Father Jan Bernas transcends obstacles to priesthood

Father Jan Bernas, SDB
Celebrating 65 years

The early life of Salesians of St. John Bosco Father Jan Bernas was riddled with obstacles – the loss of both parents in his youth, the horrors of World War II in his native Poland, the affliction of disease – but his love of God and those less fortunate has sustained him through 65 years of priestly service.

Young Jan, born in July, 1930, in Oswiecim, Poland (the future site of the Auschwitz concentration camp), suffered the loss of his father when he was but three months old. He completed only two years of education before the Germans locked the schools and arrested the teachers. By 1945, he recalled, “the Red Army freed us from Germany … My mother died. I was 15 years old with two grades, my brother and nothing else.”

A kindly teacher, recognizing his skill on an exam, advised the youth to approach the boarding school run by the Salesians for help. During a meeting with the order’s director, he declared his intention to pursue the priesthood, “but it was not true,” Father Bernas recalled sheepishly. “I said this only to be accepted… In reality, I wanted to flee before [my] vocation, but God’s love was stronger.”

His journey was slowed when he became sick with tuberculosis and the vice provincial discouraged him from continuing his studies. The prospective priest enlisted heavenly help; “I went before the altar of Our Lady saying, ‘My Mother, now I have only you.” Two months later, he was approved to continue his studies.

Father Bernas made his vows at age 20, attended seminary school in Krakow, Poland, and was ordained there Aug. 8, 1958. Following 12 years as a parish priest in Poland, he earned a master’s degree in pastoral theology from the Academy of Catholic Theology, Warsaw, then served as director of the Salesian House in Poznan, Poland.

In 1982, Father Bernas completed a year of studying English and various African dialects before taking up missionary work in Zambia. The once reluctant priest candidate was put in charge of bringing seminarians from Poland and looking for new vocations; “I prepared six candidates for theology,” he said happily. “One of them became a diocesan priest, another became a bishop… a boy I sent to the novitiate in South Africa wanted to be a brother, [and] recently celebrated his silver jubilee.”

Due to failing health, Father Bernas received permission to return to Poland in 1994, but the cleric soon answered the call to serve as chaplain for the Carmelite Sisters from St. Louis, Mo. A subsequent term in Goshen, N.Y., was followed by a request for a chaplain from the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, Woodbridge, in 1997, where he resides today.