Reflection for the 2nd Sunday of Advent 2016

What if I’m
bored?

On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD, and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.

Today we are one week closer to standing before that stable. One week closer to welcoming the Lord.

That is a beautiful thought. My family puts up its Christmas decorations very late, days before Christmas. In the Advent spirit we are anticipating. We know that once the decorations are up, the vigil meal will be around the corner. We know that we will trek to church and witness the Babe born anew, and feel within ourselves His warmth – happiness, joy, peace, and the promise that because of Him we will have peace.

But what happens when we feel dead inside. What happens when all the expectation is gone – when that occasion about four weeks hence is a bore. The decorations are dusty already, the food isn’t good, and church is a function rather than a joy. Some might even think they are at peace when in reality they have just become numb.

That is where Israel was. The stump of Jesse is literally the sterility of David’s line. Jesse was David’s father and David’s male line was now impotent. Two hundred and seventy years after David was born to be King of Israel Isaiah told us that the dying, impotent, sterile kingship in Israel will produce its once and final King – the true King – the Lord Jesus.

Twenty-eight generations later. Jesus would be born of the line of David. His line – all but forgotten, dusty and dead, no flavor, nothing there and life suddenly springs anew.

John sets out for the Jordan. The prophet, the forerunner, has arrived. Word spreads – there is hope around the corner. Something amazing is about to happen. As the people came forward they acknowledged their sins – primarily the sin of lost hope, of not believing in the promise. Thy came forward to say, ‘Our dead hearts are waking up.’

Paul understood this would happen to us, so he says: May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus. Paul is telling us to keep it together, to be encouraged. Seven hundred years passed between Isaiah and Jesus. That is a lot of dust, a lot of boredom, and a lot of numbness. Life and joy lost.

What if we’re bored? What do we do? Start here: Surrender our pre-conceived to-do list. Time to change things up – to build a spirit of anticipation. Then, when the moment comes, we find in it the full power of the promise that is ours.

December 2016 Newsletter – Joy

Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Last year we dedicated ourselves to focusing on joy. In the spirit of one liturgical and calendar year ending and the next beginning, let’s look back. We began last year in Advent, a season of anticipatory joy. Fitting for us as Christians – God’s children – we awaited the best present ever. Then came that day standing at the stable, looking upon the baby Jesus and living the forty days of joyful celebration that followed. Knowing Jesus is always in our midst as well as newly with us. We walked though each season finding new joy in Christ and each other. Here we are – at the start – again reconnecting, celebrating, and knowing endless joy. Time to smile, shed a tear of joy at the stable, and look ahead.

Join us throughout December for a jam packed schedule of holy events, fellowship, and mostly joy. Escape the harangue of the world and find peace, time out from the madness in Jesus and the family of faith.

Send in your Polish Food Sale orders. Get a memory cross. Pick up those Christmas wafers / OpÅ‚atki. Join us for our annual Christmas Vigil / Wigilia pot-luck will be held on Sunday, December 18th following Holy Mass. Our SOCL students will present a short play for your reflection and enjoyment. Our brother, Derek Westcott will present two musical pieces he has been working on for months. Come see and support them. Genealogy, roots, stipends, college, read up…

You may view and download a copy of our December 2016 Newsletter right here.

Reflection for the 1st Sunday of Advent 2016

Taking instruction.
Reaping benefits.

For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Here we are, entering Advent. In a little more than four weeks we will stand at the stable as thousands in this parish have done since 1922, and billions of Christians do each year. If we could just imagine ourselves there for a moment, what would we say to ourselves – the person standing here today? What advice could we give ourselves?

Isaiah pegged it right when he told us to pay attention to the word of the Lord. This isn’t just a hearing, or a mere paying attention to, or a listening. Our paying attention must be converted to the integration of God’s word into ourselves. We are to make every act, word, gesture, project, task, and study a living encounter with God’s love – within ourselves and for each other.

As with most prophetic utterances Isaiah gives us both a consequence and a promise.

The promise is that our living encounters with God’s love results in this: They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. Those very real encounters within us and in our relationships come from walking in the light of the Lord!

