Holy Week is a time for taking stock. For quiet acts of memory and devotion, of preparation for the feast to come. The city of Kraków is no different in this regard from other reservoirs of Catholic faith around the world. On Holy Saturday morning, votive candles spring up like crocuses in the gardens of the Carmelite Church.
Down the broad boulevard of Holy Virgin Mary Avenue running through the nearby pilgrim town of Częstochowa, there is a sotto voce hum of anticipation, rising to mezzo-forte in the covered market where wives and mothers lay in supplies for Sunday lunch: pork, apples, lacy Easter tablecloths. Walk another mile, however, and silence reigns on the green hill not far away, in the Shrine of the Black Madonna, at the centre of the Jasna Góra Monastery.
