The Celebration of Christmas in Schenectady 2024 – 2025

Join us this Christmas Season and celebrate the continuing birth of Jesus in our lives.

All services are at the parish at 1040 Pearl Street in Schenectady.

  • December 25: Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas), Shepherd’s Holy Mass / Pasterka at Midnight and Holy Mass of the Day at 10am.
  • December 26: Feast – St. Stephen the Martyr. Holy Mass at Noon.
  • December 27: St. John, Apostle & Evangelist. Holy Mass at Noon with Blessing of Wine (bring a bottle or two to be blessed).
  • December 29: Sunday – Solemnity of the Humble Shepherds. Holy Mass at 10am and Noon.
  • January 1: Solemnity of the Circumcision. Happy 2025! Holy Mass at Noon.
  • January 2: Solemnity of the Holy Name of Jesus. Parish Feast. Holy Mass at Noon.
  • January 5: Sunday – Solemnity – Holy Family. Holy Mass at 10am and Noon.
  • January 6: Solemnity of the Epiphany of our Lord. Holy Mass at Noon includes blessing of chalk, charcoal, and incense.
  • January 12: Sunday – Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord. Holy Mass at 10am and Noon.

December 2024 Newsletter – Prepare to Give Him Our All

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In so many ways we are in a time of preparation. There were preparations for Halloween, All Saints and All Souls Days, Thanksgiving, and we now prepare for Advent, the Nativity of the Lord, the New Year, and Epiphany. It truly is a wonder we get it all done. On top of that are our weekly preparations, work, normal shopping, cleaning, and cooking as well as the good works we do with our Food Pantry partnership and our CarePortal work that serves families in crisis. With all that understood, it comes down to approach. I have learned through many a lesson in the pitfalls of forgetfulness that a well documented list of to-dos helps. I like making shopping lists, or taking the ones sent me (can you pick up some milk on your way home) and then deleting the items as I accomplish them. Gives one a certain sense of satisfaction. On top of all the preparing and accomplishing we tend to be influenced by expectation. I know that too – remembering the search for Cabbage Patch dolls and Teddy Ruxpin – and that was when there was no online shopping outlets.

I am not going to deride the preparations, the work involved, or even the expectations around us. The work is typically done with love and concern, a way to make our loved ones’ days brighter, an effort to ease their burdens in life. The expectations are really a call from the heart – a desire to be seen and acknowledged – to be loved.

Jesus did the same and asks the same. Let us be careful to ensure He is on our lists and let us make every effort not to cross Him off the list. Let us be careful so that when Christmas arrives we are not surprised, shocked, or whispering to ourselves – that went so fast. Our efforts done out of love for Him need to reflect all He has done and continues to do for us. From His incarnation to His death it was all for us. Let our lives then be all for Him and His gospel way. Prepare, He is near.

 Welcome to our December 2024 Newsletter. It is indeed a time of preparation as we begin a new Church Year on December 1st with the First Sunday of Advent. The Opłatki (Christmas Wafers) and Advent Wreath are prepared. As the new liturgical year begins we look forward to all our Advent activities and our entry into the Christmas season.

Join us for Rorate Holy Masses by candlelight on Wednesday mornings at 7:30am. We have an American Goulash sale on Sunday, December 8th starting at 11:30am. Get your pre-orders by clicking here. We hold our annual Vigil / Wigilia Dinner on Sunday, December 15th after 10am Holy Mass. We hold our Greening of the Church on Sunday, December 22nd. Fr. Jim celebrates his 10th anniversary of his ordination to the Holy Priesthood on December 6th.

We continue in our charitable works with our food and clothing collections. Join in to support our music director and the Thursday Musical Club as they perform Night Divine at the First Reformed Church of Schenectady on Saturday, December 7th at 2pm. Get a Memory Cross for the parish Christmas Tress in memory of a departed loved one. There are still Christmas Vigil tickets available. If all 100 sell the prize will be $2,500. You can also get advance tickets for the Valentine’s Raffle supporting our parish youth – put one in a card to someone.

