I grew up in West Poland near Berlin. My parents were traditional Catholics and we used to go to Mass every Sunday when I was growing up and I was an altar boy. This all changed when I was 15 and my parents divorced. This was a huge trauma for me as I was the only child. Both of them got married again. My mother moved to the Netherlands with her husband and, as I was studying, I stayed in Poland, moving into my own place when I was 16. It was exciting having all that freedom but I was also very alone. I had different girls and as I was interested in music I got involved with the punk and rock scene.

I began to rebel and question everything including my faith. I was searching for something but I didn’t know what. At school we had compulsory religious education, but I found these lessons a bit of a joke and my friends and I would use them to sit at the back of the class and eat our lunch. One day, however, the teacher brought in a young man to give his witness. I had never heard anybody young like that before talking about his faith and what it meant to him. He was a regular guy too, a drummer, and a good musician, so my friends and I listened. We were really impressed by what he said. He invited us to come away on a weekend that he was part of. We were shocked, however, when we arrived to find that it was not what we thought and it was actually a three day retreat in a seminary. What they gave us was the Philip Course. This is an evangelisation weekend covering largely the same material as the Life in the Spirit seminars and the Alpha course, and devised by the Catholic evangelist Jose Prado Flores from Latin America.

This weekend was the turning point of my life. Because I was brought up in a Catholic family, I believed in God and knew that He existed but I didn’t think He was interested in me as a person. For the first time in my life I experienced personally that God is my father and I felt myself held close to His heart. This experience changed my life. Knowing that God loved me in this way gave me a whole different perspective on everything and I developed new priorities. The first thing I did was to go back to my parish, as the Philip course encourages you to get involved in a prayer group. I asked the priest if there were any for me to join. He said there wasn’t and suggested I start one. I didn’t feel confident enough to do this, however, so nothing happened. As the months passed I found the initial experience I had had began to die and I lost my desire to pray and all the blessings I had received seemed to be slipping away. Just in time a new priest came to the parish. I couldn’t believe it. He had been one of the team on the Philip course I had done. Together we set up a prayer group. Initially this was made up of a few middle aged ladies but as time went on, and we started running Philip courses, more and more young people started coming. Within two or three years we had 100 young people in our group.

One of the problems we had, however, was that most of the group were teenagers and when they finished school they would go off to university to other cities in Poland, so we had a very big turnover. Also, however, enthusiastic people were I noticed that as soon as they got married, their priorities changed, and they would stop coming to the group and being interested in evangelising.

On the other hand, I wanted to know more and do more. Four out of the original group of five of my friends, who had gone on the Philip retreat, had gone to seminary. However I didn’t feel called to the priesthood, but to work for God as a married lay person. I asked myself how I could do this. I realised the best way would be to get involved in some kind of covenant community. Back in 2001 I had met Damian Stayne, in Lublin, Poland, where he did the Charism School and I had heard about Cor et Lumen Christi, the community that he had founded. I met him again and he invited my girlfriend Aga (who is now my wife) and me to come to England and spend some time with them. Our main aim was not so much to help with the ministry but to observe their way of life and see how they managed to balance the needs of family life with prayer and ministry. Just before we left Poland, I was offered my dream job teaching children with special needs at double the salary I had been getting. I realised, however, it was a temptation, because I knew that God was calling me to come to England and to Cor et Lumen Christi. Initially we just spent time being with the community and didn’t have any contact at all with the Polish community. But one day in prayer after Communion, two people independently felt God saying that the community should run a Philip course for Poles here in the UK. There are many Poles living in London. The Church is very important in their lives, but it sometimes can seem more for practical things. In Poland we are very family oriented and a lot of our socialising is at home, but here in England people tend to go out more. Poles often find it difficult to adapt and get very homesick and are not so good at mixing with others. Some people can be in this country for many years, but never learn to speak English well, because their whole life is with Polish people.

The Polish Church is at the heart of this community because it is the place where people can get support, find jobs, accommodation and get in touch emotionally and culturally with their homeland. Often, however, their attachment is more cultural than spiritual and they don’t always have a deep relationship with Jesus. We wanted them to experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit as we had, and the Cor et Lumen Christi community discerned that this was something that we should offer.

About 30 people turned up for our first Philip course. Because of my own experience, however, and realising how easy it is to lose an experience, however positive, we knew it was important to offer some kind of follow up too. So after the Philip course we devised the Barnabas course. This used the same methodology as the Philip course, but we drew on our own experience of the basics that people need to go on with their spiritual life. This helps equip people to sort out various issues in their lives that can be an obstacle to growth. Follow up is so important. When someone comes to Christ, they are like new born children and need looking after. We teach them how to discern God’s will for their lives and how to make practical decisions.

This proved popular so we followed it up with another course we devised called the Andrew course. This teaches people to witness to their faith and share their personal testimony with their family, friends and work colleagues. Our courses are very practical and it is not just listening to talks. Participants have to practice giving their testimonies in front of the group for example. The young people love this. We have continuous adoration before the Blessed Sacrament while all the courses are going on in intercession as this is a very special grace God has given to us. We have been doing these courses now for about four years in Highfield House in Chertsey. Gradually a team of about 30 people has been built up, who help us do the courses. In addition, several members of the community also teach on the retreats with translations into Polish, and they serve alongside the Polish team with some of the practical help and the prayer ministry.

The team meets every two months to receive formation and they also have a basic covenant of prayer and some rules and values - inspired by the charter and values of Cor et Lumen Christi - which they agree to abide by. Although not formally part of the Cor et Lumen Christi community, just spending time with us, means that some of the team have been attracted by what they have seen, and six have joined the community. Most, however, are involved in their parishes and several are involved in the big Polish speaking prayer group in Ealing. Monsignor Kukla, the head of the Polish mission in England has given us his backing, which is great.

New season spiritually

In the beginning no matter how hard we advertised our courses we would always get 30 people, but this year, we seem to be in a new season spiritually. We began to pray for more faith and have been praying and fasting and repenting more deeply. The fruit of this is that for the last courses we have had between 70-80 people on each.

At the moment we are doing five courses a year, and I reckon over the last four years between 1200-1500 people have attended our courses. We’ve had so many wonderful testimonies. People will tell or write to us how their life was changed during the courses. What is also interesting is that a few people from other movements and groups have also started to come, like the Neo Catechumenal Way and the Teams of Our Lady, and taken back what they have learnt to their own communities and parishes. In our small way we hope to play our part in the evangelisation of this country. All glory to God!