April 2024 Newsletter – Light, Flavor, and Pierogi

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father

We entered the Easter Season with great joy on the cusp of this new month. We are living in the joy and radiance of the Easter Season — and guess what — it is Basket Social time.

The text above from Matthew 5:16 is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He began speaking about His people being salt (i.e., flavor) and light before the world. We are to be that which changes the as-is way of doing things to His new way, a way that gives hope, light, and flavor to life – a life very much worth living now and through eternity. We may fall into the trap of thinking these themes of radiance, hope, light, and flavor are something we must reserve for church and being around churchy people. Jesus would differ. After all, He told us to let our light shine before others. He spoke of these things before huge crowds of people — working to grow His Father’s Kingdom.

Efforts at being radiance, hope, light, and flavor definitely start internally, in our own community. Our working together, our generosity, creativity, and the joy that surrounds us as we prepare together – from the making of pierogi and gołąbki to the creation of baskets, and our working together in so many ways show us to be what Jesus desires we be. Our work upholds each other as we stand together even when things may seem stressful. Then we let our light shine out to all those we encounter — our public. The Basket Social is the perfect occasion for fun, for that radiance and joy human interaction elicits. In the midst of the fun something becomes apparent — people see the difference that Jesus makes in our lives and they are drawn to that. We Easter people are different because we choose patience when we might be impatient. We select kindness when others might not be kind. We smile even though we might be tired, and at the end of our rope.

Now, and into the future, let us together be the Easter difference all we encounter need – light and flavor, and be joy-filled in the doing.

Welcome to our April 2024 Newsletter. Indeed it is Basket Social Time – the 20th Anniversary of this wonderful event. We look forward to our work together and welcoming our beautiful supporters on Sunday, April 21st at Noon.

This April we walk together through the first thirty of the fifty days of the Easter Season. It will be a grand celebration of all Jesus has done for us. There are great events, beyond the Basket Social, also occurring this month including the annual Mission and Evangelism Workshop and the PNCC Scholar’s Conference.

Ever wondered about the origin story on the Baby Jesus you (or your family) used to dress up at home – the Infant of Prague – well check it out and more in this month’s newsletter.

20th Anniversary Basket Social & Polish Kitchen – April 21st

Come join us for the Grand 20th Anniversary Basket Social to be held Sunday, April 21st at the South Schenectady Fire House, 6 Old Mariaville Rd, Schenectady, NY 12306 starting at Noon. This year’s Basket Social will feature:

  • Nearly 100 themed baskets.
  • Homemade Polish food.
  • Raffles and Door Prizes

Join us for this wonderful event.

March 2024 Newsletter – The Love Response

If I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

In the second version of the Stations of the Cross, at the Eleventh Station: Jesus is nailed to the Cross, we pray: ‘if we ever saw this for what it truly is – a compelling demonstration of how far You would go to prove Your love for us – then we…’  

Then we would what? There are many answers to that. 

We might break down in sorrow over our sinfulness, our betrayals and failures in living up to Jesus’ gospel way. We might reform of those things. We might enter into contemplation – reflecting on the great mystery of Christ Jesus, trying to grasp the great love that propelled Him to suffer and die for us. We might rejoice in our redemption, acknowledging that Jesus’ sacrifice has freed us from sin and eternal death. We might be more thankful and faithful in our daily lives. None of these is a bad thing to do and all have value. Indeed, each of these and other faithful practices should be central in our life, not just an occasional or Lenten thing.

It is not just in the nailing to the Cross that we are reminded of all the compelling things Jesus did for us. A quick survey: He was bound that we might become free. He was crowned with thorns that we might be crowned with eternal life. He fell that we might rise. He was stripped that we might become clothed in glory. He died that we might live. He was buried to show us that the grave is not the end. In these many ways Jesus’ love is proved in its fullness. The question remains, what is the one necessary response.

In our Eleventh Station prayer we go on to say: ‘then we would be so moved and touched that we would eagerly give You our love in response.’ Jesus seeks a love response from us. Then we must declare in every moment of our eternal Easter lives, I will love as Jesus loved. Jesus says that He will draw all to Himself from His being lifted up on the Cross. If we see the Cross as what it truly is – the full-on intensity of God’s love for us, then we will live the love response Jesus seeks.