Please remember annual dues and Epiphany home blessings. …and, see what else Fr. Jim is up to.

All this and more in our December 2024 Newsletter.

Visit Us at the Altamont Fair 2024

Holy Name of Jesus is a White Ribbon Sponsor for this year’s Altamont Fair running Tuesday, August 13th through Sunday, August 18th. We are underwriting the Chapel at the Fair (near Gate 3 in the Grove).

Holy Mass will be held at the Chapel on Friday, August 16th at 11am. Parish volunteers will be present all day. We have give-aways too.

See you there.

October 2023 Newsletter – Earnest Love

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

Welcome to October! We see a wonderful theme for this month carried on from our celebration of Brotherly Love in September. It is this, a theme of deep focus on sacrificial love. Peter reminds us of our Christian duty to sacrificial love in 1 Peter 1:22 as quoted above: love one another earnestly. How do we grow in love?

October is the month of the Holy Rosary. We must ensure, of course, that we keep the rosary in perspective as a methodology for concentrated prayer and not as some sort of magical mystery thing. The rosary takes us on a tour of the glorious, joyful, and sorrowful moments (called mysteries in the rosary) in the life of Jesus. What we see in each moment of His life and that of Mary is their living out the sacrificial love that marks the gospel way of life. They give of themselves totally to do as God the Father asks. By their example and our focusing on that example, we discover new ways to share our love. We pause to recollect how we might imitate Jesus and follow His call to love as the Father asks.

Also in October we celebrate the Christian Family in a special way. The family, as designed by God, is the seed bed for developing a life that conforms to St. Peter’s guidance – foremost by obedience to the truth. The family relationship, the smaller model for the wider Church, is the place we learn true self-sacrifice, whether it is giving up our time or treasure to serve another member or in giving up our dreams to bring the aspirations of the other to fruition. Further, the truth of God and our obedience to it is also self-sacrifice founded in love. No, we must not meander through life just doing whatever we please if we call ourselves Christian. We set aside our urges to do as we please in order to follow Jesus’ way of life and the Father’s call to us.

To love one another earnestly means we place our whole selves in the service of love. We privy ourselves by obedience to God’s truth and with sincerity follow Jesus, imitate Mary, love on our families, and take a back seat to the other.

Fall is here and we are busy. The blessing of pets will occur at Holy Masses on Sunday, October 1st. We celebrate the month of the Holy Rosary with regular prayer on Fridays at 3pm and we honor the Christian Family with a special Solemnity on October 8th. We cover the unfortunate occurrences (debacle) in the Polish Catholic Church in the Republic of Poland. Read up on the PNUA transition to the PNA.

We look forward to the months ahead replete with activities including our Seniorate Thanksgiving celebration. Fr. Jim will offer online catechism classes starting October 11th. That and so much more to read up on.

Check it out in our October 2023 Newsletter.

Reflection for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. When it was evening He was there alone. 

Thank you for joining today as we continue our Ordinary Time journey focused on listening to, obeying, and witnessing to Jesus.

You may recall, the last time we were in Year B Sunday readings, which we will be again starting this December in Advent, we read from the Gospel according to St. Mark. The Gospel according to St. Mark is sparse. There is no infancy narrative. Right in the first chapter, verse 35, after performing many great works, Jesus went out to a lonely place to pray.

We see this action several times throughout the Gospels. That time in private prayer culminates with Jesus’ prayer in the garden before His arrest.

What do you think Jesus prayed about?

The only account we have of His private prayer is that in the Garden – His agony foreseeing what would occur and His commitment to the Father’s will. All the other prayers are unaccounted.

We might take a clue about His prayer from the experiences surrounding Jesus’ prayer. He had just fed the thousands and saw them as sheep without a shepherd. Mathew’s gospel notes that [He] saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them. Jesus’ heart hurt for all humanity faced. His heart hurt for the blindness of the people as He wept over Jerusalem (see Luke 19:41-44). He rejoiced when He found mutual love and acceptance of the Kingdom.

