowledge of the headmaster. The ‘ministerial ‘ programme neither can be negotiated, or be a dummy of something else! I thought I was right. So I simply asked: ‘God, where can I take the money from? I did not even notice how fast God answered, giving me one hundred dollars for that purpose, exactly the amount needed at that time. I feel uneasy that only now I have understood Ahmed's gesture on the train. After all, He was saying ‘I am giving from God!’ – maybe he wanted to do God’s will, and I did not let him. I do not know if I did the right thing, but remembering that the witnesses of my conversation were my son’s friends, I think to myself: it is better they say I did not accept the hundred dollars from a ‘tipsy’ stranger, than they announce that I took advantage of not only the situation, but also of the man... I comforted myself that way. On the other hand, I discovered in ‘reading’ from Polish language, consistent with the programme, four texts from the Bible. About the Flood and the Noah’s Arc, Hiob, the Good Samaritan and about the Good Sheppard. Then I was almost in peace...
I wondered what my friend Father Ryszard Missionary SVD would say about it? At the next occasion I went for a coffee and an important conversation. After a while the matter little bit ‘cooled down’, and we could, without emotions, rationally, think over details. Father Ryszard approached the matter with his usual sincerity and simplicity: ‘ You do not know African pride!’ – He said – ‘you simply humiliated him, and maybe even a bit, unintentionally i.e. without awareness, offended him.’ – Even though up to now I have not considered my reasons of refusing the money as selfish, as time goes by, I am getting some doubts... Firstly, no one is better in the eyes of God – that man could do God’s will! Secondly I asked God a question: where do I have to take the money for Bibles from? And I did not hear the answer ( – probably being afraid of the opinion of the young, immature people from ‘the gang’ about me. Thirdly, wanting to be seen as ‘a man of integrity’ in Ahmed’s eyes, maybe, looking from his point of view, I subconsciously behaved as if from ‘the position of superiority’... My discomfort grew like yeast. – In order to feel better I said conciliatorily: ‘If I had his address I would explain to him that I am not a racist, and I would wish him Merry Christmas’.
About half a year after my holidays’ journey to Krościenko, that time, I was returning from the south of Poland: from Racibórz to the north-east – if I remember well – it could be a train from Zakopane via Krakow and Warsaw to Gdynia. – I am not sure whether I got on in Racibórz or Rybnik, but in Katowice the crowd was quite ‘seasonal’. – Christmas, the season of winter vacations and skiing. In the nearest future I had in front of me the whole night on the train. With great difficulty I was pushing my way through a narrow corridor between compartments, passing sleeping passengers and their sumptuous luggage. I could not even imagine that I would travel on the corridor (– those years had passed when I used to stand over bumpers, in the link area between carriages!). I slipped my head into a compartment and carefully inspected if there was any free place. I was about to retreat, when I heard: ‘There are no free seats!’ I came back, looked into the direction where the female voice came from, and what did I see? – One lady was stretching on two seats; my informant female was sitting next to her. – She became embarrassed and said: ‘I’m sorry, but I wanted to cheat you so my friend could sleep a little’. I smiled and joked: ‘Since I’ve travelled on duty I have a sitting place!’ I sat down. In my lapel I had a little silver ‘dove’. – ‘Holy Spirit?’ – She asked. – Hi! I’m Ivona from Pentacostal Church’. She introduced herself. – She also said that she taught Polish in Łódź, at school for foreigners studying in Poland. I asked her about Ahmed. (She was sure she taught also Ahmadu), what’s more, she confirmed all known to me details and gave me her and his valid address. Thank the Lord! Oh! How God is Great!
Translated by Barbara Vujcic
[1] „The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and for evermore” Psalm 121, 8 (Translation after: Holly Bible, the Gideons). This is a great reason for joy on every way.
