Tanzania: Polish Pilgrimage

So last Friday I headed down to Merryville Indiana to help set up for the polish pilgrimage. Saturday we were dropped off at St. Michael's Church in the Southside of Chicago. This is a huge deal for the Polish community. The Polish have been doing pilgrimages fro about 800 years. Supposedly in one of the Church's in Poland there is a picture of Mary drawn by the gospel writer Luke. No proff it is true or not. So the Polish have made pilgrimage fro weather whatever town or city they come from and walk to this church in Poland. SO everyone is walking from where ever they came from. The Polish started this tradition here in Chicago. This was the 25^th year they have done this walk from Chicago to Merryville Indiana. A Pilgrimage is a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance. It is typically a journey to a shrine or other importance of location to a person’s belief or faith.

At S.t Michael’s Church the Provincial from the US Salvatorians which is Father Joe , Provincial of Poland from the Salvatorians was there and Arch Bishop Mokrzycki from Poland who worked for John Paul the 2 was there. A provincial is a person who is like an elected president for and order and serves 3 years for there order which in my case is the Salvatorians. The mass was pact. We were crammed in the pews and all the aisles and in front of the altar was filled with people. There was no room to spare in the massive church. At mass they ran out of hosts because there was so many people. After that the walk started. Today was a 20 mile walk to Hammond Indiana. My job was to follow Van 3 and make sure everything went smoothly. They had 5 vans that had hug speakers on top. In Van three someone was always singing in the microphone or giving a talk. Everything was in Polish. People were coming up to me and asking me questions in Polish but I couldn’t answer. I did learn goo day, how are you, I’m very good, and Thank you pretty quickly. Of course I don’t know how to spell it correctly so I’m not even going to try. I can’t believe how many people were walking. They first day there was some 6,000-7,000 people walking. It was Incredible. Old and young who made the walk. Many were singing at the top of there lungs in polish. It was quit impressive.

I was pretty exhausted from the walk. We did take a break in the middle and at Kielbasas kraut , cabbage and other various polish dishes.Once we reached Hammond. Everyone spend the night there. Incredible there was not a single spot being unused. They probably have about 4 acres and tents crammed next to each other. No floor space inside either. Every hallway nook and cranny someone was sleeping in. I could not believe. It Then they woke up to walk 13 miles to Merryville which they have a Shrine of Mary. It is a Huge painting that they have in the back of the church. However I didn’t walk that day. My job was to set up in Merryville at the Salvatorian center with the Shrine. All morning I spent unloading a semi truck filled with pop, beer, kielbasa, blood sausage, hot dogs, pork chops, chicken, kraut, cabbage, and many desserts. I can’t believe how much food and drink was there. Every time I walked the the kitchen the old Polish ladies said, “try this try that”. They fed me the whole time. It was a complete day of eating and carrying food.There was never a moment where I wasn’t full. The Polish cooks were sweet old ladies. Very very nice.

Buy the time everyone arrived it was crazy. About 8,000 people they think were there. Everyone eating drinking celebrating. Then they had a huge mass outside. It was a sight to see. I felt I was in the Vatican when the Bishop was holding up the Eucharist and some 8,000 people were on there knees looking up intently. Communion took about an hour because there was so many people. I have never seen anything like it.

Oh I also had trash duty as soon as I would empty a trash container and put a new bag in it would be filled up with in 15 minutes. So I was running from trash can to trash can trying to keep up. After mass. I was invented to have dinner with all the religious. The Bishop of Chicago made a speech then the bishop of Poland made a speech and then we had this incredible meal. White borsch soup. Red and green cabbage, tripe soup, mash potatoes, green beans, peacan chicken. Chicken stuffed with rice, and pork stuffed with mushrooms. Very tasty. There was 30 of us at the dinner. Sister Angela from Poland flew over here just to cook for this event. She is the head nun in charge of the Salvatorian sisters in Poland. Amazing cook. I asked her if she will marry me. She laughed. I’m guessing she is about 75 years old. She was written 4 cook books. In Poland. I asked her if I could get one but she said it is only written in Polish. That night we finished clean up and crash. The next morning had breakfast with the polish group and got ready to leave. I helped Mario out by carrying his stuff out of his room and closing the door. He panicked because the door was locked and his car keys were in the room and father Lukas had the spare keys in Chicago. Mario was staying on the second floor of the building. I tried using a paper clip to open the door but no luck. I saw this old maintenance man on a tractor. I stopped him and asked him if he could help he said with a very thick polish accent. “No problem. I get knife and open doo”. I said. Well do you have a ladder because the window is open. He said ok. No problem 5 minutes. Well he drove his tractor up tot the building and raised the bucket. Their wasn’t a ladder tall enough. This 70 something year old man climbs up the tractor and into the bucket. Then he asked me to hand him the ladder. I handed it to him. I’m thinking this guy is flipping nuts at his age might I add it was raining. He stand the Ladder in the bucket of the dumpster and climbs up the ladder to the window and knocks out the screen and climbs into the room. He was 2 stories high when he did this. Nuts. He did do it in 5 minutes. He acted like it was no big deal, Do was locked and he knew he was going to open it. No problem.