Jesus, God of creation, the breath of God Who moved over the waters knew what was intended for us: our eternal happiness; fellowship in God; peace and comfort; endless joy. He experienced all that we must face in our brokenness, in the hurt and sin that pervades in the world and blocks our way to God’s desire for us.

As we pray when faced with difficult situations, as we plead in our frustrations, as we give thanks in times of joy so did Jesus. His humanity gave thanks and cried out, but with a unique perspective – God’s perspective. He prayed in His compassion for us.

As Jesus approached the disciples in the boat, they feared. As Peter sank, he cried out. In both cases Jesus responded to take away fear and to save. So, He does with us. What Jesus prayed for was us – that we accept Him, follow His way, and have  faithful courage in all things.

November 2022 Newsletter – On God’s Journey

“But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

November brings together several liturgical events that lead us on a journey. We spend the first couple of days of November celebrating all the saints and then remember all those who have gone before us, our dearly departed family members, friends, co-workers, and all those we loved. We start in our faith history. By the sixth of the month we are reading about the end times, the last things, from Luke’s gospel. We study eschatology — death, judgment, the coming final destiny of our souls and of the souls of all humanity. We focus on our ultimate destination. On November twentieth we conclude in the celebration of our one and only King – Jesus Christ Who will rule and reign over us forever in the Eternal Kingdom of God. Shortly thereafter the Church year ends and we start anew in Advent, the new Church year, expectantly awaiting the return of Jesus.

What we must be careful of in considering this time of the liturgical year is avoiding the temptation of seeing it as just repeating over and over. Here we go again, ending one cycle, beginning another, it will happen again in November 2023, 2024, 2025… and so on. Rather, we are to use this time as a reminder of the fact that we are moving along a linear timeline from our start in God to our ultimate end in God, and what we are to do in-between. Just as Scripture begins in God’s creation and ends in Jesus’ return, speaking along the way of God’s love for us, so must we live in a constant journey toward God, a closer likeness to His love in our everyday environments, and our ultimate end where we stand before the Son of Man. Jesus asks us to be the difference, the Kingdom builders along the journey. Let us then do as Jesus asks, staying awake – and that means being engaged – getting to work building the Kingdom, walking the gospel path, and praying in worship, as families, and alone.

Welcome to November and all the opportunities God offers for discipleship, charity, thsanksgiving, and Kingdom building.

In November we celebrate All Souls and All Saints day, recall our beloved family, friends, and all those we loved who have gone on before us. There is a brief report on our XXVI Holy Synod, an invitation to a VERY IMPORTANT Seniorate and youth gathering on December 3rd, as well as our Pizza and Game Night on November 12th. Of course we give thanks. Note that we still have tickets available for our for our $2,500 Christmas Vigil Raffle. Get them soon.

Have you ever felt alone and abandoned? See what God does through His people in the story of Little Larry and see how you can help out too.

Check that and more in our November 2022 Newsletter.

Reflection for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022

Prayer and loyalty.

Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.

Welcome, thank you for joining us this Sunday as we testify to and act on our faith in our Lord and Savior.

If we listen carefully to the liturgical Propers for today, we will hear these words in reference to prayer: loyal, ever, constant, always, persist, patience, at every opportunity, watch, persevere, never cease, steadfast, call. All these words are action words, none are passive.

These words apply to the woman seeking a just judgment in today’s gospel. She was an engaged individual; she would not let the wicked judge off-the-hook even though she knew he was wicked.

The woman seeking a just judgment had something the wicked judge did not have. While not plainly said, she was a woman of faith who combined her faith and respect for God and others with action.

Jesus really wants us to focus on action, and the primary action we will study this and next week is the action of prayer.

There are five key components to prayer – to making prayer real and effective. It is these actions:

Offer up our desires to God. We are called to pour ourselves out to Him. This seems like the easiest part. We are good at doing this.

Surrender to God. Just as Jesus taught us in the Our Father and in the Garden: God’s will be done, and His will is to be ours. This is harder.

