By Msgr. Peter Zendzian

In July, 1993, I returned from my assignment as an associate director of Migration and Refugee Services at the Bishops’ Conference in Washington, D.C., where for most of that time our now Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio was the director. Upon my return, I was assigned by Bishop Thomas Daily to the parish of Our Lady of Czestochowa-St. Casimir in Sunset Park.

I had two associates there, the late Father Steve Józwicki, and our new Auxiliary Bishop, Father Witold Mroziewski. We quickly formed a very special and totally unique pastoral team to care for the faithful in that part of Brooklyn, especially Poles and Polish-Americans.

The parish faced many challenges, but with the help of my younger associate, who had come to America after only a couple of years of priesthood in the Diocese of Łomza – where my own grandparents had their roots, we took them on one by one. Sometimes we succeeded and sometimes we did not.

The parish grammar school closed during my time and Father Witold and I worked as hard as we could to encourage a rise in the student population, but we could not in such a short time accomplish that.

We started to revive the spiritual life of the parish and added to the many devotions in the Polish language. We made the parish Feast Day of Our Lady of Czestochowa even more special by having a novena of preached Masses before the Aug. 26 celebration as well as having a parish picnic one evening to enjoy each other’s company, socially as well as spiritually.

We also began a special celebration for the March 4 Feast Day of St. Casimir, who was the patron of the first Polish parish of our diocese and all Long Island.

We acquired two beautiful icons of both Our Lady and St. Casimir and made a special shrine chapel at the back of the church so people could increase their devotion to both patrons of our parish.

With a small group, we made a pilgrimage together in 1996 from the parish to Czestochowa in Poland and then to Rome to observe the centennial of the parish of Our Lady of Czestochowa.

During the six-and-a-half years we served together in Brooklyn, our new bishop and I ran the campaign to raise the money to repair the church, which was in quite bad shape. Despite what the experts told us was our maximum, we raised more than three times what they said we would, and we fixed the main steeple, restored the two small steeples, re-pointed the building, re-faced the front of the church, painted the interior, installed a new sound system and restored two chandeliers as had been there at the beginning. This began with our Alive in Hope effort and concluded with the major renovations accomplished.

Father Witold and I sat many nights into the early morning with him translating into beautiful Polish, and myself typing the weekly progress reports for copying and including in the weekly bulletin.

Our problem then became that we also had a tremendous increase in weddings and baptisms when people saw that the parish was very much alive and growing. It was a happy problem.

I learned the proper Polish for the sacraments and preaching thanks to my kind associate’s patient instruction, and I likewise helped him learn some of the intricacies of the English language. We tutored each other so as to be better able to serve the faithful who were coming to our parish.

We took care of our older brother, the ever popular Father Steve, who was in that parish almost 40 years when he went home to God after a car accident caused him many internal injuries which led to his death. In our time together, the joy of the priesthood was felt in the quite unusual but devoted team we were. People were glad to see happy priests serving despite the many challenges we had together in the parish.

Our new auxiliary and I were as creative as we could be in our pastoral approach and also in the practicalities of parish life. Our midnight trips to Pathmark with hands full of coupons and our carrying together Sheetrock and buckets of compound and paint which we helped install in our buildings are memories and examples of facing what must be done and using the talents and strengths we had.

I was appointed as Polish Apostolate coordinator in those years and was so relieved to have a most willing associate to help me tirelessly in reforming and re-shaping the Apostolate so that all of us serving Polonia in our diocese could do so more effectively and more happily. He succeeded me a dozen years later as coordinator and took the Apostolate nicely forward with his devotion. The Polonia of our diocese is, thanks to so much of his continued good work, one of the strongest in the country.

Our new Bishop Witold is a wonderfully thoughtful brother to me and all of the priests of Polonia in our Diocese. His open personality and kindly concern helped all of us to make great progress so that the men serving in the Apostolate from the youngest to the oldest, diocesan and religious, all feel welcome and a part of anything we do together.

Although I pray that Bishop Witold does not have to concern himself with too many physical projects as we did together, I do know that he is not afraid to take on any task that must be accomplished for the sake of God’s people. He is Polonia’s pride as he has been chosen by Pope Francis to be the first Polish Auxiliary Bishop of our Diocese, but he is a priest for all people. From what I saw when we served together in Brooklyn, I can say with the greatest confidence that people of every background will find in him a very kind and generous shepherd.

It is my honor and my joy to say that we are friends, and I know that my brother priest will be a holy and loving bishop and will do amazing things in his service of God’s Church in our Diocese. He can be sure that he will have my support and that of all the priests of the Brooklyn presbyterate along with our many deacons and men and women religious. May God bless all his endeavors for the good of God’s people.

 

Msgr. Zendzian is the pastor of St. Matthias parish, Ridgewood.