Main Performance:

• “Te który maja miłość w kartę nie ma miłości”
  • Transliterated Proverb
    • Te który = Those who
    • Maja = Have
    • Miłość = Love
    • w kartę = With cards
    • nie = No
    • ma = Has
  • Full Translation: Those who have love in cards have no love.
    • Explanation: The proverb refers to how those who have fair luck in life do not have love in their lives.

Background:

The informant, JK, is one of my close friends from my Catholic high school who I maintain contact with after graduation. He hails from a devoutly Catholic Polish family. Among most of the families that I knew of while attending, most of my classmates did not speak their family lineage’s mother tongue except for most of the my Polish and Hispanic classmates. No German and definitely not any Irish being spoken there.

Context:

My informant is currently attending medical school in Poland and I reached out to him through social media to ask if he had any traditional/folk-things he could share with me given his actively apparent and practiced Polish heritage, doubly so now that he is back in Poland.

My Thoughts:

What comes to my mind is that whoever has luck or whoever flaunts their luck is hiding the fact they have no love in their lives. Humility is a rather enormous concept in the Catholic faith so it only makes sense that those who are prideful about themselves, their fortune, and their lives are rather empty beneath it all and have no genuine love. Love also goes without saying as another key concept in Christianity as a whole and a life without love, or God’s love, is probably not life at all. Since this still Catholicism we’re discussing, it is never too late to renounce those prideful ways to become more humble so there isn’t a permanently accusatory tone there but there isn’t technically a suggestion for repentance, only pointing out an observation. Also seems to be another version of “lucky at cards, unlucky in love”.