Enter Conversation with God – it means we not only talk, but we also listen. We seek God and attend to His presence and desire for us.

Practice the presence of God. I want to be in God’s presence, never apart from Him. This is about the time and effort we make to seek God’s face, not compartmentalizing Him, but having Him ever before us, permeating our lives.

Own the peace of God. It is in prayer that ultimately, despite all things and in all things, we find peace.

It is key, we churchgoers, that we pay close attention to this, for prayer is our heritage. We come here to do as Jesus asks, joining in fellowship to offer, surrender, converse, practice, and own. Do we do it perfectly? Could our lives be more fully in God’s presence? Could we be more active? Of course! And we should get at it. But we have the start and the commitment, and in the end we will be heard. We are like the woman seeking a just judgment – and you know what? – God will give it to us.

Now I must be very honest with you. Some come to me who would never think to darken the doorway of a church. An emergency, disappointment, a tragedy – please pray for me. This isn’t people trying, but those who won’t until… I do pray in hope that they will be convicted and converted. Almost none are. I often wonder why. Thus, Jesus’ warns: “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” May He find each of us loyal, active, and wholly His in prayer.

September 2022 Newsletter – Praise Him and Share the Hope

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.

One of the key questions at this year’s Central Diocesan Clergy Retreat was about the import of our faith in Jesus. Does believing in and following Jesus matter one bit beyond the couple of hours we spend at church each week?

This is an important question for us, both as clergy and as the entirety of God’s people. We should be doing this self check each day – and I highly recommend it.

Another consideration offered by our retreat leader, Bishop Richard Lipka, is does our faith matter to anyone else. He put it very realistically: Does Governor so-and-so or President so-and-so ever pause one minute during their decision making process to consider what God says, what Scripture speaks, or what the people of God proclaim? Of course not. We find ourselves faced with a world that wants us to give up hope, to just surrender. God says differently. A couple of practical examples.

One person I met this summer explained the many challenges they are facing – health, financial, and most importantly whether God really cares. Does my faith make any difference in my life? Is there reason for hope? As we spoke they reflected on all the people who are helping (generally people of faith) and how thankful they are. My response: You answered your own question. Those around you are sent by God, are a portion of the hope God offers. Yes, you have reason for hope.

A young person I encountered commented on how hopeless the world is, how it is a place where the loneliness of hopelessness predominates. That young person encountered people of faith and was transformed – both to faith in Jesus and to an attitude of hope.

Believing in and following Jesus matters greatly. It is transformative in individual lives and in the world. We offer something the world cannot offer – hope that is more powerful than anything we may face. We have been born of God Who overcame for us. We have victory and overcome hopelessness in Him. Praise Him and share the hope.

Welcome to September and all of the incredible blessings being poured out on our community of faith. God Is Good!!!

On September 11th we welcome the Solemnity of Brotherly Love – the foundation of our relationship with each other as citizens of the Kingdom. September 18th we celebrate Back To Church Sunday with the theme “HOPE HAPPENS HERE.” All are welcome in the Kingdom. Invite someone, or just show up, find those blessings we all so need. We celebrate First Communion on the 18th as well. So proud of our young people and their commitment to the faith. September’s Newsletter also provides a report on all the fantastic events we took part in throughout the summer. We start our Christmas Vigil Raffle with a chance to win $2,500. Get your tickets now. We engage in prayer for the upcoming XXVI Holy Synod of the Church – everyones’ prayer help is needed! We solemnly mark the 21st Anniversary of 9/11/2001.

Check out Music Scholarships, Daily Holy Mass, Check our Worship Schedule, our September Discipleship message, and we begin a new series of devotions to the Infant of Prague in the Polish Language.

Zapraszamy wszystkich Polaków – Koronka do Praskiego DzieciÄ…tka Jezus w Waszych intencjach w każdy wtorek o godz. 12:30 po poÅ‚udniu.

Check it all out in our September 2022 Newsletter.

Reflection for the 17th Sunday on Ordinary Time 2022

Prayer answered? Yes!