The consequence is judgment. God looks at us and will judge whether our lives have been an encounter with His love. No one likes the thought of that because we all fall short. As such we must measure how our life in Jesus reaches reality and hold ourselves to a much higher standard. We cannot just ignore the consequence and hope for the best. We cannot walk in darkness and expect the promise to happen in spite of us.

Let’s get back to our advice to ourselves – I would say to myself – be careful each day to walk in the light of the Lord. Don’t make those mistakes. Let His word and His way be integrated in me; make it real in my every encounter. If the Lord’s promise fills me, and all I encounter, I will see His promise come to reality. People will be lifted up. Joy will be made real.

In today’s Epistle and Gospel we hear the challenge – our salvation is nearer now; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Our advise to ourselves – we cannot afford to set the light of the Lord aside or expect that the consequence is not near. So let us take up His instruction, live His promise and make every encounter a reflection of His light.

November 2016 Newsletter – My Choice is God

I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life

We recall the example of the Apostles who proclaimed under persecution: “We must obey God rather than men.” As we consider our vote, let us consider a beautiful garment or a warm blanket. Each thread makes up the whole garment or blanket. Each is vital to its appearance and its strength. Christian moral positions and teaching are like that. We cannot pick out a few threads and consider them more important than the others. The sanctity of life – conception to natural death – peace, freedom, economic justice, the family in God’s image, health care for all, environmental responsibility bear equal weight. As we pray and consider, let us find those candidates who will obey God.

Join us throughout November for great prayer, the remembrance of our dearly departed, and wonderful fellowship. It is the Month of All Souls, Come pray for our country at a series for weekday Holy Masses with a Novena at 8am from October 31st through November 8th. Send in your Polish Food Sale orders. Join us as we host the Mohawk Valley Seniorate Thanksgiving Celebration on Saturday, November 19th at 11 am with Thanksgiving Holy Mass followed by a free Luncheon. All that and more… See this month’s newsletter.

You may view and download a copy of our November 2016 Newsletter right here.

Reflection for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2016

Endless, joy filled,
hope.

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.”

This is one of those parables I refer to as the beautiful parables. They are a direct offer of hope. Today, and over the next two weeks Jesus offers His faithful special hope.

Hope is a verb; it is, as my high school teachers would say, an action word. It is something we engage in and do particularly as Christians. Hope is more than just desiring, longing, dreaming, or being optimistic. Hope is a confidence that what has been promised will in fact occur. It will happen. There is no might, or may, or maybe. As scripture tells us, it is yes and Amen. Jesus reminds us to let our confidence be known by our yes and no – really believing what we say is true because we are backed up by God Himself. In the Letter to the Hebrews we read: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Assurance and conviction is that inward and outward steadfastness in what we know to be true.

Dr. David W. Orr, Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics writes that “Hope is a verb with its shirtsleeves rolled up.”

The plain opposite of hope is despair. More than despair alone, it is the false illusion and confidence in things that cannot be backed up.

Do we trust in government? There is surely no promise there. Maybe there are some ideals (originally founded upon scripture), but still no guarantee. Do we trust in our good works alone? So many are deceived in thinking that good works are enough – that they will somehow be remembered and acclaimed beyond the memory of the next couple of generations. They are deceived for they sill be forgotten. None of these things are backed up by an everlasting promise.

Christian history is filled with the witness and words of those who had to face apparent hopelessness. They were confronted by war, poverty, personal failure and dreams unfulfilled, sickness, and death. We sit here in God’s presence and wonder whether we can hope, whether we dare hope and have confidence. Jesus answer to us is: Yes!

Christians who get this know that when they are down they will be raised up. They know that when they sin they will be forgiven. They know that nothing here and now is more powerful than what God has promised us. They simply know it – not so that they become arrogant but so that the hope they have might be spread through their joy. The tax collector found that joy.

Endless, joy filled hope is what God has given us in Jesus. It is for those who see in these beautiful parables the truth of His promises.

Solemnity of the Christian Family 2016

On the
level.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image.

As family He created them! God’s plan, set out from the very beginning was that we were to live as family. God’s creation and intervention follows along a singular thread that is family. On this special Solemnity, found only within our Holy Church, we focus on what it means to be the Christian family.

