February 2018 Newsletter – What Will I Do For Love?

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

This year we enter into the Great and Holy Lent on Valentine’s Day. The last time this happened was in 1945. This presents us with a whole bunch of dilemmas. Can I celebrate Valentine’s Day? Which celebration is the greater obligation? Do I have to fast and abstain from meat? The underlying question is: Does God’s love motivate us? Paul, in speaking to the Corinthians, recounts the great promises God has given us in Jesus. Among the great promises: That God will walk among us and live with us (He is not in a long distance relationship). That we are God’s people; He receives us in His fatherly love. We are His sons and daughters; co-heirs with Jesus to the resurrection and eternal life in heaven. That we have communion with Him, His protection and blessings that are absolute and unconditional. Does God’s love motivate us? Yes, if we work to improve externally and internally; to live in purity of heart and to train to avoid all sin – the killer of love. Lent is the time to discipline ourselves and cleanse ourselves so that we live up to the love we have received from God. That is what Lent is about – living up to the love and promises we own. Lent is an opportunity to live up to love – to cleanse ourselves, achieve deep-seated changes in our lives, and align ourselves with God’s love. It is a happy coincidence that Valentine’s Day marks the start of Lent because Lent is about the change real and honest love brings, the good love motivates, and the happiness and holiness love attains.

Join us in the run up to and for the start of the Lenten season. So much going on. Souper Bowl Sunday, Annual Meeting, Ash Wednesday, our Valentine’s Raffle, our Seniorate Lenten retreat. Join us – become part of a family of faith and shine forth – bringing more and more to real freedom in Jesus. We so look forward to meeting you, to working together, to being love to our world.

You may view and download a copy of our February 2018 Newsletter right here.

Bible Study for the 1st Week of Septuagesima 2018

This week’s memory verse: Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. — Hebrews 4:16

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, Your mercy has enveloped and saved me. Grant that I may look away from the small and only share Your mercy.

Reflection for Septuagesima Sunday 2018

Will we live
big?

Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd playing Jake and Elwood Blues had just been released from prison. They went back to visit the orphanage in which they were raised. They find out that creditors are about to foreclose on the orphanage. Suddenly, the understood the big thing they had to do. They were going to pay off the debt. Their oft repeated statement of purpose was: “We’re on a mission from God.”

Paul was certainly on a mission from God. Yet, he says something very odd – especially on point for us in this day and age – give no offense. Many people tend to think (by our failure to live like Jesus) that giving offense is what the Church is all about!

Paul was focusing on the difference between insignificant matters, small ‘t’ traditions and practices and the essentials of faith. Don’t quibble, don’t focus on the small things, don’t create offense for anyone over small things. Rather, come together in unity on the big things, the essentials. In doing that, show off Jesus. Set an example of humility. Shine forth like Jesus – be like Him. Open the door to all in need of the big healing, big peace, big confidence, and big security only Jesus can give.

Think of what Jesus taught about the things that are key. Two things only. Two commandments. Love God, love each other. Any minor issues there, anything insignificant? Not at all.

Paul’s experience helped him to really understand what Jesus taught. Paul often focused on the greatness of the mercy that was shown to him. Paul saw and experienced, in a flash of blinding light, what Jesus focused on. It was never the small. Paul had been focused, in his pharisaical ways, on minutia. It his encounter with Jesus, Paul saw where he fell short in understanding. He finally got God’s big mercy. What counts is that God wipes out our small and the big mess of sins – our failure to love God and to share in that love as an act of love – so we can start anew.

If barriers are raised to our neighbors, by arrogance, being bound to the small and insignificant, then the path to Jesus’ big mercy is blocked.

As we begin our Pre-Lenten preparation, let us consider how we may remove any block on the way to Jesus. Are we opening the path to mercy? How will we live? What mission from God are we on? Who will we be imitators of?

Jesus healed the leper, and he couldn’t stand not to tell of the big mercy he received. …he went out and began to talk freely about [Jesus] and the people came to Him from every quarter.

Bible Study for the 5th Week of Christmas 2018

This week’s memory verse: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” — Joshua 1:9

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, You have called me to set aside my before and to live in Your future. Help me to be Yours today and always.

Reflection for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2018

The before and the
after.

Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed, ” when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.

Jonah is on the job! Well, really, finally he is doing what he was asked to do.

Today is a story of the before, the present, and the after. The story of Jonah is so well known that we can almost recite it from heart.

