My husband was out yesterday and this morning, leading a Boy Scout outing, with 9 boys and 4 adults biking along the Illinois Prairie Path and camping at a forest preserve in Glen Ellyn in the western suburbs of Chicago. As is their tradition, they went to Sunday mass at the nearest church — in this case biking there — as a part of the morning’s activities. Only . . . in this case, the church in question, which they found by looking at masstimes.org, happened to be a Polish mission church, with 7 masses over the weekend, all in Polish.
I suppose the name of the church, as they approached, might have been their first clue. . . .
But from all reports, they took it all in stride. (One of the dads was of Polish heritage and understood Polish; everyone else was left to guess what was going on by the pattern of the liturgy.)
The picture above looks like a sparsely-attended church, but that’s only because my husband took the picture after church was over. My husband tells me there were in fact lots of families there, as this was the “family mass.” There were also more young adults — that is, the demographic that typically disappears from American churches, too old to be taken to church by Mom & Dad, too young to have kids to bring to church themselves. And he reports that they did an above-average job of singing, though, interestingly, a good 1/3 or so stayed in the pews at communion-time.
So, no commentary here, neither of the “this is America, speak English!” variety nor gushing over immigrants retaining their culture. This is just interesting.
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