The Queen of Heaven clearly commanded that those who come to Gietrzwałd out of mere curiosity, and not with sincere devotion, shall not receive a blessing. In accordance with this decree, the following account is not intended to satisfy vain curiosity or a desire to learn something new and extraordinary, but is written to edify the Reader and encourage them to give greater glory, first to the Most High God, and then to Mary Immaculately Conceived.
From the first moment I learned of the events in Gietrzwałd, I felt an indescribable longing—not so much to verify with my own eyes the truth of the extraordinary phenomena reported, for I believed in them without any doubt—but a desire to participate in the solemn moments that occurred there three times a day; a desire to kneel among those throngs who received blessings directly from the hands of the gracious Queen of Heaven. Thus, when I learned that the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin were to cease on September 8, I resolved to be there without fail. (…)
With each new station, the number of pilgrims grew; from Trzemeszno and Mogilno, it was already crowded, and by the time we reached Toruń, we arrived in a certain crush, so that the ticket window was suddenly besieged by some two hundred people shouting: Biesellen! Biesellen!—for everyone wished to reach Biesal that very night, not wanting to lose a single moment of the next day’s solemnity.
On this occasion, allow us to say a few words about the readiness of Poles to make sacrifices and their use. People who, in their entire lives, would not buy any book other than a prayer book, people who for years might not have seen a newspaper, suddenly offer a relatively significant sum—especially when several family members travel together—and for what? To be able at least someday to say that they were in the blessed place, to catch a glimpse of the chosen maple, to touch with their feet the hallowed ground, to breathe with their lungs the air in which the Blessed Virgin, invisible to sinful eyes, hovers. Let us suppose that the number of pilgrims who visited Gietrzwałd from the beginning of July to September 8 is estimated at two hundred thousand, which is surely not an exaggeration, and the cost of each person’s journey is averaged at ten Polish zlotys, then we will see that the Polish-Catholic population spent some two million Polish zlotys, if not more, on Prussian railways and post carriages. A farmer or accountant might lament this enormous sum and see it as national waste; yet we see in it a manifestation of our unspent strength, perseverance, and indescribable faith, and a pledge of our imminent liberation.
A nation that counts the treasures of this world as nothing, so long as it may possess heavenly ones, cannot perish and must ultimately triumph. Such a nation, when it awakens politically and socially, when it realizes that its social strength and political dominance in Europe depend on labor and enlightenment, will rise like a giant and astonish the world with the greatness of its deeds.
(…)
What a torment such a sleepless and comfortless night must be, only those who have endured it can know: only the thought of offering all this to the Blessed Virgin sustained our utterly exhausted limbs. The more impatient wanted to set out immediately for Gietrzwałd for the rest of the night, but since no guide could be found, and it was completely dark with unrelenting rain, everyone, willingly or not, had to stay until 5 in the morning, to set out with the first glimmer of dawn toward the place of the miracle.
Reader, whoever you are, if you ever travel to Gietrzwałd, do not forget an umbrella and a stool to sit on in the field, and a supply of food, if you do not wish to exhaust yourself beyond measure. The lack of these things caused great hardship for many a pilgrim.
Biesal is a Lutheran village, the last on the border of Warmia. Its inhabitants now earn handsomely from carting, as they load six or eight people at a time, charging each two Polish zlotys, which amounts to at least two thalers in road fees within an hour.
Five o’clock strikes, a few carts arrive, many board them, but we, as pilgrims, insist on walking. Forward, then, in the name of God, though the sky drizzles and drizzles. Once the Biesal station is left behind and the eye surveys the surroundings, one perceives in nature a scene of strange solitude; a mournful, almost wild image, yet testifying to some culture; as if two eternally distinct worlds were divided there. And so it is; Biesal long belonged to the Teutonic Knights and later to the Prussian princes, while Gietrzwałd, slightly to the north, lay already in Catholic Warmia and was part of the Polish Crown.
To shorten the journey, we set out along the ridge of the highland through stubble fields, meadows, and pastures in a northerly direction. Here, the full wildness of nature revealed itself to us. One might think that no human foot had trod there for a hundred years. To the right, you had distant fields—bare today—and far off, a small forest; to the left, scattered great trees: lindens, maples, oaks, and birches, some in clumps, some solitary, some shading cottages, others weeping alone over some grave.
Before you, mist and sky, for the highland stretches far without any descent. The rain that fell all night had flooded the roads. The stubble fields were soaked, streams stood on the paths, ponds overflowed, clover fields drank like sponges; in short, wherever you stepped, it was into mud or water.
The pilgrims thus walked in single file, choosing the driest spots, or those barefoot went straight ahead, as was most convenient. Two things struck us: the hurrying pilgrims did not travel in larger groups but were scattered in small bands, without any song or even prayer; they walked, indeed, as one walks to run errands or to a fair. These were not Warmians, but evidently residents of West Prussia, East Prussia, the Noteć region, and others. Worse still, even in Warmia itself, you never once heard the old Polish greeting, “Praised be Jesus Christ,” though the local people are visibly devout. This must be considered a result of the influx of foreign denominations; the people are ashamed to praise God when they do not know whether the one they greet shares their faith or will respond to their greeting.
After many twists and turns, slipping this way and that to our heart’s content, we finally approached the end of the ridge and beheld Gietrzwałd.
In the depths of the northeast, in the rainy mist, the church and its tower rose, surrounded by a wreath of trees, then one thatched roof and another. We do not exaggerate, but when we saw all this, we imagined the feeling Godefroy de Bouillon must have experienced when, after the hardships of his pilgrimage, he beheld the longed-for Jerusalem.
