Read the room: Karol Wojtyla's sundial

Pilgrimages are usually centered on big things: soaring basilicas, mighty rivers, convents and towns and even entire mountain ranges. Yet every time I guide a pilgrimage, often to the same sites, I find that the deepest impact sparks from something much smaller. Maybe it's some little piece of a saint's handwriting, a clock he checked every day, or a knee-shaped dent in her prie-dieu. These tiny details can easily slip past our notice, and with them all the riches we might encounter. Read the Room is an occasional series in which we'll look at one—and only one—zoomed-in detail and the story it tells. 

Today is the feast of St John Paul II, whose enormous legacy shaped world history. Before he became a great and even legendary saint, however, he began each morning at a small breakfast table in Wadowice, Poland. 

Karol Wojtyla and his family lived in a modest second-floor apartment next door to the Basilica of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Wadowice. Because of the limited space, the breakfast table was pushed flush against a picture window that overlooked the cathedral’s sundial. Every morning, Karol silently ate his porridge or potatoes, sipped his black tea, and gazed at the ceramic tile as the rising sun cast shadows across its face. 

On the sundial that Karol gazed at every day were etched the words: “Czas ucieka, wiecznosc czeka." Time flies, eternity awaits.

The sundial may seem like a simple clock, but it’s a surprisingly complex astronomical instrument that also tracks the analemma, the figure-eight shape that the sun traces across the sky over the course of a year. The shape of eternity.

Eternity: the first thing Karol saw each morning. Before school, before Mass, before work. Before the losses that would come so frequently and painfully in his life: his mother, his brother, his father. Before war, occupation, the quarry, secret seminary. Before Krakow, before Rome, before the whole world knew his name. He read the lesson written every day in light and shadow. 

What did he think? Is this why he always seemed present and never seemed afraid? 

“Darkness can be scattered only by light,” he proclaimed in 2002 as pope. “And hatred can be conquered only by love.”

How to find it

Family Home of St. John Paul II, 7 Koscielna Street, Wadowice, Poland, about an hour by train from Krakow. The Wojtyla apartment is now part of the Museum of the Holy Father John Paul II, which sits next to the Market Square and the Basilica of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. You can see the sundial if you look out the breakfast table window. A replica of the sundial is displayed on the table.

Inside, the apartment also displays the family’s furniture and memorabilia, including photos, Karol’s school certificates, his mother’s jewelry, and his skis, backpack, and kayak paddle. Book tickets online. Allow about an hour for your visit.

__________

 Thy Ship can help you build and book an itinerary that goes deep, not just far. Let's talk!

Contact me. I am a Catholic author, artist, speaker, pilgrimage leader, and travel concierge.

I'd love to collaborate with you on your next retreat, day of reflection, pilgrimage, trip, or event.

Subscribe to Beaucoup by Thy Ship, our free weekly newsletter guide to Catholic New Orleans and Paris.