Welcome to our March 2024 Newsletter. March is racking up to be quite a whirlwind. We go from the third Sunday in Lent to Easter all within the month. Check out our Lenten offerings and our Holy Week and Easter schedule. We share the Lenten and Easter poetry of Rev. Walter Hyszko. We are preparing for our annual Basket Social (the 20th anniversary) coming up on Sunday,April 21st starting at noon. Do you get God’s Field? We offer various ways from online to subscriptions. In college or taking music lessons? Scholarships are available. All this and more in our March 2024 Newsletter. Check it out.

19th Basket Social & Polish Kitchen – April 30th

Come join us for the 19th Annual Basket Social to be held Sunday, April 30th at the South Schenectady Fire House, 6 Old Mariaville Rd, Schenectady, NY 12306 starting at Noon.This year’s Basket Social will feature:

  • Nearly 100 themed baskets.
  • Homemade Polish food.
  • Raffles and Door Prizes

Join us for this wonderful event.

April 2023 Newsletter – In All Things New Life

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one

The short excerpt above is from John 17:22, part of the Last Supper narrative between Jesus and His disciples, near the end of it. Whereas in the other three gospels Jesus actually eats a passover meal before He dies, in John’s gospel He doesn’t. The Last Supper is actually eaten before the beginning of Passover. So, the sequence of events leading up to the actual crucifixion are very different in John’s gospel. John’s gospel account records Jesus’ extended teaching (see John 13– 17). Although John does not retell Jesus giving the bread and the cup and instituting the New Covenant in His blood, the symbols and words used in the Lord’s Supper are abundant in John’s Gospel. While Jesus does not mention the new covenant in His blood in John, He does give the new commandment centered in that covenant (John 13:34), “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

Jesus’ teaching in this narrative are instructive to us as we move through our lives. As on Palm Sunday for Jesus, we experience times of glory and triumph. As on Maundy Thursday evening, we experience times of fellowship and bonding. As on that night and Good Friday we experience times of great sorrow and seeming defeat. Because Jesus fully understood and experienced our human condition, our joys, fellowship, pain and sadness, He wanted us to know what we have in Him.

Easter reminds us of the glory Jesus’ Father gave Him which He has now given us. This not just for the sake of having God’s glory, but so we may be one in that glory.

Easter reminds us of our new life in Jesus. It reminds us as our status as family to God and each other. We have an opportunity each day to live in this new life, so we see even our sufferings and trials in a much different way. They are not permanent. God’s love and life and our fellowship in Him overcomes even death forever. Happy Easter!

Welcome to our April 2023 Newsletter. We begin April in Holy Week and arrive quivckly at the Easter Season, reveling in the joy of Jesus’ resurrection which is also the promise of our resurrection. 

Join us throughout Holy Week and walk with Jesus through His passion, death, and burial so to arrive at His resurrection. One set of events cannot be understood without the other.

Our newsletter contains our full calendar of events, reminders of upcoming events, including the ever popular Basket Social on April 30th.

We look forward to seeing you.

Check out all that and more in our April 2023 Newsletter.

February 2023 Newsletter – Prepare, Grow, and Build Like Noah

By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. 

The text above is from Hebrews 11:7, wherein the writer is reminding people who knew the Hebrew Scriptures, of Noah’s faithfulness to God’s instruction and the fact that by being faithful he became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. 

This year, the Pre-Lenten season begins right on the first Sunday in February, and by the time this two-and-a-half week season passes on we are in Lent. It will go by quickly. This year, let us liken ourselves to Noah. We all know the account found in Genesis Chapter 5 – 9.

Scripture says that Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation and that he walked with God. While this was true of Noah, and because of Noah was also true in his family, the rest of the world was corrupt, violent, and filled with continuous evil (sound familiar?). The question to ask – Am I faithful like Noah, and how will my faithfulness affect this age? Noah certainly did not know what to do with the corruption of his time. While he acted properly, was righteous and blameless, he made no impact on those around him. God had to intervene to change the situation. For us, we live in the light of God’s greatest intervention. Not the flood, but the sending of His Son Jesus. That means we now know what to do and we have the power to do it (no flood needed).

