“Karol, You Should Be A Priest”

The Zakrzówek quarry, a pit hundreds of feet deep, mined limestone, essential for the production of soda in the Solvay chemical plant located in another Kraków suburb, Borek Fałęcki. Throughout the harsh winter of 1940-1941, in which temperatures dipped to -22 degrees Fahrenheit (-30 Celsius), Lolek shoveled limestone into miniature railway cars at the bottom of the pit, occasionally working as a brakeman on the trains. In the spring he received a kind of promotion, as an assistant to Franciszek Labus, a veteran dynamiter. Labus took a liking to the young man whose previous experience hadn’t prepared him for the rigors of the quarry and offered Lolek some career advice. “Karol, you should be a priest,” he told the novice blaster. “You have a good voice and will sing well; then you’ll be all set.”

-George Weigel, Witness to Hope, 56.

One might never guess that Blessed John Paul II, our theatrical and intellectual Holy Father, spent time working in a quarry. When the Nazis occupied Poland, though, they held stringent work requirements that forced even students to leave the books behind and participate in manual labor. This short story from John Paul II’s young adult life reveals that, even during this difficult time, Divine Providence was forming and shaping him for his vocation.

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