In the preface to the biography of Adam Chmielowski (Brother Albert) by Władysław Kluza Cardinal Karol Wojtyła wrote:
“A character of this person is special, both when it comes to the scale of his soul, as well as when it comes to a meeting of the eras in the history of Poland, the Church and humanity, which is taking place in and throughout the life of Brother Albert. The size of his soul and rich inner life speak through the depth of his choice, and the maturity of the withdrawal he made because of this choice. Choosing absolute poverty and ministry to the most socially disadvantaged people, he faced the problem that continues to dominate the life of humanity and the Church. To all this, Brother Albert finally brought full patriotic commitment, love for the Fatherland, for which he had sacrificed his health already in his young age, remaining to the end of life a one-legged cripple. He also brought with him the tremendous charm of a painter, a man of exceptional talent who looked for more mature dimensions of beauty, goodness and truth.
And therefore, the character of Brother Albert must be constantly recalled, understood anew, and continually explored, because he bears within himself such richness that we constantly need to expose it to new conditions of radiation. Each publication about him we welcome with joy, hoping that it can show Brother Albert’s other side in order to help us fully understand his life, vocation and mission. The process of sharing this very important figure with new generations and becoming the property of the people of still newer times, especially in Poland, should be continued”.
The author of this work himself constantly recalled the person and work of the Father of the Poor. We do not know the origins of the interest of the future pope in Brother Albert, but Karol Wojtyła must have known about him since a very early age. He could not, of course, see him on the streets of the royal city, but each habit worn by an Albertine Brother reminded him of this very special person: “You have no idea – he said in a sermon in the Church of the Albertine Sisters in Prądnik Czerwony in Krakow – what the Albertine habit means on the streets of Krakow or anywhere in Poland. It is a symbol of this extraordinary man, a symbol of the Gospel […]. A symbol of service, the service to […] the most dispossessed and abandoned people”.
A lot was already written about Brother Albert during his lifetime, and he himself was a topic of conversation in different circles. Antoni Chołoniewski wrote in his text from 1910:
“For twenty years, a tall figure of this strange old man, towering a head taller above the crowd, has been strolling through the streets of our cities. He is dressed in a gray, thick habit in comparison with which the most miserable peasant cloth seems to be an exquisite material. His hips are girded with a simple rope and on his head there is a small, round cap, from incredibly insignificant cloth, which hardly protects from the cold. Under the cap, there is the dark, austere, face of a medieval ascetic monk looking as though it is made of bronze, animated by a pair of eyes, that seem to look in the face of the life humming around with an expression of pity and terror. Big hands show the signs of hard work. The whole figure, heavy and rough, bears testimony of continuously traversing the lowlands of humanity at the very bottom of society”.
Karol Wojtyła, still as a clerical student, began work in the drama/play “Our God’s Brother”, and later, as a priest, bishop and cardinal, repeatedly emphasized his fascination with the unusual poor man from Krakow who, as a true and recognized painter, abandoned his art to serve paupers. In the book, Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way, John Paul II says:
“Brother Albert – Adam Chmielowski – occupies a special place in my memory, or rather in my heart. He fought in the January Insurrection, during which a bullet wounded his leg. It crippled him, and from then on he wore a prosthetic leg. He was an outstanding figure for me, and I was spiritually very close to him.”
His personality fascinated me, and he became a model for me: he gave up art in order to become a servant of the poor, ‘gentlemen of the road’. His example helped me to abandon the arts and the theater in order to enter the seminary”.
But before the future Holy Father, experiencing the life decision of Brother Albert, made his own choice, he too had already walked the humble path of the Father of the Poor. In the testimony of his colleague from the seminary, Fr. Franciszek Konieczny, we read: “He practiced works of mercy. He learned this from the great Prince and Metropolitan Archbishop, Cardinal Sapieha, who sold all his possessions to help – using Brother Albert’s words – “Lady Poverty”. We watched every day the queues of the poor who gathered in front of the waiting room of Mr. Franciszek, wishing to obtain permission to meet the Cardinal. After some time, “Krakow’s poor” started to gather at the door of our apartment – they demanded to summon Fr. Wojtyła. I remember how a man knocked on our door and asked for Father Karol. Wojtyła went to the man talking with him in the corridor, after returning to the room. He bent down and from a suitcase located under his bed, took a sweater, hiding it under his cassock. He left the apartment and came back soon after. He gave the poor man his brand new sweater, which only the day before was given to him by Mr. Kotlarczyk. From then on, he himself was freezing and shivering in the cold weather. I do not know from where he gathered what he gave, nor where he acquired it. But often, people came and asked for him. He shared with the poor people what he could”.