Jesus showed us the way to go. He  gave us the gospel that is life. He enjoined on us the Beatitudes as a way of life along with all the other instruction from the Sermon on the Mount. If we do as Jesus taught, we will deeply impact our time, culture, and the people around us. As with the early Christians, people will be amazed and enter the kingdom. Like Noah, let us use this time to prepare, to grow in faithfulness, to build a way of life consistent with the gospel. Where we have succeeded, let us build further.  Where we have fallen short, let us prepare to fix it now, and fix it this Lent.

Welcome to our February 2023 Newsletter. With the start of February we enter the Pre-Lenten Season of Septuagesima. We engage in preparation for our Lenten journey because by the end of February we will be in Lent. This month and next we engage in the ministry of administration with our annual parish and financial meetings. Our Valentine’s Raffle is underway. SouperBowl Sunday is February 12th – let us give generously to feed those in need locally. We also celebrate Scout Sunday, review the great scholarships we have available, and list some fantastic Youth events/opportunities upcoming. There is a pizza/game night around the corner and the Basket Social is not that far away.

Check out all that and more in our February 2023 Newsletter.

18th Basket Social – Sunday, April 24th

Come join us for the 18th Basket Social to be held Sunday, April 24th at the South Schenectady Fire House, 6 Old Mariaville Rd, Schenectady, NY 12306 starting at Noon.

This year’s Basket Social will feature

  • Over 130 themed baskets.
  • Homemade Polish food.
  • Raffles

Join us for this wonderful event.

April 2022 Newsletter – Finding God, Even Today

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

At the start of the month we are nearly five full weeks into the Lenten season. On April 3rd we enter into Passiontide, the last two weeks of Lent, a time marked by the somberness of veiled statues and candles and deep reflection on the Passion of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So I ask, are you somber?

I know, from my own experience, that there have been years in which a deep somberness would overcome me by Passiontide since I had done nothing to reform my life. I did not engage in more diligent prayer, fasting, worship, or giving. I was not turning from my sins, nor did I change direction. I had great intentions at the beginning, on Ash Wednesday, but did not take any concrete steps. I would feel that, well, it is too late now… In other years I would start off wonderfully and then get stuck and would start going backward. So the question many somber people ask: Am I too late?

The scripture above from Jeremiah 29:13 says no. God’s infinite mercy says no. The very fact that we feel a somberness in ourselves is proof of God’s acting on us to change, turn away from sin, and go in His way. Is it easy to change, to yank the sinfulness out of ourselves, and to walk more closely with Jesus? No, it does take work – but turning with our whole heart has the full support and assistance of the Holy Spirit, our Guardian Angel, and the whole Church. So we must not despair nor be somber. We must start now. What makes a difference is setting aside the idea of intention. ‘I intend to’ is no more than words. We have to act. The Prophet Joel told us on Ash Wednesday: rend your hearts and not your clothing. That statement means we cannot just stand on the intention of change and return without ever doing anything. Intention is no better than tearing our clothes, an outward appearance. Rather, even today, we can actually change our hearts, our whole self, and find God waiting to embrace us. Seek wholeheartedly and find Him.

Welcome to our April 2022 Newsletter. At the start of April we enter Passiontide, then Holy Week, and finally arrive at Easter. We have tons of opportunities to finish Lent well with daily Holy Mass, Stations of the Cross, Bitter Lamentations / Gorzkie Żale, and our directed giving program. We invite you to join us for all things Holy Week and Easter. During the Easter Season we will also hold a welcome back/renewal day. Beyond all that, read about our engagement to help Ukrainian refugees.

There’s more to check out as well: We have blessed Polish Easter Baskets for sale (a portion of the proceed will be donated to Ukranian relief efforts), our amazing Basket Social is April 24th at the South Schenectady Firehouse, we are planning for the wonderful activites coming up Churchwide, and now is the time to apply for music scholarships.

All this and more in our April 2022 Newsletter.

March 2022 Newsletter – Remodeling

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being [remodeled] day by day.

