Father Leo Dummer serves communion as Ronald Wendinger offers spiritual readings Left: THE WENDINGER BAND forms the backdrop for the spiritual blessing of bread and wine before communion at the St. George Catholic Church. Father Leo Dummer and Father Darold Lehmann conduct the service.

ST. GEORGE — The congregation is solemn as the priest speaks.

Finishing his short sermon, Father Darold Lehmann adds, “The offertory is ‘At this sacrifice.'”

From behind him comes a wooden “tap,tap,tap,tap.”

THE HYMN begins, with clearly religious lyrics. The music is buoyed with the irrepressible sound of a concertina. The rows of crowded parishioners at St. George Catholic Church sing freely, occasionally a young member of the congregation swaying slightly to the music.

It is what Father Lehmann labels, with a distinct dislike for the phrase “polka mass”which is used in other parts of the country, the German Heritage Mass.

The church, which has offered the mass twice, the last time being July 27 during the midst of Gibbon’s Polka Days, does so under a decree from the Second Vatican Council in 1964, which ordered a modernization of the liturgy, according to Father Lehmann.

“There is a call for the use of music that is meaningful,” he says, pointing out that for some the church has been stagnant. “It has now begun to move again.”

THE POLKA music, according to him, is used to better worship God.

‘We use the music that we love. The songs are songs that express what we feel in our hearts.’

‘We have something very valuable to give to God in this way — a part of our heritage.’

“We use the music that we love,” he says.”The songs are songs that express what we feel in our hearts.”

There is no difference between the more traditional hymns and those at the heritage mass, according to the father, except that one is sung to the tempo of the polka. That is done, he says,”to praise and to worship God in the best way we can.

“We have something very valuable to give to God in this way-a part of our heritage.”

THE MASS, brought to St. George as a facsimile of one held in St. Cloud earlier this year, brought in a number of polka fans who’d been visiting the Gibbon festival and crowded the church so much that one woman, as she entered the church, muttered “You can’t even get into your own church any more.”

But the vast majority of those who attended the mass seemed to like it.

“I think it’s great, said Art Paquay, a member of the congregation. “It really fits in they call it the German Heritage Mass and about 90 per cent of the people are German.”

Peter Wendinger of the Wendinger Band, which played, points out that once the congregation was convinced to try it, there haven’t been any problems.

“This has everything beat,” he says.”People go for this, and even the bishop said they have to do something more entertaining to bring people to church.”

New Ulm Daily Journal

Aug. 5, 1975