KRAKÓW-CRACOVIE I City of Joy, JMJ ŚDM WYD, july 2016
KRAKÓW miasto radości — Światowych Dni Młodzieży 2016
KRAKÓW City of Joy World Youth Day 2016
Tribute to the Polish Christian fervour, it is so I should like to present this visual and musical document. It also shows the beauty of Cracow, 2016 World Youth Day’s city, as well as the young pilgrims’ illuminated joy, together in their Faith. Cracow: religious city, historic city but also city of movement and hope for an inhibited, majority Christianity in a homogeneous society. WYD major social fact? Three millions pilgrims: five times more than Woodstock Pop Festival in august 1969, a multitude welcomed and organized by an omnipotent Church, devoted volunteers and a government looking at the good praying order of the week.
Major fact erased in France by daily news turbulences, emergencies and shocks: the attack of July 14th in Nice with eighty-five people - young and old - killed, the murder of Father Jacques Hamel († 26th) throat cut during his service. We couldn’t follow the joy in Cracow. We had to work on ourselves and otherwise, as showed, sincerely, Dominique Lebrun archbishop of Rouen, back from Poland as quickly as possible.
If I put so energy to realize this short movie, it is for Alba and Wanda, my daughters, who lived cheerfully the event of inside, as volunteer and as pilgrim. It was necessary to tell what they felt like a first fulfillment and to make know videos and photos realized by Anna, my wife. A way to show the beauty of the Christian signs in Cracow and, as well, the moments lived by all. A way to help them three keeping in mind, beyond their religious fervor, the French humanism Lights – a Faith which hold me tight – as a guarantee to look to the other and to live together on brotherhood and differences, exactly as the Pope Francesco told us. Otherwise, you can be materialistic, agnostic and pray so that the world with good will and beauty can get better. Let us hope that the young pilgrims of July 2016 will know how to show the way.
Gérard Le Vot
Thanks to Greg Mišiewicz for advice, to Scott Scherer President of the Catholic Travel Center - Burbank (CA) – to give permission for loans from ‘Welcome to Kraków – Home of World Youth Day 2016!’, to Kuba Blychartz, NiemaGOtu and Aneta Liberacka for visual materials coming from "Błogosławieni miłosierni"’s official video.
The main parts of the video with their music:
01 Cracow on Vistula river, the Rynek Główny, Ratusz Tower and sukiennice (cloth hall).
‘Tyś jest mój syn’, Robert Janson & Iwona Waksmundzka, 2016
02 St. Mary’s Basilica on the Rynek, then the Altar by Veit Stoss (c. 1448-1533)
The bugle call from St. Mary’s Church
Agnus Dei’, Wojciech Kilar (1933-2013)
03 Lajkonik tradition : a bearded rider whose blows with a stick bring happiness. The music remains the ride of the winner of Mongolian during the seat of 1287.
04 Prayer to the Virgin by Pope Francesco after his arrival to Cracow.
Hymn ‘Pan kiedys stanal nad brzegiem’ called ‘Barka’ [the boat], tune ‘Pescador de Hombres’ composed by Cesáreo Gabaráin (1936-1991), polish words Fr. Stanislaw Szmidt. About two millons believers sang Barka at the end of the papal mass of august 18th 2002, also sung every anniversary of the death of Saint John-Paul II, in front of the Marian basilica.
05 Cathedral and Castle of kings of Poland, Wawel, with Saint Edwige d’Anjou’s grave, married to Ladislas II Jagellon, grand duke of Lithuania. The bumblebee Sigesmond [1520], one of the bells of the cathedral, protects Cracow.
06 Centrum Jana Pawła II builds by Andrzej Mikulski and dedicated june 23th, 2013 ; the mosaic is the work of the Slovenian Jesuit Marko Ivan Rupnik.
07 Evocation of Kazimierz, the Jewish city before Shoah with the inside of the temple and the fish market at the foot of the old synagogue.
‘Yiddish Khosidl’ by Max Leibowitz, violin and Philip Friedman, piano (c. 1911-1920)
08 Łagiewniki Sanctuary of Divine Mercy [Bożego Miłosierdzia]; prayer to Saint Faustina, ‘Faustina Kowalska’s tune’
09 The young pilgrims, their multitude, - in a chronological disorder – successively on july 30-31th in the campus of the Mercy to Brzegi [Wieliczka], on Rynek of Cracow and in the plain of Błonia, 28-29th july.
‘Memu Bogu’ by Owca
‘Błogosławieni miłosierni’, official hymn ŚDM Kraków 2016 composed by Jakub Blycharz, singing Ola Maciejewska & Katarzyna Bogusz.