24. Aug 2025

Photo 1: Franciscan Monastery in the city of Wscowa.

I was not sure if the monastery had pilgrim beds, so I booked a room in the Old City. Also I wanted to make sure I had a good internet connection to get my blog work updated. In some of the monasteries where I have stayed, that was not the case... thick stone walls.

I was the first one this morning at breakfast. A mystical sounding music was playing and a softly pleding voice was singing: "Don't go, don't go, don't go forever and ever. This is where you belong..." I invisioned in that moment how it must have been for heaven to watch as Adam and Eve took the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and bit into the poison of disobediance. The clock of human history as we know it began to tick to the beat of death and sin. I can imagine that a wave of sad silence swelled over the angles in heaven.

Photo 2: I was fascinated by the stations of the cross at the monastery with the German title testifing to the German heritage to this area of Poland. This one says: "Jesus dies on the cross." What a shock this must have been as well for the angelic world before the throne of God. The cry from the dying Messiah on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", was left unanswered. How could God become man, live a life without sin and then die the death of a condemned criminal? The Bible dies not say so, but I believe that there was again sad silence in heaven.

The last book of the Bible gives us a prophetic glimpse of the climactic fulfillment of time. A moment of silence is mentioned where God receives the prayers of his people before the last judgments are unleashed on earth. The very end is the new beginning. It commences with a shout from heaven... strong enough to raise the dead. He who sits on the throne will say: "It is done!" He will be able to say this, because the dying Messiah on the cross cried out with his last breath: "It is finished!" The painful clock of human history will be turned back to a new heaven and a new earth. God and mankind will once again be together, there where he belongs, forever and ever.

Photo 3: The Old City of Wscowa...

Photo 4: Umbrellas hanging over a city street...

Photo 5: Remembering the German march into Poland in 1939...