On Spirituality and Polish Catholicism

Spirituality has been always important to me. Since I was a little girl churches had a special appeal to me. They still do, even if the reasons are perhaps different now.

It was only natural that being born in Poland, the country that has always been a catholic country, I equated spirituality with being religious in the catholic sense. The liturgy has been so mysterious and beautiful. I loved the way the clergy was dressed and I absolutely loved the aroma of burning incense.  I wonder if the incense is still being burnt during masses. My parents would not take me to church very often, I suspect they were not all that religious. However, while visiting my grand parents in their village, every Sunday my grandmother dressed me in my best dress and I was ceremoniously taken to the church. My grandmother, holding my hand, walked proudly through the main street nodding her hello to the met villagers. She was showing her granddaughter off. Being a dressed up doll was definitely not the part I liked to play. In addition the church in the village was not what I considered a proper church. It did not have stained glass windows and it was too light and sunny. No real atmosphere. But the worse thing was that the Sunday mass with my grandmother was a social exercise rather than a spiritual event.

Later on, when I was a bit older and could decide if and when to go to the church, I rarely selected Sunday mass for a church visit. More often it was a lonely visit to an empty church of my liking. I lived in a rather small town and the choice of churches was not that spectacular, but the main town church fully met all my expectations. It was big, dark, had beautiful stained glass windows, dark frescos through the whole church and many old paintings and sculptures in the aisles. The nave was also very special. The vaulting was painted in navy blue and covered by golden stars. It was like a starry night sky. Two thirds of the way from the main entrance a big cross divided the nave. Behind the cross was another altar, sculpted in silver metal. Knowing the excesses of wealth of the Catholic Church the altar must have been at least silver plated if not solid silver. It was enchanting to me. In those times churches were never locked up. Now they are most of the time.

As a teenager, I visited the church when I had some problems. It may have been problems with a teacher, a friend, or the parents or a boyfriend.  Whatever my problems may have been, I thought of them as serious at the time. Serious enough to walk quite a distance, to sit down in my favourite pew and pray. My payers were really meditations, only I did not know the concept of meditation then. I was sitting in the cool, dark church for a while, looking up at the paintings of  saints, asking for a solution. I always left uplifted having some plans how to resolve my dilemma. At that time I felt a catholic. In fact I was quite a religious girl, observing some religious practices. I needed to feel that it was a power above me. A loving force.

Then, some observations came and brought confusion to the young mind and made me think critically about clergy. The first disappointing surprise came during a sermon on virtue of self-denial and beauty of living in poverty. I knew the preecher and was very surprised that he was saying things that were so different from the way he led his life. Outside the church, he wore elegant suits, drove an exclusive car and liked good food and good wine. I could often see him promenading in his civil cloth waving his beautiful walking stick with a silver handle.  He did not need any help of a cane unless to create this debonair image. He definitely did not practiced what he preached. I could not understand the discrepancies, I but stopped listening to sermons at those rare occasions when I attended a mass. I declared them as false.

Another surprise was to discover that celibacy is too difficult to live by many priests. I saw priests at social occasions in the company of their housekeepers. They looked and behave the same as married couples. I thought it was strange and my mother giggled when I expressed surprise.

When I recall the stories, I am amazed by my naivety and innocence. 

This was going to be a short introduction to write about Catholicism in Poland, but it turned out to be self-indulging reminiscence of my start to spiritual transformation. I will come back to the subject in one of my next posts. Being in Poland one can not stop observing and evaluating church issues. Too much of that shows in news and is present in politics. And this is not pretty.