THE WHITE COLLAR
I grew up in an anticlerical home. For as long as I can remember my father spoke of the Church and of priests with great contempt, using language I will not repeat.
A little girl listened to brutal tales of the crimes committed over the centuries by the Catholic Church, among them the holy inquisition.
I remember the anticlerical press he used to pore over.
I often heard about hoarded wealth, about sexual crimes, simply about the so-called „black mafia”.
I was baptised so that grandmother would stop nagging. Until my First Communion there was no contact with the Church at all, not even an Easter basket, that is, the bare minimum of an occasional Catholic. A priest came on the Christmas visit once. My father let loose a stream of obscenities at him and almost threw him down the stairs.
After my First Holy Communion, to which I was sent out of the enormous respect I had for my devout grandfather, so that he would not have a heart attack, I did not cross the threshold of a church for 23 years. I was the only one in my school to refuse the sacrament of confirmation. That was the time when I began to soak up dark moods. Music with blasphemous lyrics, a fascination with Satanism, the occult, parapsychology. With evil in general, the roots of which are not hard to find (my father was a fan of Hitler).
I kept opening further gateways for the evil spirit to work through. At the sight of a cassock or a religious habit I simply felt hatred; more than once I insulted someone in the street, just like that. In my eyes all the „men in black” were copy-and-paste from my father's stories. The time came when I decided on a formal act of apostasy. I was looking for the necessary information on the internet. But Jesus decided to fight for me. Believing acquaintances began to talk about experiencing God, about Masses with prayer for healing. I mocked them. „How can anyone be so naive these days. What a backwater!”
After some time I went with them. Partly to have a laugh at the mohair-hatted Catholic fanatics, partly to prove to them that it was all a sham, and partly… out of envy, because when they spoke about Jesus there was something strange in them — an extraordinary inner peace. I had had no such experience, spending years balancing between aggression and depression and running after substitutes for happiness. Impurity, one toxic relationship after another, more and more often alcohol and other stimulants. Darkness in general and a sense of hopelessness meant that thoughts of ending my life came more and more often.
In the end I went with the „fanatics”. I killed the people gathered in the church with my eyes, sitting through the whole Mass in a disrespectful pose. During the consecration too. Who am I supposed to kneel before? Before a little white circle?
When the adoration began, I watched a guy in a clerical collar push a little white circle into a golden sun on a stem, taken out of a golden cupboard. And it was just then, when I began to stare mechanically at that little white circle, that I experienced a love beyond description, total peace, a burning heart and a flood of tears. I did not know what was happening to me. It was the most real experience of my life.
It began the process of my conversion.
Some time has passed since that memorable day, that is, 18 December 2016. My life has changed completely. I now work in the „Adoremus Te Christe” foundation, which sets up chapels of perpetual adoration. Before that I promoted „Entrustment to Mary” in parishes.
For almost four years I have been sharing the testimony of my experience of God. If it had not been for the priest who placed the Heart of God on the altar, would I be where I am now? A general confession after twenty-three years, and all the ones after it — „whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven…”
Holy Communion — „do this in memory of me”
I meet many priests. There are more priests in my phone contacts than lay people. Do I meet only wonderful clerical collars? No… Have I experienced unpleasantness, been badly treated by them — of course, it happens. Did my father feed me nothing but lies? Not only lies… There is much evil in the Church — that is true, but there is also an immense amount of good and beauty that is passed over in silence and never shown. When there is a red wine stain on a white tablecloth, no one will say that the tablecloth is clean; everyone will focus on what has spoiled the whiteness. That is exactly how the Church is shown in the media.
I am aware that the stain exists and I am far from sweeping anything under the carpet.
I love the Church. For better and for worse, in sickness and in health, and that is why I pray for the intention of priests.
I have discerned a call to the single, celibate life.
On 1 August 2024 I shall make private perpetual vows of chastity. I have decided to offer them precisely for priests, especially for their chastity.
They need prayer, because they are on the front line of a spiritual battle that is palpably growing stronger.
A few days ago the inspiration came to start a fundraiser whose aim would be to have thirty Masses said, one day after another, for the intention of the shepherds. Within a single day enough money was gathered to have Masses said for a whole year — twelve series of thirty. I am edified by people's response. It shows that they feel in their hearts an urging to storm heaven for those without whom heaven does not come down onto the altar.
Marta Przybyła
Facebook „Tu się ŻYJE aż do śmierci „
Summary of the „White Collar” campaign
