APPARITION
TO
THOMAS MICHAELEK
LEZAJSK, POLAND
1578
"Holy Mary, we implore Thee
By thy purity divine:
Help us, bending here before Thee,
Help us truly to be Thine.
Teach, oh! teach us, holy Mother,
How to conquer every sin,
How to love and help each other,
How the prize of life to win."
- St. Casimir
St. Casimir,
King of Poland,
born 1458, died 1483.
Feast Day - March 4.
Poland is still the Kingdom of the Blessed Virgin whom the Poles invoke, ever since 1655, in their Litanies, under the title, Regina coeli et Poloniae.
Her image hangs from the necks of the young Polish girls; mothers formerly used to hang it on those of their brave sons when they set off for battle. The great ladies have in their apartments an oratory decorated with the picture of the Blessed Virgin; and that proud Polish nobility, which once eclipsed in splendor all the nobility of Europe, at the Christmas holidays, would set up in the most conspicuous place of their sumptuous banqueting halls a sheaf of straw, in memory of the utter destitution of Jesus and Mary in the stable of Bethlehem.
In the last years of the sixteenth century there was a remarkable Apparition of the Blessed Virgin near Lezajsk, in Poland.
It happened after this manner:
One day Thomas Michaelek, a simple but pious man, had gone, as was his custom, to make up a bundle of sticks to be used as fuel in a wood near the town, when suddenly he witnessed, on a spot where he went to pray, a marvelously bright splendor and within it the Blessed Mother with our Lord Jesus and St. Joseph. At the same time he heard a voice that seemed to come from the lips of the Blessed Virgin, and it said to him: "Thomas, I have chosen this place; on it my Son shall be honored, and everyone who shall invoke me here shall experience my intercession. Go to the rulers of the city and tell them that it is my will and command, and also that of my Son, that they build here a church dedicated to me."
Now Thomas was a very humble man and deemed himself unworthy of a heavenly vision. So, fearing some diabolical illusion, he kept the revelation secret. Only sometime after this, when Our Lady had reminded him twice, he asked the rulers of the city to allow him to set up a cross on the spot where the Blessed Mother had stood.
Soon the people of the neighborhood began to gather together at the holy place, and the Queen of Heaven, faithful to her promise, heard the prayers of the pious people.
Afterwards it happened that another dweller in this place, Sebastian Talarczyk, who was tending his cattle near the spot, saw the Blessed Virgin clad in white and surrounded by a great light. He went immediately to the city and informed the ecclesiastical authorities of what he had seen. The parish priest went to the spot, clothed with his priestly garments and with a great procession, and they built there a small wooden church under the invocation of St. Ann.
Not long afterwards, in the year 1606, the bishop of the diocese, M. Potrokonski, seeing that the small wooden church could not contain the worshipers of the Blessed Virgin, who went to that place, set himself, with the help of the pious king, Sigismund III., to build a magnificent church there with a monastery attached to it; and he brought to that place the Fathers of St. Bernard.
The image of the Blessed Virgin was painted by an artist brought from the city, and as he was very devout to the Immaculate Conception, the work, with the assistance of the Blessed Virgin, was a wonderful achievement. From that time, the people, who were very devout to the Immaculate Virgin, went in crowds to Lazajsk, principally on the day of her feast; and Our Holy Mother rewarded them liberally with her favors, in proof whereof are numerous votive offerings suspended around her image. After a canonical investigation the bishop of the diocese, Henry Firliz, on the 2Oth of November, confirmed the truth of the miracles formed there.
When, later on, the renown of the miracles and graces obtained on that spot was ever more and more noised abroad, Pope Benedict XIV., a great servant of Mary, gave leave to crown the miraculous image, thus satisfying the requests of the clergy, the nobility and the pious people.
All the outlay for increasing the splendor of this solemnity was furnished by Joseph Potocki, the Hetman of the Crown, who also at his own expense purchased two golden crowns for the image. The crowns were blessed by Pope Benedict XIV. ; But the pious Hetman did not live to see the coronation. His son, Stanislaus, the Senator, accomplished the work which his father had begun, sparing neither money nor trouble to make this solemnity most splendid and memorable.
On the 8th of September, 1752, the bishop, W. Sierakowski, in the midst of a large body of clergy and surrounded by the Polish nobility and an innumerable throng of the faithful, performed the solemn ceremony and crowned the image of the Blessed Virgin.
"O Virgin most admirable and worthy of all honor! O Woman beyond all others to be venerated, who didst repair the fault of our first parents, and didst bring life to their descendants!"
- St. Bernard
Daily, Daily
(St. Casimir’s Hymn)
Daily, daily sing to Mary;
Sing, my soul, her praises due!
All her feasts, her actions worship
With the heart s devotion true.
Lost in wondering contemplation
Be her majesty confess;
Call her Mother, call her Virgin,
Happy Mother, Virgin blest.
She is mighty to deliver
Call her, trust her lovingly;
When the tempest rages round thee,
She will calm the troubled sea,
Gifts of Heaven she has given,
Noble Lady, to our race
She, the Queen who decks her subjects
With the light of God s own grace.
Sing, my tongue, the Virgin s trophies
Who for us her Maker bore
For the curse of old inflicted
Peace and blessing to restore.
Sing, in songs of praise unending,
Sing, the world s majestic Queen;
Weary not, nor faint in telling
All the gifts she gives to men.
All my senses, heart, affections,
Strive to sound her glory forth
Spread abroad the sweet memorials
Of the Virgin s priceless worth.
Where the voice of music thrilling,
Where the tongue of eloquence,
That can utter hymns beseeming
All her matchless excellence?
All our joys do flow from Mary,
All then join her praise to sing;
Trembling sing the Virgin Mother,
Mother of our Lord and King.
While we sing her awful glory,
Far above our fancy s reach,
Let our hearts be quick to offer
Love the heart alone can teach.
Images of Saint Mary's Basilica in
LEZAJSK, POLAND