As we have just heard, the family that is our God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – created us in their image. Four chapters later in Genesis God calls out to Cain: “Where is Abel your brother?” Cain replied, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” God was asking such a basic question – where is your brother, why didn’t you see him as your brother, why didn’t you love your brother? Cain’s insufficient answer, his excuse is a lesson to us. God holds us to a much higher standard.

From the beginning God communicated to family. Abraham came from Ur with his wife and brother, and all their family. God saved Jacob and his sons through their brother Joseph. Those sons were the progenitors of the twelve tribes. God’s people were one family, one genealogy. God sent Moses and Aaron to bring His people, His family out of Egypt. They would be victorious and they would fail together. They would do penance together and they would enter the land of promise together. Over and over they fell and rose together. Together they awaited the promised One of God. Together they failed to recognize Him. The gospel as recorded by St. John, which we will hear at the end of today’s Holy Mass, calls to mind: He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.

St. John goes on to proclaim our hope: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. What was a family genetically related, born out of the sons of Jacob, has been replaced by a new definition of family. It is the Christian family born as children of God in the blood of His Son, Jesus.

Christian family is inclusion and participation in the Divine family. It means we live in a different way. We live as family from our first profession of faith and our baptism in water and the Holy Spirit. This family means no artificial barrier, no distinction in race or class. We are one family standing at the foot of the cross, where the ground is level, where we all look up and recognize our hope. There we receive salvation on the level. We say with the Psalmist: My foot stands on level ground; in the great assembly I will bless the Lord.

Reflection for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2016

Growing, learning,
blazing forth.

I remind you, to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.

St. Paul wrote these words to his beloved co-worker, Timothy, who helped Paul by co-authoring and/or delivering six of Paul’s letters. He was addressed directly in two others. Timothy was originally from Lystra in Lycaonia, the son of a Greek father and a Christian mother. Paul commended Timothy’s sincere faith and mentions that the same faith was previously alive in Timothy’s grandmother Lois and mother Eunice. This is a great testimony to the power of family and its example in the Christian life. Timothy joined Paul around 49 AD and worked with him throughout his life. Timothy was with Paul and Silvanus when they first established Christian communities in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth. After training Timothy, and seeing his faith, gifts, and his family’s example, he ordained him as chief pastor and bishop of his community.

As with Timothy, God has placed a gift in each of us. But, like coals burning under the ashes, sometimes God’s gift remains hidden. The challenge is to reveal and awaken it. How to do it?

Jesus spoke of mustard seeds several times. This small seed, this life filled ember, needs to be nurtured and grown. Jesus asks us to have at least faith like that seed. In prayer we help that faith to grow, to become a large bush in which the world can find refuge. We turn it from a smoldering ember to a blazing fire. That fire causes us to do more than the minimum God asks, it helps us in becoming God’s saint heroes.

By praying and in worship we begin to discern the gift God has placed in us. We awaken it and help it to grow into something that is so much more. This is our contribution to the process.

Others also contribute by awakening the gift of God in us. When we look at ourselves, it can happen that we only see what we lack. That leads to discouragement. When someone looks at us with trust, it can transform us. That is how Timothy discovered his gifts – through his grandmother and mom who had planted the seed and encouraged him, and through Paul who trusted him. This is how his mustard seed of faith grew into a blazing fire of witness.

God is the One who awakens His gift in us. God believes in us and trusts us for what we are. God himself has given us “a spirit of strength, love and self-control” He has given us the inner strength to dare to give our life for others, to grow our small seeds and to blaze forth; to encourage all we meet so their flame of faith may grow.

Reflection for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time and Spójnia Sunday 2016

Shall we remain
blind?

Jesus said to the Pharisees: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table.”

Our Old Testament reading lays it all out there. Amos is drawing a very clear picture of Israel’s complacency, laziness, arrogance, and blindness. They were too busy enjoying themselves, believing they had it all – and they failed to see the collapse that was all around them. Jesus picks up this theme in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Jesus points to the ways we can be complacent, lazy, arrogant, and blind. In illustrating the way one man failed to see what was right in front of him, Jesus reminds us that we can miss what is right in front of us. Even nature, in the form of dogs, recognizes what man could not see. This is a warning – in each age we must be awake.