Commotion on the platform – in a moment a fast train ‘Beskidy’ is arriving at the station. (In the summer season it runs from Gdynia to Jelenia Góra; from Kracow as a slow train).The end of June: the beginning of school holidays and the vacation season promise increased tourist activity. – I do not like crowds. To Nowy Targ I am going to spend about 9 hours on the train and later about one hour on the bus to Krościenko. I hope I will come to ‘the Oasis’, with God’s help, on time. (Moderate heat, considering the season, but clothes and luggage can make you sweat). For a moment I take off my rucksack and ‘inspect’ if I have packed everything: personal things, a sleeping bag, a foam pad, a small case, and food and the Bible on the top. (Anyway, we usually realise what is missing only at our destination.) I learn to limit my ‘equipment’ to what is ‘necessary’, but with age the luggage gets smaller. Is this the beginning of ‘smug’ habits?! (– Is it necessary to give up even a tie and a suit – I am going to celebrate!). I have explained myself to myself. Suddenly the train enters the station and pulls me and the other travellers out of laziness and pretended rest caused by the heat. The first wave of passengers get on the train as if running. What for to crowd? Take it easy. The platform slowly becomes empty. I get on and look for a right compartment. Everywhere is full of (usually) young people. – ‘The atmosphere’ of agitation spreads on me. I pass smoking compartments and those where is too much noise. Oh, they are even playing cards – it used to be forbidden in the public places, and here they are drinking beer. Young men looking like ‘reservists’. – I prefer to travel with students or school children, if I have a choice. I am going to read and talk. All day travelling is alone an attraction. I discover this again and again since I got a special blessing for the occasion.[1]If I remember well all that happened on the twelfth of March in nineteen eighty-two, when I was reading a meditation from a prayer book by Spurgeon: The Jewels of God’s Promises.
I enter a compartment. ‘Good morning! – Can I?!’ – ‘ You are welcome!’ – I hear encouragement. ‘Thank God I have got a seat!’ – I think; nine hours on the train will not make me tired too much. I peep at passengers. – Friendly young people – maybe students? They make an impression as if they knew each other. (– ‘A gang ‘?!) After freeing myself from the luggage I take off my jacket, pull out a book from the case and start reading. (I overhear conversations which prove that my co passengers are students. – later I found out that they were my son’s school friends. – The world is like a global village!)
Before the train starts one more student is ‘joining in’, but he is not from the same ‘gang’. – His ‘tropical’ look suggests that he is African. He wants to pay his footing in a ‘society’ of students very much, he is even offering ‘a drink’, but they ignore him. The Newcomer has not given up straight away, but I could see that he has been humiliated. (He seems a bit ‘tipsy’ and because of some reason is very eager to talk). He has shown them a riddle – a puzzle from matches – probably a mathematical rebus. ‘The students’ have not accepted a challenge. I observe the situation with the corner of my eye, and I can see how much it has hurt him, immediately I loose interest in reading. I put my book aside and ask the Newcomer to share with me his riddle. The proposition visibly cheeres him up. – The riddle is difficult and I cannot decide, which one of three possibilities is correct. – This clearly made an impression on the ‘mathematician”’– he suggests that all the answers are correct, but before he has thought that there is only one possible solution. ( Oh irony, such thinking has often ‘limited’ my freedom of choice too.) This occasion solves a bigger puzzle. – He has been looking for the company to drink, because an unusual thing has happened: his baby daughter was born. I congratulate him and explain that I am a teetotaller and I do not drink alcohol, no matter how important is the occasion. He has not really understood what it is all about. So I try to tell him about ‘a huge’ problem of alcoholism in our country, which the ‘ Light-Life’ Movement ‘struggles’ with, and The Men Delivery Crusade, which I have voluntarily joined, in order to help about 5 million alcoholics get free from their addiction. He has listened carefully and then briefly comments: ‘First with all force and in the systematic way you create a problem and later you fight it?! (– ‘I did not shoot from Aurora!’ Once said same Editor. I would like to comfort myself the same way; but inside I feel that it is not like that: where is my responsibility?!) – After a minute I say that I just go to the retreat of our movement to Krościenko on the Dunajec for two weeks.
The Newcomer says that his name is Ahmadu and, to prove it, he shows me his Polish ID. ( – As a Senegal citizen he would only have a passport, but because he has married Polish woman he also has got ID). He confesses that his wife Basieńka, who gave birth to his daughter, waits for him in Kracow, where they live. It becomes known during further conversation, that his mathematic studies on Mining Metallurgic Academy has been quite advanced ( – he just writes his doctorate.) He is so sincere that I am worried about his safety. (– How could that happen that an adult man retains a spirit of a child?!). Mr Ahmadu becomes very interested in this Krościenko, ( because there is another one in Bieszczady), and in the retreat, ‘Light-Life’ Movement and The Men Delivery Crusade. I try somehow, sensibly as much as I can, to satisfy his curiosity, although I do not know what can come out of it. ( I believe that this meeting must mean much more than only sharing a common space on the train, what passengers usually accept out of necessity of travelling. I will say more about it a bit later, on other occasion.)