We thanked God and the Blessed Virgin for allowing us to arrive in time for the morning Rosary.
The further we went, the more the path curved toward the east, until, leaving the byways for a paved road, we crossed the bridge over the Pasardza, which marks the border of Warmia, and turned entirely eastward. The village was still hidden in the valley and under the slopes of the hills; only the church and its tower remained visible. After a quarter-hour’s journey, we finally reached a hillock from which the road descends into the ravine of Gietrzwałd.
Gietrzwałd is a village of some twenty-odd houses covered with traditional Polish thatch. A wide stream divides it into two unequal halves. Over the stream, there is a small mill, a substantial bridge, and a long footbridge, as if from the mountains. The right side of the village clings to the right side of the ravine; in the middle, there are few houses, and on the left side of the stream, even fewer. The poorly paved road would cut straight through the village if not for the hill on which the church and rectory stand. Because of this hill, the road is forced to split in two; one arm leads to the right, circling the church hill and continuing northeast toward Olsztyn, while the other arm runs under the rectory, from where a path leads to the church through the fenced cemetery.
The following sketch gives a rough idea of the layout. The church stands with its main gate facing the main road, the tower visible from the approach from Biesal. From afar, it looked very splendid; up close, it is clear that it is old, sturdy, built in the Gothic style, large, but with only a wooden tower. Yet, it is evident from the outside that the parish priest takes care to maintain order, both in the upkeep of the church wall, whose seams are tightly sealed with white mortar, and in the entire surroundings, which, unfortunately, have been greatly damaged by thousands of visitors.
Around the church stretches a typical village cemetery, extending some twenty paces in radius; the southern and western sides of the cemetery slope toward the road, the northern side adjoins the priest’s house, garden, and orchard; the eastern side borders further village buildings. The rectory’s orchard is sizable, containing some hundred or more trees, not young ones.
To complete the picture, it must be added that the entire village is paved, but paved unbearably; whoever misses a stone falls into a hole. It must also be noted that some kind soul, a baker, stood at the village entrance with a cart and a crate full of rows of buns, the kind that the Jews might have baked in the wilderness when they were constantly packing up their tents; to the starving, these buns seemed like heavenly manna and were almost the only sustenance for an entire day.
As if by a higher command, from the moment we entered the village, the rain ceased, and part of the road and the church hill were revealed to us. It is poorly said, however, for neither the road nor the hill could be seen, as the hill was covered with a pavement of human heads packed into a single field, and on the road, an anthill of people, almost all moving in one direction, toward the rectory and the church. We went to the same place, for there was no choice.
To describe the gathered crowds is almost impossible; suffice it to say that we saw there all the regions of Poland within fifty miles around Gietrzwałd.
The majority of the gathered pilgrims were local people. The mark of a hundred years of servitude is visible on them. Their faces are honest but withered by suffering; their eyes sincere but full of apprehension; their movements noble but accustomed to bowing before the oppressor. Their attire is foreign; everyone, down to the poorest tenant and laborer, has abandoned the national dress and wears it “in the German style.” The language is greatly corrupted, both in syntax and richness of vocabulary; for higher intellectual concepts or objects related to luxury, comfort, or crafts, there are no native expressions, and they merely add Polish endings to German roots. Thus, they go to the banhof, ride on the bana, do not set off fireworks near the church because they lack the amtman’s genemikung; even “yes” is not said by a Warmian, but jol, which even the Kashubians from Wejherowo mocked.
German preachers have completely distorted the pronunciation of vowels. Those who came from afar, learning sermons from printed works, did not know the Polish cadence and introduced a pronunciation among the people that we call “high-pitched,” which is so jarring, especially among maids and serving girls. Thus, in Warmia, one hears speech similar to that in Chełmno, but corrupted, like that of the Netze region. After the local population, we saw the most pilgrims from East and West Prussia, from Biskupiec, Toruń, Chełmno, Chojnice, Tuchola, Starogard, Pelplin, Gniew, as far as Gdańsk, and further, as already mentioned, Kashubians from Kościerzyna, Kartuzy, and Wejherowo by the Baltic Sea.
The Great Poles stood out among all the pilgrims with the boldness of their countenance, their long, dignified attire, the freedom of their movements, the purity of their speech, and that courage which characterizes a people who, though suffering, have not lost their national pride; who, though bending under the weight of external oppression, feel inwardly free, independent, confident, and certain that a better fate will soon dawn for them.
We cannot close this picture without saying a few words about one type of Polish people, the Kurpie, as they are called in Warmia, that is, the people from Łomża, Ostrołęka, Augustów, and the surrounding areas of Lithuania.
W. Pol rightly said that when you look at the face of the people from Wilno and Troki, such misery is written on their faces that one would want to ask: What ails you, Lithuanian? But when you look at the people I speak of now, there is no need to ask; your heart tightens, a tear springs to your eye, you sigh from the depths of your chest and cry out for vengeance to heaven: Lord! When will you deign to take this people down from the cross!?
For this is truly a martyred people, a holy people, as if taken from torture, a people as if just unyoked from the yoke; cradled in tears, raised in hunger, cold, and labor, educated by the knout, poverty, fear, and kept constantly on the dual chain of intellectual and earthly poverty.
The value and dignity of a people do not depend at all on the attire they wear. We know that wisdom rarely rides in carriages, that virtue rarely dwells in palaces; we know, on the contrary, that a people poor in home and clothing can be enlightened, courageous, and above all, honest and pleasing in the eyes of the Creator. If, therefore, we lament the wretched attire of the people from the Augustów region, that is, the former Polish voivodeship, it is not because we wish to see them in silken and golden garments, but because their clothing is a faithful reflection of their spiritual poverty, which in turn is a consequence of great political oppression.