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.. If you then … know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

I am so thankful that we have joined together in worship this Sunday as we once again celebrate the confidence we have in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We can have confidence in the following things: Take the risks Jesus prompts us to venture and all turns out well. Know that Jesus is constantly seeking and looking for us, so we are safe in Him. Take up and accept Jesus’ call to service and learning from the word with great care and God’s promise will be alive in us.

Today we explore confidence in prayer; the fact that God responds to prayer and sees to our need.

How do you imagine prayer working, the mechanics of prayer? 

In today’s reading from Genesis, we see Abraham once again with God. This is a sort of part two after last week’s encounter between God and Abraham. Remember that God had promised a child to Abraham and Sarah. Now God was traveling on to Sodom and Gomor’rah to destroy them. Abraham pleads with the Lord over and over (as Jesus would say, knocking and pleading) because his nephew Lot and his family lived there.

This plea by Abraham, that Sodom and Gomor’rah be spared if any righteous people are found there, goes on and on, a sort of countdown of the righteous from fifty to ten. In the end not even ten are found, only four, and if you go on reading in Genesis Chapters 18 and 19 you will see that Lot and his family were barely righteous.

All of this makes prayer seem rather linear and time constrained, God hearing one man’s prayer over a series of hours. Seeing that, how could God possibly have time for my little prayers in the face of so many others?

Prayer does not work that way. This is because God is eternally present and not time bound. God is outside and beyond time, so our prayers are always in the present. Even if all the people of the world were to pray at once, each would be before God in His ever present now.

When we pray, we must always do so in confidence. Ask and receive – and be sure of this – what we receive is the gift of the Spirit alive in us: “the Father in heaven [will] give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” God responds to prayer and sees to our need by the Spirit’s presence in and with us. With God’s presence, the power of the Holy Spirit, we have power and can face all with courage, confidence, and trust.

July/August 2022 Newsletter – Alert and Open To Help

Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

Summer is here and it is time for all kinds of great activities: swimming, visits to parks, camping, trips away, grilling, and tending to flowers and vegetable plants.

Did you ever get in one of those situations where that summer activity gets slightly curtailed because you forgot something? You have the charcoal but forgot the matches. You want to dig out the soil around those plants but can’t find your gardening shovel, oh – and you forgot the sunscreen. In those types of situations we often run across a good samaritan, a neighbor, friend, the person on the towel next to you at the shore, even just a passer-by who notices the situation (and frustration) and offers to help. Take my matches, borrow my shovel, here’s some sunscreen…

St. Paul was addressing the Elders of the Church in Ephesus. He was planning his leaving for Jerusalem and the persecutions that lay ahead (See Acts 20 starting at verse 17). He tells them the things they will face and implores them to be strong. He gives thanks for those who saw to his needs saying Jesus’ words: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

Faith is somewhat like our summer adventures. We all start from a place of borrowing. We borrow from and imitate our families and community. As we progress in our lives our faith becomes our own, becomes solid, we own it and take responsibility for it. We are ready for action and are living faithfully day-to-day. Occasionally though we need help, we’ve forgotten something or left something behind. We need to borrow from friends, mentors, family, the passer-by. We need help filling in the gaps in our journey toward Jesus. The key here, as Paul told the Elders, is to: be alert. We must not live on a faith that is merely borrowed or imitated, it must be our own. We need to invest the time to grow in it. We continually prepare ourselves and are alert for gaps. Let us be open to receiving help and also be willing to lend help, and be blessed.

July already and the calendar just continues to fill-up. We are so thankful for all who are partaking of, or will partake in, the Church’s and our parish’s summer events. Our newsletter highlights all of these activities. Come in for weekly liturgy this summer still at 10am and Noon on Sundays. Stay for a brief repast, and share in the salvation and fellowship of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We have a report on the Men’s Retreat, are planning for the XXVI Holy Synod of our Church, are welcoming people to a summer church music learning session, and welcome a newly baptized member of the parish. Fr. Jim shares his reading list. We pray for our country and give thanks.

All that and more in our July/August 2022 Newsletter.