Mass and Blessed of the St. John Paul II National Shrine Retreat House
Feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa
Washington, D.C.
August 26 2026
A Pilgrimage to Czestochowa
On October 8th, 2010, Supreme Knight, Carl Anderson, Officers and Board Members, and myself went on pilgrimage to Jasna Gora, to the Shine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, in the heart of Poland. The Order was newly established in Poland and was beginning to take root. We came to give thanks to Our Lady for her loving intercession and to dedicate the Knights of Columbus in Poland to Our Lady of Czestochowa. From Guadalupe to Jasna Gora – and many points in-between, the Knights of Columbus is wrapped in the mantle of Mary’s loving protection.
How fitting, then, that we gather on this feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa to bless and dedicate the St. John Paul II National Shrine Retreat House. On this day and in this place, it is right that we recall with filial love the many pilgrimages that St. John Paul II made to Jasna Gora – as a priest, as a young bishop, as the Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow, and finally as the Supreme Pontiff of our beloved Church. Through the years, as his titles were elevated, his devotion to Our Lady of Czestochowa was deepened.
In 1979, the recently elected Pope John Paul II journeyed to Jasna Gora, a name that means “hill of light”, a “bright and shining mountain.” In his unforgettable homily, he spoke of Our Lady of Czestochowa as “the beating heart of Poland,” the one who accompanied the Polish people through wars, invasions, partitions, and occupations. It was she who interceded for the Polish people and led them to Christ, so that they could live in the fullness of his mystery. It is through her maternal love that the Savior is encountered – in whose Incarnation and Pasch humanity’s true dignity is revealed & restored. Pope John Paul II would later acclaim Our Lady of Czestochowa as ‘a guiding light to a better future,’ ‘a force for the new evangelization,’ ‘a providential instrument towards the attainment of a civilization of truth and love.’
Pope John Paul II returned to Jasna Gora in 1983. There he spoke before more than a million young people. He urged them to entrust to Our Lady of Czestochowa their ‘joys and hopes, their griefs and anxieties.’ He also spoke of Mary’s role in helping them live their human dignity concretely, in the rough and tumble of contemporary society, with its allurements and forgetfulness of God. He challenged the young people who stood before him not to give in to sin, to evil, to self-centeredness, to indifference – but rather to lead a vibrant life of faith and virtue, anchored in the hope Christ gives, and surrounded by Mary’s all-embracing, maternal love.
And on many occasions, the Polish Pope spoke of Jasna Gora as a place where countless pilgrims learn to trust in the Providence of God. As they lay their problems and worries before her Image, she speaks to their hearts, gently nudging them to say to God, as she said, “Let it be done to me according to your Word!” Kneeling before Mary’s image at Jasna Gora in 1979, Pope John Paul II entrusted to Mary humanity’s “the sorrow and suffering,” but also its “hope and expectation”. In making that solemn act of entrustment he said: “I am a man of great trust. I learnt to be so here!”
The Role of the Retreat House
Today we are not only journeying back in time, but making a sort of spiritual pilgrimage to Czestochowa, drawing near to the heart of Saint John Paul II, as we prepare to bless and dedicate our recently acquired and newly renovated retreat house in his honor. Do not his visits and homilies at Jasna Gora shed light on the vision and mission of this retreat house? Does not this great and saintly pontiff help us see its important role in the lives of those who will make use of it now and in years to come?
Beginning with this: While the incline of Harewood Road is hardly a mountain, our retreat house is on bright and shining mountain, a kind of Jasna Gora, made so by this national shrine, this retreat house, and by our neighbors – On this hill is an amazing display of the breadth and vitality of the Catholic Church. This national shrine and its retreat house are a summit, a place made bright by the luminous life, teaching, and example of St. John Paul II, a place where his total devotion to Mary, his totus tuus, lives on. Taken together, the shrine and the retreat house constitute a sacred place where we, like St. John Paul II can entrust ourselves to Mary’s intercession, where we can utter our own totus tuus, for in belonging to Mary, we belong to Christ.
Coming through the doors of this retreat house, many pilgrims, we hope and pray, will experience the peace of Christ. May they find here a place of quiet, a place of refuge, a place of prayer, where they can grow in all knowledge and wisdom, truth and love, where they can allow Mary to lead them more deeply into the mystery of Christ, ‘in whose light, we see light.’ As retreatant grapple with their own griefs and anxieties, may they find here the grace to forsake shadows and illusions, but rather turn their hearts in one direction – towards Christ, the Redeemer of Man! May it be a place where, under the loving gaze of St. John Paul II and with the help of Mary’s maternal love, retreatants can come to grips with the faults and sins that hold them back in their relationships with God and others, yes, a place of metanoia, a place of conversion. May this be a place where countless retreatants learn, as did John Paul II, how to trust completely in the Providence of God, and when they return home, spiritually refreshed, may they be vigorous “protagonists of the new evangelization”.
Finally, let it be a place where, through Mary’s intercession, and the prayers of St. John Paul II, we, the Knights of Columbus might be confirmed in our mission of charity, unity, and fraternity, where we might understand our principles more profoundly, and live them more generously, for the glory of God, the good of the Church, and the salvation of souls. Vivat Jesus!