How meaningful is the scene of that drama, when Adam Chmielowski is working at the painting Ecce Homo. He is still painting, you can say, but he is already somewhere else with his thoughts. Passing in front of the easels – as we read in the stage directions – “He passes many of them indifferently”. He stops just in front of the painting Ecce Homo. “Is not this one – the author asks – more than any other, Adam’s image?”; and the hero himself says:
“Still You are terribly unlike Him, whom You are.
You have toiled in every one of them.
You are deadly tired.
They have exhausted You.
This is called Charity.
But with all this You have remained beautiful.
The most beautiful of the sons of men.
Such beauty was never repeated again.
Oh what a difficult beauty, how hard.
Such beauty is called Charity”.
Later he often repeated that “the spirit [of Brother Albert] has not died out yet, and it should be brought into today’s times”. At the time of the Second Vatican Council he strengthened his belief that “Brother Albert’s spirit relates closely to the spirit of the Council and to the spirit in today’s Church”.
In the statements of Bishop Karol Wojtyła, a tone of personal confession was often heard, as during his visit Hermitage in Kalatówki, in Zakopane, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of death: “I celebrate with you this anniversary like no one else’s anniversary”.
In 1963, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the January Uprising, he gave a sermon during the ceremony of installation of a plaque commemorating Fr. Rafał Kalinowski and Brother Albert in the church of Barefoot Carmelites in Krakow, at Rakowicka Street. In his homily, he said:
“Let us ask God for raising to the altars conspirators and members of the underground movement, because in our history we came to freedom through the underground. Let us ask that all the conspirators and heroes of the underground will find in them their patrons,that they will become spokesmen for the cause of human freedom and freedom of nations – the human cause but also a very Christian one, and very evangelical and very divine”.
After each visit to Rome “he related” the process of beatification of the Father of the Poor and saw it was progressing. On 21 August 1967, during the Mass on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of the investiture ceremony of Adam Chmielowski, he said:
“He did not bury his talent […] he discovered a deeper layer of truth, came to the greater good, found the greatest love – and he followed it. […] Personally, during my visits to Rome, I try to take every opportunity to watch over the process of beatification of Brother Albert. […] We want to offer a great value to the Church and to humanity”.
He still referred to this, as during the Mass for the intention of the beatification of Brother Albert in 1969:
“Sometimes I visit Rome and see how the issue of the Church of the poor matures. I can see it due to the important role which bishops and episcopates from the Third World, the world of the poor, play in the various assemblies. As their voice, in particular, is sometimes listened to and problems they present are seen as especially important […]. The issue of beatification is not only – you can simply say – our Polish ambition, but it is also a an important issue for the whole contemporary Church that today is moving in the direction in which Brother Albert was walking in […].
We would like to say: Holy Father, we, here in Poland, have a man who was a living embodiment of the Church of the poor. He was the living embodiment of this cause, so important for the contemporary Church, so important to you, yourself. Give this our compatriot, the Servant of God, Brother Albert Chmielowski, the title of blessed, the title of saint, so that under this title he could continue to proclaim the great cause of the Church of the poor in our land and in the whole Catholic Church of Christ”.
Today, when Pope Francis continues to remind us about the Church of the poor, we should add that in Poland for over a hundred years, thanks precisely to Brother Albert, Bishop Karol Wojtyła, and many other important figures, this truth was not forgotten. The author of Our God’s Brother – as he once confessed – “would talk all the time” about Brother Albert. In the end – as we know – it was John Paul II who raised the Father of the Poor on the altars.
Waldemar Smaszcz