(…)
Beneath this coarse homespun beats an equally simple and poor heart. Without national upbringing, this people clings to the Homeland only insofar as it has not forgotten God; the church is their entire school, both for knowledge and patriotism; close the church to them, open taverns, and this people will perish in a few years, like a wave that vanishes when cast upon the sand. The men are no better dressed than the women, with the difference that while the women go barefoot, the men allow themselves a certain luxury, for they wear clogs. Such were the Polish tribes we saw—not to mention the Mazurians, Great Poles from Częstochowa, Kalisz, and other parts of Congress Poland.
Among such people, we made our way along the road to the church, and we asked the first person we met: Which is the maple?
“That one there!” someone returning from there answered, pointing to the trees marked with a small cross on our sketch.
Our soul was strangely shaken at the sight of this miraculous tree. We gazed, wondering if it could truly be that the “Mother of the Heavenly Lord” could rest on such a tree, instead of using great majesty and choirs of angels when she appears to people.
But there was no opportunity to look longer. People push and push, and instead of looking up, one is forced to watch one’s feet, wading now ankle-deep in mud, lest one fall deeper or stumble over a stone. Getting to the church is impossible; first, because of the immense crowds, and then because the slippery clay ground is indescribable. Time and again, an old man or a cripple slips and falls flat, sometimes pulling a neighbor down with them.
There is no other choice but to go to the rectory. We enter the courtyard, but the rectory is overcrowded. Father Weichsel (in Polish, Wisła), confining himself to a small room under the roof, has given the entire ground floor to guests, and even upstairs he hosts the bishop’s commissioners and the rest of the visiting clergy. Downstairs, there is only one small room with an alcove at the back where the priests can talk quietly and receive visitors; the rest is taken up either by women from the Kingdom, or by ladies of higher rank, or by the ceaseless crowd of curious people who would like to get from the rectory to the maple.
The largest room, let us call it the guest room, faces the church and the maple, with two windows looking toward the church and a third toward the village and the maple. That is where we will go.
In this room, we found the priest’s brother, who received us courteously and gave various explanations. Showing us from the windows the holy tree itself and the spot at the window from which Bishop Krementz had watched the Rosary the previous Tuesday, he led us upstairs, where a deeply moving view unfolded before us. Not only was the cemetery literally packed with heads, but in the courtyard, in the orchard, and on the road stood multicolored crowds. All with prayers or hymns on their lips, all with pious expectation on their faces. Here, we could finally examine the maple with the greatest precision.
The tree is about six to eight feet in circumference; a grown man could not embrace it alone. Its trunk, smooth at the base, divides at a height of ten feet, or the height of two men from the ground, into three thick branches, as thick, we repeat, as a grown man’s waist. One of these branches, namely the one growing toward the church, was long ago either broken by a storm or deliberately cut off, so that no more than one and a half cubits remain. This stump, or prong, as one might call it, is neither horizontal nor vertical, but curves upward like an arch, somewhat like the lower tail of the letter C boldly turned upward.
Thus, when someone says or writes that the Mother of God appears on the maple, it should be understood that in the air, in front of the maple, on the church side, above this broken branch, about one and a half cubits from its end, the figure of the Blessed Virgin appears to those four persons. One could just as well say that the Blessed Virgin appears before the maple or in the maple as on the maple. We repeat once more that the figure of the Blessed Virgin always appears in the air above the end of the broken branch, so that the other two branches serve as a wall and backdrop, like a wall in a church. It is, moreover, about halfway up the tree, so that the Blessed Virgin is as far from the ground as from the top of the crown. The entire crown, when viewed from below, appears like a pear, like a bell, for example.
When we returned to the guest room shortly before eight o’clock, we found it completely filled with people, mostly of higher rank. They had gathered there, knowing that at this hour the four chosen women always come to the room before going with the priests and commissioners to the Rosary.
One can imagine the curiosity painted on all faces when these women entered. Since we had the opportunity to observe these women quite closely and even speak with them, as much as was possible in the crowd, we will describe them as accurately as we can.
Augusta Szafryńska,
not Szafrańska, as some newspapers carelessly write, does not live in Gietrzwałd itself but in Nowy Młyn nearby. She is in her fourteenth year. Her height is neither small nor overly tall for her age; her frame is frail, delicate, her build slender; her movements are moderate, modest, neither quick nor slow; in short, as they say, she is a well-mannered and modest girl. Her face is pale, neither white nor tanned, fairly regular, elongated, but not distinguished by anything in particular, so that one cannot easily remember it.
This indifference is not altered by her eyes, which are pale blue, calm, not at all lively, always turned inward, unconcerned with the outside world. Very shy, she moves among people as if she does not see them; when helping with work, such as setting the table, she never lifts her eyes from her task, even though the room is full of curious onlookers. To illustrate her modesty, let this detail suffice: when she returned to the room after the morning Rosary on Saturday, she threw herself in a corner by the window into the arms of Mrs. G. and, so that no one could hear, told her with great emotion that the Mother of God that day was in as splendid a setting as on the solemn day of July 15, and that she again heard heavenly music and the singing of angels. Of all four persons who see the Blessed Virgin, Augusta shows herself the least. To complete the picture, I add that Szafryńska’s dress is very modest, half wool, half cotton, a dull yellow, unremarkable; besides the dress, she wears nothing visible except a dark red woolen scarf on her head, pinned under her chin, as is commonly worn by girls of poorer status in towns.
