The Jasna Góra Vows of the Nation were solemnly made on 26th of August 1956 at Jasna Góra with the participation of about a million faithful. The Rote of Vows was read by Bishop Michał Klepacz, acting chairman of the Polish Episcopate. On the chair intended for the Primate of Poland lay white and red flowers. Cardinal Wyszyński made the Vows at his place of isolation in Komańcza in connection with Jasna Góra, 10 minutes earlier, only in the presence of Maria Okońska.
A room in the Franciscan monastery in Prudnik, where Cardinal Wyszyński began to work on the text of the vows, photo: Wikipedia
The Jasna Góra Vows were made on the 300th anniversary of the Lviv Vows, made by King John II Casimir Vasa on 1st of April 1656 in the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lviv during a mass celebrated by Nuncio Pietro Vidoni before the painting of Our Lady of Grace.
On 26th of August 2006, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Jasna Góra Vows, over 200,000 faithful gathered at Jasna Góra, and the text of the vows was read by Cardinal Józef Glemp
While reading Sienkiewicz's "The Deluge", I realised in Prudnik that I had to think about this great date. After all, I was imprisoned so close to the place where King John Casimir and Primate Leszczyński were advising on how to save Poland from the depths. They both went to the southeast, to Lviv: the highlanders paved the way for them, as Henryk Sienkiewicz beautifully describes. When I was transported along almost the same route, from Prudnik to the southeast, to my fourth place of isolation, the mountains, I was traveling with the thought: an act of renewed Vows must be created!
Stefan Wyszyński
source – Wikipedia
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