Father Wyszynski Pilgrimage

Following his father’s wish, he trained to serve at the Warsaw municipal chancellery. Having worked a year there, he suddenly pledged to make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This time he wanted to do so with his parents’ blessing, therefore he told his plans to his brother Michael who informed their parents. Initially, their father did not consent to this pil- grimage, but when the ecclesiastical authorities pro- nounced Francis’s pledge irreversible, he fashioned pilgrim’s clothing for Francis and gave his blessing. Along with a group of Polish pilgrims, the young man went to Rome. He arrived there in October of 1721. From the Eternal City he took the road to Spain. He managed to reach its borders, but fell gravely ill. Doctors resolutely opposed all further travel plans. Francis returned to Rome, where he got his pledge replaced with an obligation to visit Roman shrines and do works of mercy. While staying in Rome, he earned his living by copying documents at a lawyer’s office as well as working for a time at the desalination plants administered by the Vatican. Francis did not reveal his reasons for the pilgrim- age. Undoubtedly, one of them was the tremendous shock he experienced after the suicide of his col- league’s servant. In the words of his biographer, Alexis Fischer, “He [Francis] felt greatly repulsed by secular life and was searching for more secure ways to salva- 13 Toiling to Discover His Vocation