Augusta attended catechism until June 27 of this year, or rather lessons preparing for Confession and Holy Communion. She was always of modest intellectual abilities, so, fearing she might embarrass herself at the examination, she prayed to the Blessed Virgin for help. The Blessed Virgin heard her prayer, and she did very well. She was even bold, courageous, and answered better than the others.
On the very evening of June 27, around 9 o’clock, she was returning home from the examination. On the way, she met her mother, who had also been in the village on some errand.
“Well, my daughter,” the mother asked, “were you able?”
“Will the priest accept you?”
“Oh, he will,” Augusta replied, “because I did everything well, more than I expected. The Lord Jesus and the Blessed Virgin helped me.”
As mother and daughter walked a dozen steps from the cemetery, talking, the bell rang for the Angelus. Both, following local custom, immediately knelt on the road, turned toward the church, and began to pray.
Suddenly, Augusta cried out in alarm:
“Look, look, what is that brightness on that maple, and what person is there—it’s the Blessed Virgin!”
The mother, who saw nothing, scolded the girl and told her to follow her home. But the girl insisted and wanted to return to the maple tree. (The tree stands right by the cemetery fence, but still in the flower garden in front of the rectory.)
At that moment, the parish priest, returning from a short walk after the examination, approached, and when he learned what was happening, he allowed the girl to return to the maple, kneel there, and say the Hail Mary. The girl did so, and while under the maple, she called out to the priest:
“Oh, Father! It’s even brighter now, even brighter.”
Later, the girl said that an angel arrived and took the Blessed Virgin to heaven.
This is the exact account of the beginning of the apparitions, of which Augusta was the first to be deemed worthy. We have written it down deliberately in such detail because it often happens that when devotion to the Blessed Virgin grows and becomes established in a place, people tend to forget the beginning or distort it in various ways.
We move on to the second of the girls.
Barbara Samulowska
is twelve years old. She comes from Woryty, a village about a quarter of a mile northwest of Gietrzwałd, and is also of poor peasant status. If Augusta Szafryńska is an image of quietness and even great reserve, little Barbara, on the contrary, runs constantly like a kid or a skittish doe.
Her face is very irregular; her nose is upturned, her mouth wide, from which two rows of not entirely small white teeth constantly peek; her eyes are black, restless, her complexion, if not tanned, is naturally olive, her hair dark.
Barbara hardly walks; she constantly skips. If you try to stop her, she barely turns, barely listens, breaks free, and runs off again.
She is an image of unrestrained freedom, of simplicity and nature, as befits a little village girl from a corner of the country no one had heard of until now. Barbara’s clothing is as poor as Augusta’s; the color of her dress is slightly different, and her head is usually uncovered.
Barbara saw the Blessed Virgin the day after Augusta, that is, on June 28 of this year, the eve of Sts. Peter and Paul, at 9 o’clock in the evening, and according to her description, the apparition looked like this:
“First, there were two flashes, then a bright circle appeared on the maple, spinning around itself, then in that circle a golden throne studded with pearls; then two angels brought the Blessed Virgin and seated her on the throne, assisting her. Then two angels brought the Child with a ‘bulat’ (globe) in His hand and placed Him on the Blessed Virgin’s lap, then disappeared. Then two angels brought a crown and held it above their heads; then one angel brought a ‘stick,’ a ‘pipe,’ with a golden flower at the end (a scepter) and held it above it all. Finally, a bright cross descended and hung in the clouds—until the end of the Rosary, when everything vanished upward.”
The next day, that is, on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, and in the days following, the girls saw the same thing.
On those days, the Blessed Virgin was dressed in white, through which golden lilies shone; her Child was dressed the same; the Blessed Virgin had light, long, loose hair, and a wondrously beautiful face. The angels were also in white with greenish wings.
The day after Sts. Peter and Paul, that is, June 30, the girls saw the Blessed Virgin alone, seated on a throne, with bright “smoke” emanating from her hands and neck.
The children asked: What does she want? They received the answer:
“Pray the Rosary!”
Another day, the girls asked: Who is she?
They received the answer:
“I am the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculately Conceived.”
To the question: How long will she be with us? They received the answer:
“For two months.”
On July 18, the girls saw Polish writing at the feet of the Blessed Virgin, but when they tried to read it, it disappeared.
Until July 23, the apparition occurred only once a day, in the evening; from that day, however, the Blessed Virgin appeared three times a day.
Barbara, being somewhat distracted, arrived late to the maple on the fourth day of her visions and did not see the Blessed Virgin. She began to weep bitterly with regret, went home crying, and could not sleep, weeping continuously.
Then the Blessed Virgin appeared to her, and when asked who she was, she answered:
“I am the Immaculate Conception.”
The girl then asked: Will the sick recover? But she received no answer, and the vision disappeared.
A few days later, when both girls asked together whether the sick would recover, they received the answer:
“Let the sick pray the Rosary!”
When asked: Is it good that they pray the Rosary here under the maple? They received the answer:
“Very good!”
Another time, they asked what else the Blessed Virgin wanted; they received the answer:
“Build a chapel and place in it a statue of the Immaculate Conception.”
We have repeated these details, though known from newspapers and accounts, deliberately to preserve their original wording, to keep them pure and faithful in people’s memory.
We move on to the 23-year-old girl.
Katarzyna Wieczorek
looks younger than her age suggests. She appears to be 17 or 18, though she is said to be 23. She is of medium height, with a fair face, quite delicate for a village girl; a slight blush shines through her cheeks. Her gray-blue eyes have an extraordinarily gentle expression and seem not to see what is happening around them. Katarzyna seems to converse with everyone, but it is clear that her thoughts are little concerned with the world.
