Sunday, and the Church at prayer...

...and we were in the great Ark Church in Nowa Huta on the outskirts of Cracow. We arrived early, and people were pouring out of an earlier Mass, into the grey rainswept morning and the tower blocks of what was originally built as the ultimate Soviet-style city and turned into the home of Europe's most famous modern church. The flagstones and steps were slithery in the icy rain, and it was good to enter the church. Its vast sweep and sense of strong, purposeful presence is splendid. The Stations of the Cross show Christ in solidarity with all the suffering of Europe in the 20th century, in all the horror and sorrow..

We were glad to have come early, as the church filled up...and filled, and filled...soon it was standing-room only, and still they came in, and came, and came...

I had brought my Magnificat, so could follow the Epistle, Gospel  etc. At Holy Communion, lines flocked to the altar rails, but the numbers were such that priests also came down the aisles, with altar-server and plate, to distribute the Sacrament, people receiving by mouth and with great reverence.

Many in the congregation were older women, warmly and often stylishly clad, strong faces.  Children were well-behaved, no shouting or noisy toys.

Lunch in Cracow with a professor friend, who told us about student days of the 70s with the Archbishop leading talks in the student church...and then those unforgettable days in 1979 when he returned as Pope, and everything in Poland changed in a spiritual upsurge that broke through into history...

Later, in the dark and cold, hurrying back to our warm flat, we passed the crowds at St Anne's Church - surging young people, spilling out down the steps, gathering and talking...a new generation...

...and in Rome, the Cardinals gather...