Hello edith,
And welcome to the Polish Forums.
I am Irish and have lived in Poland on and off for years.
I will make my own attempt at answering some of your questions with my own observations.
I am sure someone will be more than happy to point out if I got it all wrong.
"Would you say that the Virgin Mary or any particular Saints are important to your practice of Catholism?"
The Virgin Mary is said to be the queen of Poland.
Also you should know about the Polish custom of "
name days" (wiki).
Name days are still celebrated but not as much as they used to be, they used to take the place of birthdays.
Now birthdays are more widely celebrated and name days are for the more mature generation.
"Do you give offerings to the Virgin/Saint; if so why?"
There is something very interesting that happens in Poland every year hundreds of thousands of Polish people walk from various locations all over Poland to pay homage to the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Madonna Wiki ( a very holy religious painting of Mary).
Some friends of mine just came back from such a pilgrimage, which was coordinated by thier local priest, they walked for about 35 Kilometres a day and stay in houses in villages on their way.
It took my friends 9 days to get there.
I live near Krakow and there are some magnificent churches here, from many different architectural periods.
One of the main differences I see between Catholicism here in Poland and what it was like living in Ireland growing up, is that in Poland religion and politics are separate.
Communism tried to destroy religion, which made the people become stronger through their faith.
Every Sunday people flock to the churches in thier best Sunday clothes.
The RCC played a big role here in Poland during communism, it appears that part of the communist trick was to keep the people suppressed, this was done in many ways both in mind and in body.
My friends were a part of a church movement that would not drink alcohol in a kind of passive resistance against communism.
If you are sober you can make changes.
https://polishforums.com/history/poland-communism-fell-years-ago-led-35430/ - for a very in depth look into the fall of communism in Poland and what role the Church had in it.
I don't have time right now but I will add more of my observations on this subject later.