Her face is somewhat weary, and she looks as if she regrets having to answer questions, for she would most willingly speak often with the Blessed Virgin. Her voice is gentle, quiet; her movements very modest, her attire that of a simple servant; in short, she is truly such a “handmaid of the Lord.”
She speaks some German, and since in Warmia speaking German is considered very wise, Katarzyna tends to speak German until someone asks her something in Polish.
We could not ascertain from which day Katarzyna saw the Blessed Virgin; it seems certain, however, that she had a vision in mid-August.
She sees the Blessed Virgin not as the children do, but standing, with her head completely uncovered, her hair loose, her arms lowered, in a white robe tied with a white sash.
On September 1, Wieczorkówna saw two little angels with the Blessed Virgin.
The last of the visionaries is the widow
Elżbieta Bylitewska.
Her clothing is very poor; over a gray or purple aniline-dyed dress, she wears a simple black jacket, and on her head a white scarf wrapped in the manner of Polish women, tied under the dress at her neck. Her face is thin, pale, somewhat frightened, slightly wrinkled. Her eyes are black, her features unremarkable. She always looks modestly, and if she glances upward, it is furtively. When she speaks, it is always to give some pious advice about what pleases or displeases the Blessed Virgin, herself being a model of godliness and constant readiness to give herself to God in body and soul. She is the embodiment of poverty, trusting in God’s mercy and therefore unconcerned about tomorrow.
Bylitewska saw the Blessed Virgin, it seems, even later than Wieczorkówna. It is said of her that when, at the beginning of her visions, she gave ear to flattering whispers praising her for the grace she found with God, she saw an evil spirit instead of the Blessed Virgin, and only when she humbled herself and confessed did she regain the grace of the Queen of Heaven.
We heard this but repeat it with all caution, so as not to do the good woman the slightest injustice.
Bylitewska sees the Blessed Virgin standing on the maple with a crown on her head, holding the Child, thus not “alone” as Wieczorkówna sees her.
The Child holds a globe with a cross in one hand; He is dressed in a white robe and a golden yellow cloak. The Blessed Virgin’s robe is also white, tied with a white sash.
These four women entered the priest’s guest room around eight o’clock to proceed from there to the morning Rosary.
Taking advantage of the kindness of one of the clergy, we joined the devout procession and pushed through the crowd gathered in front of the house.
The Rosaries were usually prayed in two places: either under the very privileged Maple of the Apparition or under another maple standing in the church cemetery opposite the door leading to the sacristy.
On Saturday morning, the priest leading the Rosary chose the latter place, perhaps because it was impossible to reach the blessed tree that day. But even this passage was not easy. The road, which would normally take a minute, took five minutes that day. It was impossible to get there faster. The crowd stood like a wall, and it was impossible to push through. The reason was clear: one part of the crowd pressed toward the priests out of curiosity, while the other could not retreat, even if they wanted to, because they were being pushed from behind.
Finally, we reached the tree. Four banners, brought out from the church, were already there, representing the four groups praying the Rosary (maidens, bachelors, married couples, and widows); boys accustomed to reciting prayers and litanies aloud were already kneeling, as were stronger and more prominent men from the village, gathered to shield the clergy and the praying group from the crowd’s curiosity and intrusion.
Then everything calmed down, and one of the priests overseeing the Rosary addressed the vast sea of listeners.
After briefly explaining the miraculous way in which the Blessed Virgin appears to the children, he outlined the order of the service. He said that when the gathered hear the first strike of the small bell, it is a sign that the Blessed Virgin has appeared to the women. At that moment, all should pay homage to her by falling to their knees. When they hear the second strike, it is a sign that the Blessed Virgin is blessing the people; then all should bow to receive the blessing.
When the bell rings a third time, it signals the end of the ecstasy, for at that moment the Blessed Virgin disappears from the eyes of the chosen women.
The priest accompanying the Rosary also reminded them that, according to the explicit statement received by the women, they should not look around curiously or gaze only at the enraptured persons, as such people will not receive the blessing; he further reminded them that, according to the Blessed Virgin’s explicit statement, those who do not kneel during the Rosary will also not partake in her blessing.
Having said this, he began the Rosary.
It is difficult to describe what a solemn moment it was. Fifty thousand people behaved so quietly that you could almost hear each person’s breath; fifty thousand gazed toward the maple, or, not daring to lift their eyes, lowered them to the ground, humbling themselves in devout prayer.
It seemed as if everyone was awaiting the trumpet of the Archangel calling them to the Last Judgment, or that they were waiting for the heavens to open and the Queen of the World to descend with a choir of angels to this vale of tears, where so many thousands of supplicants awaited her. The weak voice of a small boy, though faint, was heard from one end of the cemetery to the other, so intently did everyone listen to every word of the Rosary.
The second part arrived; after one or two Hail Marys, the bell rings, the four women sway toward the ground—a murmur of humility and devotion spreads from one end to the other.
An indescribable moment! If it is permissible to speak of electric sparks in such holy matters, one could say that at a single gesture, all hearts trembled, all heads bowed, as if feeling the rays from the Blessed Virgin falling upon them. It was a moment of such concentration that all bodies crumbled to dust, all hearts surrendered to nothingness, and souls, on the wings of the Angelic Salutation, soared to the feet of Her who, though invisible, gathered humble prayers with a smile from the height of the tree’s crown and carried them before the throne of her Son in Heaven.
This lasted perhaps five minutes; the bell rings a second time, signaling that the Blessed Virgin is blessing the people.
A murmur of fervent prayers, here and there sobbing from contrite hearts, broke the silence; the people of all Poland received the blessing of their Queen.
What a blessing it was!
