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:
Join us for this wonderful event.
This week’s memory verse: But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:57
Pray the week: Lord Jesus, You overcame all things for me. Grant me the grace to see what You have done with clarity of thought and thankfulness of heart. Amen.
Victory!
For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.
Thank you for joining today as we share in Easter joy. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Jesus came to earth to win, to achieve the victory His Heavenly Father intended.
We might find the incredulity of the Apostles and disciples slightly odd. How could they arrive at the tomb and not understand?
Each of the gospel accounts show Jesus telling and indicating to His disciples that He must die and that He would rise – achieve victory. He told them this three times. Not just once, He repeated it.
In John 14:29 as part of the Last Supper narrative we hear Jesus say: And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.
So, what happened? Here we are with those Apostles before the tomb, seeing the victory of Jesus over death and… we hear silence and see a lack of understanding.
Perhaps, the people of Jesus’ time had trouble recognizing true victory much in the same way as we misunderstand victory in our day.
Like us, the Jews of Jesus’ times engaged in games and sports. The Israelites played board games such as chess, checkers, and backgammon. Pieces of clay, parts of bones, or pebbles were used as game pieces. They also had athletic contests in wrestling, running, and discus throwing. They also understood victory on the battlefield – who is a winner and who was looser.
They, like us, viewed winning as a very personal thing. At most winning was achieved as part of a corporate body – a team or army. I won the game. We beat that team. I came in first. We won the battle. We can, as they could in Jesus’ day, say winner and victor in a thousand different ways but it was always personal and one sided.
Jesus came to earth to win, to achieve the victory His Heavenly Father intended. It was not our kind of victory; it was not within the scope of our understanding. How could this man Jesus sacrifice His life and die, not for His own sake, but so that all of us might win?
Jesus’ victory was not a one sided and personal victory – just for Himself, nor a victory for a small team, but victory for all of us, for all of humanity.
That is the glory of God! Jesus took on all our battles and removed all our obstacles. So, we are victorious in Him. We are in the winner’s circle. All the heavy and ugly things in our lives have been carried away in Jesus’ overcoming. Yes, even the challenge of death has been overcome for us. All praise to our victorious King Jesus! He won for us all.
“I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
On this evening we celebrate the three great sacraments that Jesus left for us. They are Penance (the forgiveness of sins), the Holy Priesthood, and the Eucharist – His very body and blood.
Take a look around. To my left, your right, is the Altar of Repose. It is resplendent isn’t it – or at least as resplendent as our human abilities can muster.
Why?
I recall in my much younger days working in church alongside the Felician sisters as they decorated. The side altar decked out in white and gold, tons of lilies around it, very glorious.
I asked them, and probably my mom too, the very same question:
Why?
Let’s take a little detour to Christmas. It wasn’t that long ago. In the very same spot, we had the Szopka, a castle like structure similarly of gold and light. People ask me quite frequently:
Why?
You don’t really “get” the Szopka until you study it closely. If you look inside it, right in the center, is the poverty of the manger. That poverty is not hidden from us at all, yet it is surrounded by glory. Those who came to that poor manger on the night of Jesus’ birth understood the glory of God as well – they could perceive it despite the exigent circumstances.
The same tonight. We receive Jesus’ great gifts, and in a short time His body is taken and placed in the Altar of Repose. The why is exactly as in the Szopka. Jesus was pulled and dragged all around after His arrest. He was hurt and insulted, spat upon, and finally thrown into prison. This altar represents that prison in spite of its exigent circumstances.
Don’t misunderstand, prison for Jesus and in that day was not the Schenectady County Jail, nor even Attica or Sing-Sing. It was a pit, cold, damp, filled with human waste. It was crowded and Jesus likely stood all night in pain, His wounds becoming infected, His sacred head pounding from the blows. The jailers – masters of cruelty. they had their sport with Jesus too.
Yet!
Yet amid all this, as in the midst of the poverty of the manger, Jesus’ light shone. His glory was all around.
The glory of Jesus’ light constantly showed. It showed to the teachers in the Temple. It showed as He opened the eyes of the blind to see – both physically and metaphorically. It showed as He opened the ears of the deaf to hear. It showed in His feeding of the crowds. His light shone as led all in prison to freedom. It shines from the Altar and from the cross. People who encounter Jesus receive and perceive the light of His glory!
We, a people who were once in darkness now live in the light of Jesus’ glory. We who were once not a people at all are now bound together in the great family of Christ. In that dark and hopeless place where Jesus was to spend the night – light entered.
Sadly, those with and around Jesus on that night failed to see His light. They would not open their eyes and they would not hear. They stayed in a far worse prison constructed of anger and hatred. But we, we have encountered Jesus’ light, and we live in it. His light beams in and from us.
As we have received His great gift of forgiveness and the Word, and as we will receive the magnificent gift of His body and blood as His apostles did this very night, let us recognize the glorious light that fills us and surrounds us. Then, as we place His most sacred body into the Altar of Repose let us realize that no external thing can ever suppress Jesus’ light and glory.
