The little homeland of John Paul II

“The town of my childhood, my family home, the parish church, the church of my Baptism... I wish to cross these hospitable thresholds, bow before my native soil and its inhabitants, and utter the words of greeting given to family members upon their return from a long journey: ‘Praised be Jesus Christ!” (...) With profound veneration I also kiss the threshold of the house of God, the parish church of Wadowice, and in it the baptistery, in which I was joined to Christ and received into the community of his Church. In this church I made my firs Confession and received my First Holy Communion. Here I was an alter boy. Here I gave thanks to God for the gift of the priesthood and, as Archbishop of Cracow, I celebrated the twenty-fifth, the silver anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood.”