All needed it. Some, to persevere in the spiritual battle against adversaries armed with everything that human reason and the power of a great state can provide; others, to endure barbaric oppression that, persecuting language, faith, persons, and property, does not hesitate to plunge a spear or bayonet into the defenseless breast, even of a woman or child.
All understood! One sobbed, as if raising a loud complaint to heaven, and the sobbing spread throughout the cemetery, through the village; there was no eye from which a pleading tear did not fall; there was no devout lip that did not cry out with all its strength to the “Comforter of the Afflicted”: “Pray for us sinners now—yes, now—and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
When, after three or four minutes, the bell rang a third time, the people fell flat to the ground, bidding farewell to their Lady and praising God for allowing them to witness such an exalted rite.
Even after the greatest earthly spectacle, a weary person seeks rest and respite. Not so in Gietrzwałd.
The Rosary was over, the Litany to the Blessed Virgin and prayers for various intentions, such as the Holy Father, the local Bishop, and so on, were completed, yet the people knelt and knelt. If the journey to the Rosary maple took at least five minutes, the return was almost more arduous, for the crowd, packed into one immovable body like a wall, could not part even if it wanted to.
Finally, after much persuasion and pleading, with strong maneuvering by the elbows of those leading our group, we reached the rectory again.
Here, some dozens of people awaited us in various rooms and corridors. The enraptured women, whose faces showed a certain regret and weariness, were immediately taken, each separately, to the Bishop’s Commissioner on the upper floor of the rectory, where they gave their testimonies, about which, naturally, little can be said today. It is only permitted to say that all four saw the Blessed Virgin not as on ordinary days, but in greater royal majesty, as they had seen her on the day of her Assumption.
Meanwhile, we surveyed the room. It contained all classes and both nationalities. If in the crowd of a thousand people you barely saw one with a German prayer book or a German prayer on their lips, here at the rectory, many people used the German language as their native tongue.
First, we saw the family of the honorable Fr. Weichsel, then many clergy who spoke only German among themselves. The mark of a hundred years of servitude is evident; the situation is entirely like that in Silesia. The Polish language is for servants and the common folk.
Better Warmians told us that at the beginning, the more educated classes around Gietrzwałd insisted that the Rosary under the maple be prayed in German! The worthy parish priest and steadfast parishioners firmly opposed this. It is truly sad to say that these people even wanted to take the Blessed Virgin from us, the Blessed Virgin who did not appear in the proud cities of Warmia, nor in the wealthy villages closer to the diocesan capital, but precisely in the last hidden corner, where German culture had not yet distorted the old Polish folk simplicity—in such a parish she deigned to appear, where the priest, though of a different nationality, being a true apostle of Christ and a faithful shepherd of his flock, respected and nurtured the language of the inhabitants, knowing that a person can only pray in their mother tongue.
Honor to Father Weichsel and the worthy parishioners!
To the worthy parishioners, we say, for we had the opportunity to meet several of them. What do names matter—we saw them, spoke with them, observed how they gave their last crust of bread, their last corner of shelter, their last bundle of straw to the newcomers.
We saw how diligently they left all their meager possessions, unafraid of thieves, and fled from the clamor of guests to the church, or at least to the cemetery hill, so as not to miss Vespers or the Angelic Salutation. We saw how, far from any profit, they did not set up taverns, slaughterhouses, or any such trade, leaving all that to newcomers from Olsztyn, so that no one could accuse them of seeking anything other than spiritual benefits from the miraculous visitations of the Queen of Heaven.
There are people in Warmia with such pure hearts, such fervent spirits, that the old Hosius, president of the Council of Trent, would not need to be ashamed of them, and the Polish Crown could boldly place this Warmian amber among its jewels.
The women came down from upstairs. Barely had they entered the room when the crowd of curious onlookers gazed at them, some from the side, some up close. This one or that would have liked to ask something, but the regens priest from Frombork, as if on guard, did not allow anyone to approach or ask any questions.
No matter! It is better to restrain excessive curiosity than to risk inappropriate pestering causing the girls to entertain thoughts contrary to the path they should remain on.
The ladies, however, know how to manage. One offers flowers, another shows pictures, another even slips a picture into their hands, a fourth asks Barbara to take this or that to be blessed during the Rosary, and so everyone wants either to satisfy their curiosity or to gain something spiritually—who knows, perhaps even physically, for their health, through the mediation of these four.
Wieczorkówna sits most modestly and calmly; shyly, she barely responds to what they shower her with. Bylitewska, modestly but with great dignity, fends off the curious, reproves the intrusive, and when she cannot manage, she orders the bothersome to pray the Rosary.
Thus passed one hour and then another. There is no point going into the village, for even if your pockets were stuffed with ducats, you would get nothing—a little beer and perhaps a stale bun—so if you did not bring provisions, you fast, fast!
Fasting is the least of it, but here you cannot even sit down!
Outside, the mud is enormous—good, thick mud; wherever you step, you carry away three pounds of dough. In the orchard, it’s wet, the fences are uncomfortable—besides, after a few sunny glimmers, the rain drizzles again and shows no sign of stopping.
Treading from foot to foot, let us reflect on the impressions of this day and go to the orchard, where new crowds have arrived, waiting for the midday Rosary.
In the orchard, every twenty steps you find people from a different region, different songs, different prayers; let us join their circle, gather our spirit, and immerse our thoughts in those primitive times when crowds awaited the Savior’s teachings, hungry—hungry for the Word of God, sometimes even for bodily sustenance.
There, a few steps away, an eighty-year-old woman stretches out her hand for alms. She set out with rubles; perhaps she sold her heifer. Here, they gave her four zlotys for a ruble, and the poor woman has nothing to return home with. There, a cripple extends his one hand, his only one—a victim of the Uniate incidents, begging, but secretly, for he surely would not return home safely if someone asked him for a “passport.”
