Priest Flies Over Poland With Blessed Sacrament

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WROCŁAW, Poland (ChurchMilitant.com) - While some faithful are fasting and helping others, a parish priest took flight over the skies of Poland recently carrying the Blessed Sacrament and praying for God to preserve Poland from the coronavirus.

In addition to being armed with the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance, Father Cezary Chwilczyński carried a statue of the Virgin Mary and a relic of Pope St. John Paul II — all situated on a helicopter's dashboard.

Father Chwilczyński of St. Józef, the Bridegroom of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Żórawina, a town near Wrocław, supplicated "the merciful God to remove the viral threat from us" as he flew over his parish and the greater region.

He also recited the Holy Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, based on the apparitions of Jesus reported by St. Faustina Kowalska of Poland.

Fr. Chwilczyński videotaped his flight and published it on St. Józef Parish Facebook, writing of his prayerful intentions "to distance the pandemic of the coronavirus from the city of Wrocław, the region, his homeland, Europe and the whole world."

Church Militant recently reported on another priest in Lebanon who had taken to the skies carrying the Blessed Sacrament to "bless and protect" his homeland as the coronavirus spreads. Fr. Majdi Allawi Haqq Qurban hired a private plane and flew over Beirut and other parts of Lebanon on March 14 "pleading with the Lord to protect Lebanon" from the virus.

Catholics on social media responded ecstatically to the Lebanese priest's display of faith in the Blessed Sacrament. "We're going to bless all the atheists and there's nothing they can do about it," a Catholic ordinand tweeted. In a video, Fr. Allawi can be heard praying in Arabic: "We ask God to help us today and keep all sickness and epidemics away and to heal all those who are infected by the coronavirus and to bless the country and save it and most importantly to be with us."

Some leftists found fault with the Polish priest's demonstration of faith, however, but one supporter said simply:

He did the right thing. Suffice it to pretend that the medicine could cope with the epidemic. It can't. Only God can stop it through the Blessed Virgin Mary. And the priest has expressed faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. God is to be present in public space!

The Polish newspaper Christiana Polonia wrote that "the uplifting attitude" of this "extremely ingenious priest deserves praise," adding, "the whole situation shows that deep faith in extraordinary circumstances will find extraordinary ways to experience it and show it."

The newspaper urges the faithful to "take advantage of the ingenuity given by the Creator" as Fr. Chwilczyński did. "You can ask the Merciful God to remove the viral threat from us in various ways."

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