If you looked closely during one of the full-to-bursting Sunday evening student Masses last summer at the Dominican church in Krakow, Poland, you would have seen four nicely dressed young men sitting together in one of the pews. When the Mass ended, they took out their copies of the Liturgy of the Hours and said Vespers together. They went out afterwards for their usual evening lager, cigarettes, and discussion, and, although they did not talk about God, one could be fairly certain that God was enjoying their conversation.
I met these young men first when I was in Poland for the annual American Enterprise Institute seminar on the social teachings of the Church, held at the Dominican priory in Krakow. They were always lurking around here and there, helping Father Maciej Zieba, the Provincial of the Polish Dominicans and an organizer of the seminar, with some research at the Tertio Millennio Institute across the street. They often ate in the refectory with us, and from the first it was clear that the bond between them was very strong. Soon I discovered that what united them was something much more than a research project. It was nothing less than the common pursuit of the life of faith.