Krościenko on the Dunajec – a national centre of ‘Light-Life’ Movement is a small, mountain town, situated almost along the valley of the Dunajec, surrounded by Beskidy, with a newly created, artificial lake in Czorsztyn in a close neighbourhood. About 6 km. far from Krośnica from one side, and down stream of the Dunajec with the same distance from Szczawnica, where are famous health resorts. For centuries there has been drown healing spring water (the springs are called ‘szczawy’). Krościenko with its landscape and simplicity of the style reminds of the Holly Land. – For many people it is, as if, the Holly Land. ( If it is all right to use such analogy, considering great things which happen there.) I mean not only a wonderful rest in the open space; – fast restoration of a body, regaining of health and energy, but also everything what happens in the spiritual area during the time of the retreat. It is a harvest time in the fields, and just next to them in the Oasis of New Life centres there is a joyful celebration, which lasts for two weeks. Incredible transformation happens as a result of the participants living by the principles described in the Bible. Often the faith in God’s Promises, although not always and necessarily, is confirmed through signs and strange events. The reality next to us: everyday events and the people, whose secrets we hardly ‘touch’ with words, the usual – ‘unusual’... Does it have to sink into oblivion, or ignorance, not noticed?!
A conductor has checked tickets and again walking along compartments he asks: ‘Has anybody got on?’ Mr Ahmadu, as it seems to me, is clearly moved in a new way. An interest, even excitement about something unknown, for the time being, calms down emotional tension of so active waiting of the meeting with his wife (Basieńka) and their baby daughter. The heat on the train is bearable. A stream of fresh air comes through the opened window. I make sure that I am not sitting in the draught: problems sometimes occur when it blows on sweated shoulders. The tipsy ‘reservists’ are behaving quieter – probably tired have fallen asleep? Just after the conductor, who has just left the train, another ‘official’ pushes his way through the corridor, carrying two enormous tourist bags, which look especially heavy... He does not look for a seat, he rushes to deal with his business while the train is on the halt. He quickly passes through, peeping into compartments and shouting: ‘Ale! Light Beer! Who wants a beer?! Some agitation and noise – Have the ‘reservists woken up’? – Apart from that, despite the heat, only single orders?! So he moves on! (Anyway, the price is not encouraging – more or less, three times the price in the shop.)
It is time for a snack. We offer food to each other. First, wonderful rolls with coffee from a flask, later early wine-sour apples. Delicious. Then filled mint sweets! To Kracow is about one hour of travelling. Five hours has passed like an entertainment programme... My interlocutor after some thinking has got a great idea. He will get off in Kracow to hug and kiss his wife and daughter, and later, if they agree to ‘let him go’, he will come to me to ‘the Oasis’ in Krościenko. The train from Kracow via Habówka to Nowy Targ crowles uphill for a long time, so he can ‘catch me’ by bus still in Nowy Targ, or better straight to Krościenko! I wonder if Ahmed’s enthusiasm will not die out as soon as last heat. Anyway I decide to give him time to cool down. He wants some ‘materials’ about ‘the Oasis’. I have booklets about four rules of spiritual work and notebooks written by the priest Franciszek Blachnicki and some ‘treatises’. I give him this things which I do not need, others are in the ‘Oasis’ shop in Kopia Górka. He is sacredly watching my Bible and ‘small icons’, which are used as bookmarks – they are usually some photographs. At the end he takes out money and wants to give me a 100-dollar bill. I say I cannot accept this money. Then he shows me a pile, which he can hardly encircle with his hand: $2000 ( his doctorate grant) later he explains: ‘I am giving from God!’ (Before he said he was a Muslim). He is confused and embarrassed more than me. I have a feeling he will not come...
Translated by Barbara Vujcic
[1] "About Zebulun he said. ‘Rejoyce, Zebulun, In your going out, and you Issachar, In your tents’" Deuteronomy 33,18 (Tanslation after: Holy Bible, the Gideons)