We have been truly blessed here in Schenectady. Our members are faithful and generous. Everyone works together to raise up the Name of Jesus. The Gospel is proclaimed and we live it. We have a very high PNU membership rate. Yet we must redouble our efforts. Awake and aware, we must lead people to Christ and his Church.

The organizers of our Church, men and women, clergy and lay, came together because their eyes were open. They didn’t just sit in their pews blindly coughing up pennies and nickels while being accused of every evil and threatened with hell. They saw the hatred of evil pastors. They saw the power of greed and the exercise of iron-fisted rule. They saw hypocrisy. They didn’t ignore it and took action – organizing a pristine Church on the model of the early Church. Eleven years later and still on alert, they saw persecution and injustice. They took action – founding Spójnia. In this day and age we must remain diligent and awake doing what is needed.

Our world and our country are faced with tremendous challenges. Yet too many eyes and ears are closed as they were in Israel. We stretch comfortably on couches, eat rich food, listen to improvisations, drink wine in excess, and anoint ourselves with the best perfumes and lotions. As people of faith we must wake the world to God’s justice and truth.

Tragically, our Church is facing dire times. National Church dues amount to $2.15 a week, yet thousands have decided the Church is not worth it. Heaven forbid they go up to $3 a week! The PNU cannot get people to join together. As Amos warned Israel: the road ahead will be captivity and disgrace. Will that be our fate? We have much to do. Eyes open and resolute it is time to rise again. Let us lead the way to salvation.

September 2016 Newsletter – Coming back or staying home, our choice matters

Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Five years – I can hardly believe it! We have been hosting Back to Church Sunday each September since 2012 and this will be the fifth time. Will we see each other there? I certainly hope and pray I will see you.

The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews exhorts us to assemble together for public worship. The group that assembles for worship will be the very group that is assembled on the last day. Meet together now so we may meet together at Jesus’ return.

The apostle says that we must regard it as a sacred duty to meet together for the worship of God. No causes should deter us. From this sacred social duty grace is received, we are strengthened, our light is increased, and our heavenly inheritance is confirmed. See you September 18th at 9:30am or 11:30am.

Also in our newsletter, tons of upcoming events – check them out and pitch in. There are reports on our summer activities. Say congratulations to our Music Scholarship Winners. Participate in our National Webinar. So much more too…

You may view and download a copy of our September 2016 Newsletter right here.

Reflection for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2016

Run, compete, and
do not quit.

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.

One thing you learn in Olympic competitions is that you never look back or across at you opponent during a race. You don’t do it on the track or in the pool. Doing so slows you down, it takes those few milliseconds off your timing and you end up losing.

In the world of sports, particularly like Olympic wrestling, if you are in great pain or can’t take it any more you can tap out. When someone taps out, they are surrendering to their opponent. They are throwing in the towel, they are giving up, and they are quitting the fight. They are saying you win, its over, I’m done, it’s finished.

These competitions are nothing compared to the battle Jesus waged on a daily basis. The writer of Hebrews tells us that if we are struggling and thinking about throwing in the towel, look at Jesus as the greatest example of someone who didn’t quit when the battle was hot, and his foes multiplied.

When we are faced with struggles we need to realize that throughout Scripture we see examples of people who tapped out. Adam and Eve had only one chance at tapping out to temptation – and they took that road. Noah did it with alcohol. Abraham did it out of fear. David did it when he gave into lust. Judas decided money was more important than God. Peter thought denial was the better choice. The crowd found Jesus’ word too hard and quit.

All though history and in our lives we tap out. The record of humanity is a horrible record of failure and tapping out.

But that isn’t the only the thing the Bible, or history, or our lives tell us. From Adam and Eve forward, right alongside every tap out and failure, God gave us His promise: Help is on the way. That promise of help was fulfilled in Jesus. Know that even before trouble comes, help is already worked out.

The thing about Jesus is His humanity. We can really be like Him. We can live as He lived. Look at all He faced and He didn’t tap out. The writer of Hebrews tells us He didn’t tap out even in taking up His cross.

Those who believe in Jesus, who follow Him – His saints too – the great cloud of witnesses figured that out. They too, once they found Him, refused to tap out. It is because of the joy we have – the great promise – that we must run without looking back and wrestle without tapping out.