Look! There are Poznanians arriving! Ha! Acquaintances, that lady and that gentleman—but they do not see each other, for each has come incognito; but the day after tomorrow, they will politely bow to each other on the street, saying nothing of where they were or what they saw.
(…)
The midday Rosary proceeded like the morning one. The priest promoter said the same words at the start, the women and children fell into the same ecstasy. We saw how they were jostled, how a certain citizen from Great Poland did not take his eyes off them—everything was as always.
The apparition and ecstasy lasted eight to ten minutes—we deliberately checked the time.
During one of these visions, the Blessed Virgin instructed Bylitewska to testify at the hearings that it was her will that the spring be blessed that day.
Let us go to the spring.
Whoever has closely examined our sketch sees a small orchard behind the rectory. Pass through this orchard, turn left toward the hills stretching toward Olsztyn, take a few hundred steps through meadows, cabbage patches, and a small hop field, and you will see at the foot of a forested hill a modest spring.
This humble water was to be blessed by the priests, for the graces of the Heavenly Queen were to flow upon it.
It was ordered that no one but the four known persons and the clergy be present at the blessing of the spring.
This decree may seem difficult to understand at first; but when one considers that revealing the secret prematurely could have drawn all fifty thousand people to the grove, the astonishment vanishes. Fifty thousand people in the open air is a gathering that could give the authorities a pretext for investigations, or who knows, even armed intervention.
Thanks be to God, then, that no one knew anything.
From what could be learned from accounts and other writings, the clergy and the four women left the house entirely unnoticed and returned unnoticed. At the rectory, they kept setting the table for the priests’ supper, even putting out food, but the priests were nowhere to be found. Clearly, they had ventured too far. Curious ladies kept asking: Where is Barbara, where is Augusta, where are the others? But someone saw them in a small room under the attic, surely being examined, surely preparing for the upcoming evening Rosary.
Meanwhile, the priests and women were at the spring. When twenty priests and the four women stood by the spring, which barely trickled in a thin stream, at half past six, they arranged themselves so that the women and three or four priests were on one side, and the rest on the opposite side. The two young girls knelt in front of the older women, so they could not see them. According to the “order” given to Bylitewska, they did not pray the Rosary there but the Litany of Loreto.
Barely had they begun when, first, the two older women kneeling in the back, and then the two younger ones, who could not see the others, fell into ecstasy, paying homage to the Blessed Virgin, who appeared to them again. This ecstasy was so sudden, in that place, so unexpected, the solitude of the spring so quiet, the distance from the thousands upon thousands of faithful kneeling by the church so moving, that all the priests had tears in their eyes and experienced a strange feeling.
They prayed the Litany, but the women did not return to consciousness; they sang Salve Regina, and they remained as if lifeless; they sang the first verses of O Sanctissima, and they were still motionless; only when the priests intoned the Magnificat did the enraptured women return to the world.
The Bishop’s Commissioner, Dr. Hipler from Frombork, examined them immediately on the spot. From what he learned, only the following has reached public knowledge:
The Blessed Virgin appeared above the spring at the moment the bell rang for the Angelus;
The women saw the Blessed Virgin, each in the form they always saw her, but without the entourage of angels;
The Blessed Virgin blessed the spring with her right hand;
The Blessed Virgin hovered about three feet above the spring, but was turned not with her face but with her side toward the enraptured women.
This last circumstance greatly intrigued everyone, for until then, the women had always seen the Blessed Virgin facing them directly. After a moment, the peculiarity was explained by the fact that the Blessed Virgin was facing along the spring, and since the women were kneeling on one side and the rest of the clergy on the other, the Blessed Virgin took a posture so as not to have her back turned to either side.
By chance, among those priests were pilgrims from all Polish dioceses: Warmian, Chełmno, Gniezno, and Poznań, so all but Silesia.
On the same day, September 8, Bylitewska and Wieczorkówna had a vision that the apparitions would not cease entirely but would recur:
First, on the day of the dedication of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was to be placed in the chapel. (This already took place on September 16 of this year, as we write elsewhere.) Then, on the three feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary: 1) The Angelic, or Portiuncula (August 2); 2) The Assumption (August 15); and 3) The Nativity (September 8). All these feasts fall during the time when the Blessed Virgin appeared in Gietrzwałd.
According to an earlier announcement, the visions were to end on September 8; despite this, the Blessed Virgin declared that on the following day, Sunday, September 9, both the vision and the blessing would recur. This can be explained by the fact that the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which we celebrated in Poznań on Saturday, is observed in Warmia on the following Sunday.
In fact, the apparitions occurred the next day as usual, and why they recurred later, we will learn at the end.
Meanwhile, complete night fell over Gietrzwałd.
Unable to wait for the clergy and learning that, according to what the Blessed Virgin told Wieczorkówna, the Rosary was to take place only at 8 o’clock, we set out at dusk for a short walk through the village.
Let us recall that Gietrzwałd lies in a ravine by a flowing stream. Houses hang on the sides of the ravine; at its end, on a hillock, stand the church and the rectory. Since numerous tall trees partially obscure the view, to take in the church hill with one glance, we went to the southern hill from Riesal and looked toward the church from there.
What an indescribable sight!
If in the morning the entire cemetery, church road, rectory, and orchard were filled; if at noon the crowds grew to such an extent that even the main, public village road was full of devotees; now the crowd extended beyond the rectory into the field, perhaps a hundred paces from the maple. It can boldly be said that in that direction, people stood two hundred paces away!
