The Covenant
Written on 18 July 2013 in Dębica. Translated from the Polish original: Przymierze — the key text of this website.
18 July 2013, Dębica
Today in the Psalm we sang the words: "The Lord remembers his covenant for ever." He proved it tangibly 31 and 15 years ago — on exactly the same day.
It was thanks to this baptismal keepsake that I learned of the connection between the dates — and, indeed, when I was baptised at all.
One should not attach too much weight to things which might seem to be "coincidences" — but neither should one fall into the opposite extreme: closing one's eyes to the delicate signs the Lord gives to mark His presence. So it is with the date of 18 July in my life. For two reasons it is an important day for me.
Everything began on 18 July 1982, when — surely in the early afternoon of a Sunday — my parents brought their fifth child to the parish church of St Hedwig in Dębica, and the curate (who today is parish priest of a worthy parish in Tarnów), assigned no doubt "by the rota", baptised the children as he did every two weeks. One of them was me. God, One in Three Persons, took my life into His possession and made His dwelling in my soul, though I was quite unaware of it. Life flowed on in its own rhythm...
It was a July evening in a village in the middle of nowhere near Nowy Sącz. For the first three days of the Oasis retreat, the animators and the priest kept telling us that an important day was coming: that we would be able to choose the Lord Jesus — but that it had to be our free decision, nothing forced. We didn't quite know what it was about, but we sensed it was probably something important. I remember throwing at one of my mates at the Oasis that day: "So — will you accept Jesus tonight?" I think I said I would. Though after fifteen years some things blur.
Teenage Bartek had his own struggles. Certain things had "begun to crumble" in his tidy, well-behaved life, and he was beginning to experience the dragging power of sin. Truth be told, I didn't know what the decision was really about; I only wanted "this Lord Jesus", of whom I had been told so much, to help me with this and that — a few matters, nothing more.
The crumbling Firemen's House, the former Oasis centre (photo from 2011)
When the time of the vigil came, after the introduction there was time to make that personal gesture. A Taizé cross was laid out on the floor, beautiful songs were sung, and each person could come forward. I too knelt down, and began to speak to "this" Lord Jesus. I don't know how long I was there; but when I returned to my place, I had the awareness that something important had been accomplished. The vigil ended, I was going to bed, and I knew that "something had changed." Years later, of 18 July 1998 I can say what someone else said — someone granted the same experience several decades earlier, who clothed it in words of genius:
The first gift is the gift of faith, which as a new, supernatural reality was poured into me in a single moment on that memorable day — as an entirely new light, kindled by no human power, which shines even when it does not yet fall on any object, and endures quietly, unmoved, like a star, shining in the darkness and itself being darkness. This reality of faith — from that moment, without interruption for 44 years, has determined the whole dynamic of my life and is within me "a fountain of water springing up to eternal life". Never in that time have I experienced doubts about the faith, and never have I had aims, strivings or interests other than those flowing from faith and directed towards the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, in the realisation of the great plan of salvation.
Fr Franciszek Blachnicki — Testament (in Polish)
The baptismal font in my parish church.
Since that memorable evening, I too have never experienced doubts about the presence of Jesus Christ, the living Lord and Saviour. This does not mean I ceased to be a sinner. I made many mistakes and committed many sins, went through many crises and got myself into various strange affairs over the past fifteen years — but that light of faith has never gone out in me.
I celebrated that day; it became a point of reference for me. What was my astonishment when, later on, I discovered that this 18 July is the anniversary of my baptism. A spring of living water had burst forth — a spring that had been hidden in my heart sixteen years earlier.
It is not often that I get to spend this day in my home parish. Today I did. I had the occasion to preside at the Eucharist. I chose a very rarely used prayer (the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer), in which I could speak to God my gratitude for the history of salvation which has been — and is being — accomplished in my life "through Christ, with Christ and in Christ."
A few years ago I visited that village in the middle of nowhere. It is called Klimkówka. Of the old Firemen's House, only scraped walls remain. The place where the chapel was stands deserted, and only a hole in the wall recalls that a tabernacle once stood there. No one would guess that such great things were accomplished there — surely not only in my life.
And though dates and places do not play the key role in the life of one who believes in Jesus Christ, they can help him remember that covenant. And the Lord more than once makes use of them for that purpose.
Less than a year after my conversion, when that presence of Christ was still something new to me (today it is nearly half my life...), I wrote in a rush of inspiration a short prayer, which I later called "My Credo". I rarely return to it, but today it is worth bringing into the light of day. So let it close this reflection:
My Credo — Bartłomiej Parys
Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour. In Him alone is my redemption and eternal life. He pulled me out of the mire of sin. He gave me new life and created in me a new heart. Through Him alone be honour, homage and adoration of God the Father in the Holy Spirit. For Him alone do I want to live, and Him alone to serve. For all Your works I thank You, Lord Jesus. Help me to persevere on the way to You and to fulfil Your holy will. Amen.
THIS IS THE PRINCIPLE, THE PURPOSE AND THE MEANING OF MY LIFE.
Eight years after writing this text in 2013 — in the middle of the pandemic — I had the occasion to give this testimony in a fuller form during an evangelisation service for the Divine Word Community on 28 February 2021. The video recording (in Polish) is embedded in the Polish original of this page.