In different places in Poland Jesuits since many years are involved in student ministry.

The 10th anniversary of student ministry DACH in Wroclaw.

This year student ministry called DACH, placed in Wroclaw, Poland and led by the Jesuits, celebrates its 10^th anniversary. The group came to existence in August 2010 as an initiative of father Paweł Witon SJ. Here is how he remembers the decision to start a new student ministry:

DACH gave me the opportunity to meet amazing people and taught me how to create a community. I wish DACH would always be a place where we can meet God, other people and develop our faith and creativity.

At first the group included students who were previously part of a ministry called ,,Christianum” and students from outside of Wroclaw (graduates of another Jesuit youth group called MAGIS). Ola shares her memories and feelings with us:

My university friends often laughed at me because my answer to their question what I was doing in the evening was always “I am going to DACH!” (I was lucky to live very close to the church where we were meeting). My friends were always very surprised because when they asked “Do you really pray there every day?” I answered “among other things”. I explained that we not only attend Holy Mass but also have sleepovers with movie marathons, dances, cooking events, board games evenings, trips to different places and so on. I especially recall our Holy Masses - familiar faces, singing together, standing side by side with friends so very close to the alter, praying for one another because we knew each other so well. We felt God was among us! Conversations that we had sometimes ended at dawn, and it all resulted in friendships that last till today. Trips to Biały Dunajec for the student camp were also amazing, our team was attracting everyone’s attention there with all our extraordinary ideas. Praise be to God for the enormous amount of work put into creating this community and for all these meetings with God and with people. Praise the Lord!

Today DACH consists of many students and it concentrates its activity around the spirituality and teachings of St. Ignatius, the founder of Jesuits. Students participate in Holy Masses on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. and on Saturdays at 7.30 p.m. After Mass young people meet at the parish rooms to relax, talk, drink hot tea or to discuss some serious topics. Monika, the current leader of the ministry, says:

A very important element of the activity of our ministry is the Prayer Group. During meetings we meditate on a fragment from the Bible, using the rules of the Ignatian contemplation prayer. By listening to God’s Word we can become contemplative in our own actions and by following His inspirations we can fulfill the commandment to love! The effect of this is the Formation Group, which provides space for reflection and discussion, as well as the Volunteering Group, which tries to go out to help the needy in the parish and beyond. This is the place where we share our talents, for example by tutoring students from primary and secondary schools. An integral part of the activity of our ministry are weekend events, especially trips. On September 11-13, 2020, in Wroclaw there was a meeting called ,,LoyoLove”, during which everyone had a chance to get to know DACH better. It was a time of getting to know one another, discovering and rediscovering both practical and theoretical aspects of our community and spending time together. We prayed, together, cooked together, played board games and talked a lot. That is how we got to know one another. And in that way we also got to know student ministry DACH, which we create. Even if somebody missed ,,LoyoLove”, not everything is lost yet. We have our student Mass every Sunday at 7.30 p.m. You can find more information on our web page at www.dadach.pl and on our Facebook fanpage.

Fr. Jakub Biela SJ

Students’ creativity during COVID-19 in Kraków

Since the beginning, the year of 2020 is special because of the unexpected circumstances of COVID-19. All pastoral plans and activities have been challenged because of the lockdown solutions introduced throughout the entire world. The same happened to “WAJ” – campus ministry at the Jesuit University “Ignatianum” in Kraków. Being unable to do the regular pastoral work for the college students we were forced to change the way how we invest our apostolic energy. We have discovered the power of internet and social media in our ministry. But we did not narrow ourselves to the virtual space. We came up with the idea to use the time of limitations to renovate our community space. Creativity, fun, brainstorming, and common work in small groups helped us to stay together, to do something positive, and to be ready for a new start as soon as it will be possible, while not ignoring the COVID-19 safety regulations.

We found that even though we could not have spiritual meetings and prayers together in large groups, we still could share our spiritual thoughts and dreams through decorating our walls, trying to find the way of helping the new students to find God and be inspired by the Ignatian spirituality content found on our walls and in our common rooms! We renovated not only the community rooms, but we also refreshed the visual emblem of “WAJ” by introducing a new logo of our community. New design contains two major element: 1) open hands - a symbol which helps us to live as a community according to the words of Pedro Arrupe: “to be men and women for others”; 2) rays of the sun known from the emblem of the Society of Jesus to underline that we want to grow in the Ignatian spirituality.

Thanks be to God for the power of a community which is able to use its own potential and many particular gifts and talents to serve even behind the doors of the world full of restrictions!

Fr. Waldemar Paweł Los SJ