Oh dear Irapuato, Perhaps I have to think about it to move out to Löcknitz too. But first I will ask my new friend from Bautzen/Budisin where the blessed Andricki was born, what does he think about it.
Let's try to find a film about Löcknitz.

schoole:
A Polish Lifeline for an Ailing German Town
By JUDY DEMPSEY
Published: June 27, 2011
www.nytimes.com/…/28iht-letter28.…
LÖCKNITZ, GERMANY — It is boom time in Löcknitz, a small town in one of the poorest regions of eastern Germany. The many houses that fell empty after German reunification in 1990 when the young and educated from what had been Communist East Germany moved out have found new owners. The kindergartens are full. New schools are being built. Placards hanging on streetlights have big, bold print that is hard to miss: Property Wanted!
The reason for this boom is the Poles.
In a surprising twist of the Polish-German relationship, which for centuries had been dominated by war, conquest and ethnic cleansing, some Poles have now come to settle among their less-well-off German neighbors.
So much so that in Löcknitz, they are giving the town a new lease on life. “If there were no Poles here, the place would be completely empty,” said Artur Sobejko, 35, a Polish doctor who speaks fluent German.
Eight years ago, Mr. Sobejko and his wife, an economist, moved to Löcknitz. They bought a house. He set up his medical practice. “For a doctor, the conditions are much better here than in Poland,” Mr. Sobejko said.
But there is another reason why Poles are attracted to Löcknitz and other towns along this part of Germany’s northeastern border with Poland. Property is affordable compared with Szczecin, the thriving and prosperous Polish port on the Baltic Sea that is a mere 20-minute drive from Löcknitz.
“For the same style of house, you would pay €250,000 in Szczecin compared to around €35,000 here in Löcknitz,” Mr. Sobejko said, or about $350,000 versus $50,000. “Young couples wanting families simply cannot afford to buy back home.” According to Szczecin’s labor office, the average monthly salary is €750. No wonder, then, that Löcknitz has become a magnet for young Poles.
The impact on the town is remarkable.
Some of the signs are in German and Polish. The mayor’s office employs a Pole, who lives in Löcknitz, to help new residents overcome the bureaucratic hurdles in settling. Lothar Meistring, the town’s mayor, said nearly a fifth of new births each year are to Poles, who already make up 13 percent of the town’s 3,200 inhabitants.
“Only 2 percent of the houses are now empty,” Mr. Meistring said, which explains why real estate agents are advertising for property.
Yet Poles who choose to live in Löcknitz and other towns and villages in this part of Germany have no illusions. There are few jobs. The local industry collapsed after reunification. Mr. Meistring said the unemployment rate was more than 24 per cent. “The Poles who live here commute to their jobs in Szczecin,” said Andrzej Szmucinski, a ship engineer from that city, where the unemployment rate is 8.7 percent.
What a reversal of fortunes for Poland, which on July 1 takes over the rotating E.U. presidency.
Ever since the Poles joined the European Union in 2004, hundreds of thousands have moved to Britain and Ireland, Sweden and France and Germany. Despite earning more than they would back home, they have found that property in Poland is too expensive. Some found a solution. With the steady improvement in relations between Poland and Germany, some Poles have opted to live in Germany and work in Poland.
Not everybody is happy about that. In eastern Germany particularly, there is a strong neo-Nazi, xenophobic movement that can sometimes turn violently anti-Polish. Many others quietly share the prejudices that have persisted over centuries.
But still, the recent shift signals an extraordinary change between these two European countries.
For so long, they had stored up prejudices about each other. Hitler had contempt for the Poles, regarding them as inferior and uncivilized. When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, they made every attempt to destroy the country’s cultural heritage. This deep-seated loathing of Poles by Germans was continued and encouraged under Communism rule.
After the collapse in 1989 of the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe for more than 45 years, Poles and Germans began a long road toward reconciliation, first by acknowledging each other’s borders. Then, in June 1991, the former German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, and his Polish counterpart, Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, signed the Polish-German Treaty of Good Neighborly Relations and Friendly Cooperation.
“The treaty was designed to signal a new start between two states, whose relations in the 20th century had degenerated to the point of fatal toxicity,” argues Stefan Wolff, professor of international security at University of Birmingham, in Britain.
It was not an easy reconciliation. But successive German and Polish governments were determined to end the enmity and distrust.
Some of that distrust emerged during Poland’s negotiations on joining the European Union, which Germany had long supported. Warsaw wanted to delay for several years the right of E.U. citizens to buy property in Poland, arguing that it would lead to speculation.
The real reason was that Poles feared the return of the German occupiers, according to Polish diplomats involved in the talks at the time. There was a suspicion that Germans, especially the descendents of those who had been expelled from Poland after World War II, would try to return.
More than 12 million ethnic Germans were forcibly expelled from Poland, the former Czechoslovakia and other East European countries after Germany’s defeat in 1945.
The Poles failed in their quest. But Germans did not move back in droves to Poland, where today, around 300,000 ethnic Germans continue to live. If anything, Poland’s membership in the Union has helped deepen the rapprochement between Warsaw and Berlin.
Bronislaw Komorowski, the Polish president, made that point in a speech he gave this month at Humboldt University in Berlin to mark the 20th anniversary of the Polish-German treaty. He remarked that of all the reconciliation projects in Europe, the Polish-German case was by far the most significant.
“It’s not easy to overcome history and all the baggage that goes with it,” Mr. Szmucinski, the ship engineer from Szczecin, said. “It takes so much time to really know your neighbors. Poland joining the E.U. has made that possible.”