This week’s memory verse: So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
John 12:13
Pray the week: Lord Jesus, help me to walk with You this week. Help me to set aside all that keeps me from You. Help me be a willing Simon, to have the courage of Veronica and Mary, and to never fall away. Amen.
How to Overcome.
“My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch with me.” He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”
Thank you for joining as we have arrived together to Holy Week.
In this week we go from the highs of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem to that night in the upper room. where they gathered in fellowship and bonding, a time where an eternal promise of Jesus’ abiding with us is given, to the garden where Jesus plunges into deep prayer and pleading, where the vision of what is to come crushes everything in Him except His dedication to His Father’s will, and as we heard throughout the Passion narrative His arrest, trial, cruel murder, and burial.
“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”
You will notice throughout all this, as in each part of the gospel’s proclamation, Jesus faces what we face, experiences all we experience, celebrates and cries, feels anger and compassion.
Not only that, but Jesus faced multiple levels of temptation attacking at every moment and seeking that He give up, quit, go home. We face that too, the push to give up, to walk away.
Like Jesus, sometimes we fall to our knees and cry out:
“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”
Use Holy Week as an opportunity to consider our view of all this, its meaning for us.
Some may view Jesus’ Holy Week journey as disinterested observers, standing at a distance. Yeah, sure I know what happened, and it did me some kind of good, let’s move on.
Some may see Holy Week’s events as theologians might, trying very hard to explain the mystery, to delve into theories and to place what happened into neat compartments of cause and effect. Figuring it out as best as they can they say: It did people some kind of good, let’s move on.
Holy Week is shared experience. If these moments bring intimacy with Jesus, if we stand with Him, and watch with Him, we come to see ourselves in Jesus’ life and how He shared life and death with us. Our moments, whether joyful and glorious or painful and sad take on new dimension and we now face them differently.
As we bind ourselves to Him in great love, we finally realize that Jesus did not come as God distant and apart, but as God with us. Yes, Jesus did me eternal good and I will not move on, but I will remain with Him Who faced this too, Who understands and offers me strength. We remember how far His love goes and are ever thankful to overcome in Him.
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.
The following is our Holy Week and Easter schedule:
For more information, call the parish at 518-372-1992 or visit our Facebook page.
This week’s memory verse: For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
Romans 8:6
Pray the week: Lord Jesus, You call us to live in Your spirit. Grant that I may focus myself on the devout life and Your will while in this life that I may rise at Your return to live body and soul in Your glory. Amen.
How to Overcome.
“Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”
Thank you for joining as we continue our journey together, now in Passiontide. We are drawing closer and closer to the days of Jesus’ arrest, trial, cruel murder, and burial. Our hearts (that is our whole selves) consider most somberly our Lenten accomplishment and what is to come.
Have these eight weeks helped us get rid of those hot stoves of sin in our lives?
In the second part of Bitter Lamentations which we sang together yesterday while on retreat, in the Lamentation Hymn, we hear the words: They whipped His shoulders; for my sins they beat Him. Come, all you sinners, Jesus’ blood is readied. As soothing ointment for wretched hearts of sin; Well-spring of true life.
In today’s readings and gospel we see exactly that wellspring of life, true life, cutting through doubt, confusion, worry, sadness, and finally death.
In Ezekiel’s prophesy God reveals that He will not only open people’s graves and have them rise – a physical fact, but simultaneously He will place His spirit in [them] that [they] may live. His work is true life in its factuality as well as in our very being. We are not dead on any level. God brings us to a life that is throughout. The old stoves of sin are cast off and we really live.
St. Paul reminds the Romans that they are: in the spirit. So, we are. We already possess new life as dwellers in the kingdom, we have new life in Christ by our baptism and our witness.
Because of what remains in us of the flesh we have work to do. We need Paul’s reminder that we are in the spirit so we might set to work in getting rid of those stoves of sin, breaking away from the old fleshiness that we cling to.
Let us consider the gospel of Jesus raising Lazarus in part as a whole and in part as a series of vignettes – small stories, glimpses into human fleshy reality where we hold unto doubt, confusion, worry, sadness, and death.
If you will notice, Jesus does not say very much throughout. His statements are short and pointed solely to the revelation of God’s glory that is in Him, and the fact that all this is being done to show Who He really is.
Think of these scenes as the overarching story unfolds: Martha, Mary, and certainly Lazarus too, were worried. They call for Jesus’ help. He does not arrive. Lazarus dies. The apostles are confused by all of this because Jesus is not helping and then He says they are going back to Judea where He is under threat of death. Martha and Mary are sad. Jesus arrives six days too late from our fleshy perspective. The crowds criticize. There is a dialog about these long off last days and the resurrection.
We see in these vignettes people’s doubt, confusion, worry, sadness, and death. All this is not just centered on hot stoves of sin and a failure to see clearly Who Jesus is. It is an exhibit of an entire hot kitchen of sin that is the old flesh.
Then something amazing: “Take away the stone.” Jesus shows Himself God, bringing life from death and the first glimpse of the life He will bring us from the cross. As we wend through this Passiontide let us focus on the new true life we have in Jesus. Jesus’ blood is readied for us.