“Sigh… there goes another summer, Snoopy!”    -- Charlie Brown
 
How can this be!?!?  Chatham County School Teachers were already back at work on Friday.  It is just not right that they should be called back to work on a Friday and that the Friday is in July.  School seems to start earlier each year and for me the beginning of School has always marked the end of summer.  I hate it.  The Tybee Police should give summer a speeding ticket.  It goes by too fast.
 
To close out their summer pastoral experiences, the seminarians of the Diocese of Savannah will be coming to Tybee for a few days this week before they head back to their seminaries.  One of them, Ziemowit “Ziemek” Janaszek, who is in formation at St. Vincent de Paul Regional
Seminary in Boynton Beach, FL. will be at the Quarter this Wednesday at 6:30pm showing off his very unique talents as a billiard player.  I like to call him the “Amazing Ziemek,” not only because of his skills as a billiard player but also because of his unique path in becoming a seminarian of our Diocese.
 
Like many in his native city of Kielce, Poland, Ziemek grew up in a Catholic family.  But after he was confirmed, he drifted away from the faith.  Ziemek preferred to spend his time “chasing success,” especially with billiards.  He eventually rose to become the All Polish Pool Champion in billiards trick shots.  As Champion he toured all over Poland putting on shows.  On the side he developed his own media production company.  Ziemek had achieved success and yet, he felt that his life was aimless.  Traveling to one of his events, he came to a pilgrim’s shrine in St. Lipka, Poland.  Feeling a spiritual emptiness, he cried out to God there, “Why is my life leaving me wanting? If you are really there, help me!”
 
God’s help came a year later in the person of Fr. Dawid Kwiatkowski, a priest of the Diocese of Savannah who often spends his vacation time in his native country of Poland.  Ziemek was intrigued by Fr Dawid’s serenity and by the powerful stories that he shared from his priestly ministry.  He went with Fr. Dawid on a visit to the Sisters of Divine Mercy in Krakow where the devotion to the Divine Mercy of Jesus began.  It was the first time that Ziemek had prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet and as he knelt before Christ’s image, he asked the same question he had asked in St. Lipka.  Ziemek remembers that before he left the convent, “an urge from some unknown place in my heart spurred me to ask Fr. Dawid to hear my confession.” 
 
Realizing that it had been a long time since his last confession, Fr. Dawid had the spiritual wisdom to ask Ziemek to take his time and make a good examination.  Guided by an examination on the internet, Ziemek came to the painful awareness that he had excused many of his moral faults as he told himself “as long as I don’t kill anybody, I’m a good person.”  The next day he made a very honest and lengthy confession and Fr. Dawid offered him the advice that in time allowed Ziemek to discern God’s calling for his life.  Fr. Dawid said, “Look not at how many bad things you’ve done, but at how many good things you can do right now.  All you need is to start going back to Church and listening closely to what God wants you to do.”  
 
After that day, Ziemek began attending Mass every Sunday and receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation at least once a month.  All throughout his time away from the Church, his godmother had been praying for his reversion through the intercession of Saint John Paul II.  It was on the 18 ^th of May that Ziemek made his confession to Fr. Dawid.  As it happens, that date is also the anniversary of the birth of Karol Jozef Wojtyla, a.k.a. St. Pope John Paul II.  For a Pole, it doesn’t get any better than that.
 
Well, I am determined not to let summer go out with a whimper.   In addition to the seminarians being in town this week, I am delighted that my good buddy, Fr. Herb Sperger, is spending some time with me before he heads back to his job as Spiritual Director at St. Charles Seminary in Philadelphia.  We will try not to get too rowdy.