Hi, Schoole! Today I read an article about how the Polish people are saving a German city from "dying out"--will look for article later...

Irenaeus the Peacebringer
Thanks Irapuato

JUNE 28, 2011 DAILY PRAYER WITH REGNUM CHRISTI LETTING JESUS SLEEP June 28, 2011 Memorial of Saint Irenaeus, bishop and martyr Matthew 8:23-27 As Jesus got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!" And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, you of little faith?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?" Introductory Prayer: Lord, I come to you in this meditation ready to do whatever it is you ask. Left to myself I often take the easy and convenient path, yet I know the way of a Christian is through the narrow gate. In you I find the reason to abandon the easy path for a more perfect mission of love. I'm ready to learn the meaning of your command: "Follow me." Petition: Lord, grant me the grace of a mature faith. 1. God's Silence, Man's Faith: We can imagine ourselves in the place of the apostles, in this poor boat tossed by the turbulent waves. The situation instantly speaks to our worst of fears; yet Jesus sleeps. Our temptation is to wake him...and too many souls do so through complaining incessantly, despairing attitudes, withdrawing from prayer, or unloading anger on others. When in a moment of trial we find life is no longer under our complete control, the option of meltdown is always at hand. But we mustn't take that route; instead we must contemplate the power that emanates from the sleeping Christ. Trials are intended by God to draw us closer to him and increase our dependence on him. We have to live from faith; otherwise all that reigns is fear, insecurity and bitterness. The "Silence of Christ" is powerful. To pass over its meaning lightly is to abandon some of the deepest lessons of Christ's heart. The "Silence of Christ" must teach us. 2. The "Silence of Christ" Speaks to Our Faith: What is Christ's sleep like? As a young mother, Mary watched Jesus sleep many times. Archbishop Martinez writes: "Jesus was exceedingly beautiful when he spoke the words of eternal life, accomplished wonders, looked with love, pardoned with mercy and caressed with tenderness. But I would like to have seen him while he was sleeping because I could have contemplated him to my heart's content, without the fascination of his gaze distracting me, without the perfection of his beauty and the glory of his splendor dazzling my eyes and enrapturing my soul. The beauty of Jesus awake is far too great for my smallness. Who could support it? I felt it more suited to me veiled by sleep, as the glory of the sun is more adapted to my eyes when I look at it through a translucent lens" (When Jesus Sleeps, p.15). May I trust the power of Christ just as much when he chooses not to act as when he does. 3. God's Eternal Pedagogy: Water, a boat, the apostles and Christ... this scene repeats itself over and over again in the Gospel. Water is a symbol of the experiences of life taken on a human level; the boat is the experience of faith on a supernatural level -- it is our life with Christ. Christ's message is that we can never let our experiences of life overwhelm our experience of faith. We have to live not from the surface level of impressions of the moment, but from the deep channel of faith that reveals the action of God, the wisdom of his Providence and the ultimate destiny of eternity. Faith is what reveals Christ's presence in our boat; faith is what makes us believe that every wave and wind gust are blessed invitations to confide in the One who rules all. Faith is what permits God to console our hearts, calm our fears and preserve our joy in the midst of problems and difficulties that may take months or years to run their course. Conversation with Christ: Lord, I know belief makes me vulnerable. But I know that I will not know your love if I do not believe that you can make me happier than I can be by myself. If I do not face the enemies of my soul and my mission and abandon myself to your grace, I will not know your victory. Resolution: Today I will take a problem and, with complete trust and confidence in him, leave it totally in God's hands. meditation.regnumchristi.org

Saint Irenaeus (June 28) (130?-220)
The Church is fortunate that Irenaeus was involved in many of its controversies in the second century. He was a student, well trained, no doubt, with great patience in investigating, tremendously protective of apostolic teaching, but prompted more by a desire to win over his opponents than to prove them in error. As bishop of Lyons he was especially concerned with the Gnostics, who took their name from the Greek word for “knowledge.” Claiming access to secret knowledge imparted by Jesus to only a few disciples, their teaching was attracting and confusing many Christians. After thoroughly investigating the various Gnostic sects and their “secret,” Irenaeus showed to what logical conclusions their tenets led. These he contrasted with the teaching of the apostles and the text of Holy Scripture, giving us, in five books, a system of theology of great importance to subsequent times. Moreover, his work, widely used and translated into Latin and Armenian, gradually ended the influence of the Gnostics.
The circumstances and details about his death, like those of his birth and early life in Asia Minor, are not at all clear.
Comment:
A deep and genuine concern for other people will remind us that the discovery of truth is not to be a victory for some and a defeat for others. Unless all can claim a share in that victory, truth itself will continue to be rejected by the losers, because it will be regarded as inseparable from the yoke of defeat. And so, confrontation, controversy and the like might yield to a genuine united search for God's truth and how it can best be served.
Quote:
A group of Christians in Asia Minor had been excommunicated by Pope Victor III because of their refusal to accept the Western church's date for celebrating Easter. Irenaeus, the "lover of peace" as his name indicates, interceded with the pope to lift the ban. Irenaeus indicated that this was not an essential matter and that these people were merely following an old tradition, one that men such as Saint Polycarp and Pope Anicetus had not seen as divisive. The pope responded favorably and the rift was healed. Some 100 years later, the Western practice was voluntarily adopted.
www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx