Polish community abroad

Our people are everywhere. It’s enough to write in Google browser: “Polish people in Salt Lake City” and you get the information about some events right away. There’s a Eucharist for the Polish community in St Ambrosius Parish on every first and third Sunday of the month. Fr Andrzej Skrzypiec is the parish pries, who came to Salt Lake CIty from Katowice Diocese in Poland in 1989  – and has performed his ministry ever since.

I had to visit them. Quite a large group of Poles came to the Mass, people of different age, with or without children. After the Mass we had coffee and cake baked by some of the ladies.

Even thought time was short, and the Mass took the majority of it, it’s good to stay even for a while among the people who had been shaped by the same history, culture and language. Not to mention the great relief of preaching in Polish.

The altar boys spoke Polish with a strong American accent, the “organist” played traditional Polish church hymns on the piano, and the Liturgy texts were in Polish too – and all that 11,000 km away from Poland. How important  faith is in saving your identity so far away from Home.

Fr Jay