Have you ever remodeled your home? Maybe you have rebuilt a car or truck? Maybe you changed the way things are done at work – improved them. In any event, consider what is involved in a remodel or re-do. My wife and I are in the process of updating our home. We watched HGTV and saw lots of nice things we might like to do. Finally we pulled the trigger and embarked on the remodel. Oh my… Well, it is nothing like HGTV. It will not happen in a weekend or in a sixty-minute episode. At each turn there is something unexpected, something one might consider frustrating. That, and the cost, the necessary investment. You like that vanity and sink – it will be eight to twelve weeks. We got the bathroom tile in, but now need to shave down your door. The moulding is disintegrating – you will need new moulding. It goes on.

Here we are in Lent. Here we are in this season of spiritual remodeling. Some parts of us may need a major redo, other parts, just a nice touch of paint. Nonetheless, we all need a remodel, a re-do in some measure. As we enter Lent we might view it like an episode of the other HGTV – Holy Grace TV. We think we can get it done quickly, but then reality sets in. It takes grace and work. Some of what we undertake is going to take time. Some of what we attack is going to require far more. Perhaps we need to bring in a consultant (a spiritual director, Holy Scripture, a good and proper Christian study book…). As with any work we need to do, we must begin by taking account of what we are willing to invest. Our investment: What things we can sacrifice to make more time for our Lenten re-do (prayer, charity, holy reading, sacrifice, diligence). Once we set to work we must fully expect the frustrations that will come along the way. It will not be easy, but wait till you see the result! Let us then enter our Lenten re-do, our internal renewal without delay.

Welcome to our March 2022 Newsletter. It is packed full of info on the season of Lent and all of the great opportunities we have to increase prayer, devotion, almsgiving (charity), and scriptural study. We need folks to go to the National Mission and Evangelism workshop and we should all participate in our Seniorate Lenten Retreat. 

The BASKET SOCIAL is back. Read further on our Discipleship focus on the Holy Eucharist, get your Polish Easter Baskets, and PRAY, PRAY, PRAY for The Ukraine. All this and more in our March 2022 Newsletter.

February 2022 Newsletter – Timeless Preparation

Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD.

The text above is from Jeremiah 17:7, the Old Testament reading at the start of Pre-Lent. The next verse goes onto say about the one who hopes and trusts in the Lord: They are like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: It does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; In the year of drought it shows no distress, but still produces fruit. As you will read herein, the Pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima is one of preparation. So the question, Preparation for what?

We could say that Pre-Lent is preparation for a better 40 day Lenten journey. That we might make time and schedule our fasting, prayer, giving  – that is certainly true. We could mark the time off on the calendar as days until Easter: 70, 60, 50 – that is true as well. Notice how both of these thoughts on preparation are time-constrained. I must set time to do these timely things according to the time on the calendar. However it might be better if we did not consider our preparation or even our lives as time constrained, as limited. We have, through our baptism, been  added to the great cloud of witnesses – disciples of Christ – who already reside in His eternal Kingdom. We are no longer time-bound. Rather we are freed to be as Jeremiah states. Then, let us prepare to be fully engaged as a people who trust in the Lord – having a real and active faith that Jesus does as He promised to do. We are to have full-time hope in Him – and that trust and hope leads to a courage when speaking about Jesus to others. If we focus on trust and hope and who we are in the Kingdom we turn out (bloom) like that tree. We are planted in Christ Jesus Who nourishes us. We do not fear the negatives, the “heat,” for Jesus has us safely in His care. We remain alive in Him, so prepare to bear fruit full-time by timeless lives that draw others unto Jesus.

Welcome to our February 2022 Newsletter. It is packed full of info on the season of Pre-Lent / Septuagesima, the two-and-a-half week time of preparation for the Great Lent (which starts late this particular year). We have provided materials linked herein for your study. We are holding our annual meetings this and next month, part of our ecclesial democratic tradition. The Valentine’s Raffle is here, SouperBowl Sunday, and Epiphany house blessings continue – schedule your time soon. March 6th is Scout Sunday and Scouts coming to church in uniform can get their Scout Sunday patch for 2022.

Also, read up on things to say in church, the meaning of “Lord have mercy,” College Stipends and Scholarships, free healthcare opportunities, and the BASKET SOCIAL is back. All this and more in our February 2022 Newsletter.