Poles around the world are celebrating today’s beatification of Ioannes Paulus PP. II, born Karol Wojtyła and known to most of us as John Paul II. As with his death, most wanted a commemoration that would please John Paul II.

Poles in the Greenville area celebrated with an outdoor Mass and picnic.

With some free advertising from a Polish-owned market in the Charlotte area, probably two hundred people Poles from South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia gathered in a park outside Spartanburg. A cookout and impromptu soccer football match followed a Mass under a canopy of new leaves in celebration of a newly beatified Pole.

The Mass included a number of songs, anecdotes, and poems about John Paul II, including an encore performance of “ÅšwiÄ™ty, ÅšwiÄ™ty UÅ›miechniÄ™ty,” the song L sang for the Palm Sunday celebration a few weeks ago.

This time, she had a backing choir and a boom operator.

After Mass, everyone did what Poles do best: converse and share food.

There were piles of sausages, bowls of chips, salads of all descriptions, and a table of deserts, and though it was intended to be a “feed your own family” picnic plan, everyone ranged among the groups, sharing food and laughter (among other things).

The children played

the adults talked,

and the priest played soccer football.

Family, sports, dancing, laughing, and Mass —

JPII was certainly smiling.