What’s more, at the stroke of the hour—around half past seven—we saw lamps lit under the statue; then colored lanterns in the trees; here and there a candle’s light flickered, one lit another, then a tenth, a hundredth, until suddenly the entire church hill, roads, and fields stood in one vast sea of candlelight. As if by the wave of a magic wand, some fifty thousand white and yellow candles, large and small, began to flicker, merge, and burn in an indescribably splendid illumination in honor of the Mother of God. It is indeed a custom of the Warmian people that during solemn processions and celebrations, not only the confraternities but the entire population accompanies the rites with light. We tell the truth when we say we have never seen, nor even imagined, such a manifestation of light.
But it is time to emerge from this awe! Half past eight, the Rosary begins. Anna Maternowa, who, as usual, leads the preliminary prayers, began them now.
The same priest as in the morning and at noon starts again with the customary speech, then in a solemn voice recounts the orders received from the Blessed Virgin through Bylitewska, the blessing of the spring, and finally announces that the spring will henceforth have healing power for all who, with living faith and devout prayer to the Blessed Virgin, merit grace.
One can imagine the murmur of the crowd, which learned of such news entirely unexpectedly! The priest said nothing about the visions for the next day.
Under the impression of such an announcement, such joyful news, the people began to pray the Rosary with the children with even greater trust and faith. The same solemn moment as in the morning and at noon; now, not a bell, but a trumpet sounds for the first and second time due to the large gathering. But when the trumpet sounded a third time, announcing that the Blessed Virgin had departed from the people forever, an unprecedented wail arose, lamentations, and cries. Women fainted, men could not hold back tears; pilgrims from the Kingdom cried out in despair: What shall we orphans do now that the Blessed Virgin has left us?!
To the general lament, the heavens added their sorrows. Suddenly, a wind rose from the west and rustled through the spreading maples. After the rustling, rain began to fall in drops; black clouds moved across the grayish sky, and it seemed that new graces of the Holy Spirit descended with this rustling upon the gathered faithful children of the Polish Church.
Weeping, prayers, sobbing continued until ten, eleven o’clock. The people did not move from their places; many, having entered the church, decided to spend the night there, singing ceaseless hymns; thousands lay under the church walls, in the cemetery, and on the roads, but at the admonishing voice of the gendarmes, they quietly dispersed.
Around eleven, the clergy were occupied with writing protocols of everything that had happened that day.
At that moment, a furious gale arose, rain fell in ever-larger drops; suddenly, as if seized by the power of an evil spirit, one huge branch of the maple, perhaps half a cubit in diameter, creaked, broke, swayed, and crashed onto the chapel standing under the maple.
Those present froze. The blessed tree, half-destroyed; of its two magnificent arms, one fell to the ground, leaving the other, an orphan, sadly pointing upward. The people saw this, and with fear but also with greed, they rushed at the branch; within a quarter of an hour, half of the maple was chopped into the smallest pieces and distributed in thousands across the village, to spread the fame of the Gietrzwałd apparitions throughout Poland.
A strange night followed such a beautiful day. A biting cold blew in, the wind roared so fiercely that within a quarter of an hour, the entire sky sparkled with thousands of strangely flickering stars, or, entirely black, poured in torrents, as if those clouds were a heavenly sieve through which the upper waters mingled with the lower. Poor, very poor, all you who at this hour return home on foot, who have no corner, no barn, not even a hallway in the entire village to take shelter in. And there were thousands such, who, immediately after the moving farewell scene, set out for the whole night and perhaps the next day to reach their family homestead.
(…)
And so, our pilgrimage. Now a few words of reflection on what we saw and why we went.
One Polish newspaper was so clumsy that, mentioning the Gietrzwałd events, it left its readers free to believe or not believe in what was written about the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin.
It was so clumsy that it attributed the fervent faith of our people to the fact that the people, suffering for five years under blows that struck the Church and the nation, are inclined to believe even in such miracles.
Sad to say, but this was not a Catholic voice, not even a Polish one. The Polish nation did not need “foreign oppression” to believe in God, in the Mother of Christ, in the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints.
If faith commands us to accept as truth that God appeared to Moses in the burning bush; that Moses and Elijah appeared during the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus on Mount Tabor; that a heavenly light appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus; that St. John the Evangelist had a revelation on the island of Patmos; if it is true that so many Saints directly testified that they had visions of the Lord Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or the Saints of God: then there is no doubt that, under penalty of losing our Catholic character, each of us must believe that the Mother of God can appear clearly and visibly to those who worship her, love her, and do good; in short, those who walk in the garment of innocence.
(…)
Out of reason and obedience to the decrees of the Church, we dare not repeat either what is said and written about the devilish tricks that appeared there, nor about the miraculous healings of which we are assured, for although we believe in both, they may only be proclaimed as truth when approved by episcopal authority.
The purpose of this booklet, as we stated at the beginning, was to spread the fame of the Blessed Virgin of Gietrzwałd, to inspire the Reader to greater devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
We have written only what we ourselves witnessed or heard from others. We have not written everything; more was read in Pielgrzym. It seemed to us, however, that it would be immoral to exploit that publication and to make a subject of pride or speculation from others’ pens.
Until booklets recommended by the authority of the Most Reverend Bishop of Warmia appear, the Reader will learn from this booklet as much as is necessary to bow before the mercy of the Most High, who, in these difficult times, sends us such visible signs of consolation.
The Blessed Virgin in Gietrzwałd: An Exact Account of the Apparitions from June 27 to September 9, 1877. Poznań. Published by Fr. Bażyński, 1877.
Objawienia NMP w Gietrzwałdzie – relacja świadka z 1877 roku.
Catholic during the Great Apostasy 
Leave a comment