Instant Sacred Sites Created in Poland
What makes a place sacred? Is it the site itself or rituals and symbols? Perhaps all of these things are needed or perhaps an ordinary place can become sacred through the actions and intentions of the people who visit the place. This was the case recently, when Poles turned ordinary streets and public squares into instant sacred sites.
Polish people have been in a state of mourning since April 10th when a plane crash killed the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria along with 94 other members of the Polish government and clergy. Ironically, they were traveling to a memorial being held on the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre.
The Poles have a long tradition of lighting covered votive candles in churches and at Christmas and other holidays. Their first instinct was to bring lighted votive candles to public places as a way of expressing their grief over the tragic lose of prominent leaders. Ordinary places were transformed into sacred places as citizens made pilgrimages to public places where they performed a time-honored ritual of lighting votive candles and created sacred gathering places for public mourning.
It was the intentions of people, in this case, converging with ritual, symbol tradition and place to make the ordinary sacred.