Jonah, a well know prophet, was asked to go to Nineveh. He was to go into enemy territory, and tell people who had no faith or belief in the One true God that He was going to destroy the city for its sinfulness. Jonah figured he was doomed, he’d end up another dead prophet. So, Jonah ran it the opposite direction. More than run, Jonah immunized himself against God’s voice – so much so that he slept through the storm God sent to redirect him. This is the before.

Each of us has a before.

Sometimes, our before is a place we have been for a long time. It is something we want to get out of. Sometimes, our before is just a moment ago. We know we aren’t where we should be and we want to be different. We want to wake up. Sometimes, like Jonah we have a longstanding before in God’s presence. Even if we knew God and carried out His will, listened to His voice, we fall back into our before. Sometimes we immunize ourselves to God’s voice. When any of this happens, God sends His voice. He urges us, calls to us. If we stay stubborn, God sends the storm. He tries to wake us up. Sometimes He send friends – as with Jonah when his shipmates had to wake him up.

God’s call finally woke Jonah up, He decided to respond, to wake up. He decided, after days of reflection, to carry out the Lord’s will. He called out to God and said: What I have vowed I will pay: deliverance is from the LORD.

Those words need to be our now. If we are in a bad place, and have come here for the first time ever, for the first time in a long time, or if we have been here for a long time, yet feel numb and cold, we need to wake up, respond, and get on the job.

The Apostles had a before. Simon and his brother Andrew… were fishermen. James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John… were in a boat mending their nets. Then they heard Jesus call. Some slipped away completely. Others fell back, fell asleep until they were woken-up. They were not unlike us, but did great things because they laid aside their before for Jesus’ now and after.

We are called to set aside our before. To realize we are freed from before so to live consistent with Jesus’ call to us – now and ever after.

Bible Study for the 4th Week of Christmas 2018

Memory verse for the week: Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. — Acts 2:47

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, I am joined to You. Help me to set aside my old self more and more, so to become more like You.

Reflection for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2018

I want to
join.

The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body; God raised the Lord and will also raise us by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one Spirit with Him.

St. Paul teaches a beautiful reality today. As members of the Church, we are no longer alone or apart. We are joined to Jesus.

This is not a joining like a membership in a club or with our local automobile association. Those things are optional. If we have a club membership, we can go and partake in club activities if we feel like it. We can adjust our club participation to suit our needs. If we joined the local AAA or other automobile association, we can call them if we need them or are in trouble. We might even take advantage of club discounts if we think of it. Otherwise we can simply ignore the association; file our membership in the back of our minds. But, if we have joined ourselves to Jesus we no longer have options. We have to be all-in.

Paul points out that being part of Jesus is about being all-in. We are intimately joined to Him. What He has, will be ours. Who He is, we will become. His inheritance is our inheritance. If we are one with Him.

The Christian community – made up of each of us – is called to a new way of life; Christian living must show our membership in Jesus in ways that others can imitate. We must be so attractive, so Jesus like – love filled, gracious, peaceable, service oriented, sacrificing, and dedicated – that those who are seeking Jesus find Him. That those who are our fellow disciples grow deeper in their union with Jesus. All because of us.

We are called to completely orient our lives in a way that is in communion with Christ. This means we must make a giant change. We have to fully understand that our lives are not ours. Our bodies, minds, souls, desires, wishes, present and future do not belong to us – they belong to Jesus. We have to give up on ourselves to fully live our union with Jesus – our membership in Him.

This joining is not easy, nor does it happen overnight. If it did, every baptism would result in perfect Jesus-like people. Rather, our membership in Jesus is a process of becoming – and Paul is reminding us of what we must become to really be part of Jesus.

We hear of those who decided to walk with Jesus – they said, ‘I want to join.’ They walked with Him, listened to Him, prayed with Him – lived at His side yet still had to grow in their membership. That should give us courage.

To be really complete and all-in we must seek the Holy Spirit’s help and reach for the fully aligned life. With the Spirit’s help, we become, grow, draw others to Jesus and share in glory.

Bible Study for the 3rd Week of Christmas 2018

This week’s memory verse: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. — Ephesians 1:17

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, You revealed the reality of God and opened heaven to us. Be merciful so we may approach Your revelation.

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord 2018

Peek-a-boo
We see You!

On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

We have used the term Theophany several times in our teaching during this Christmas season. Last week we talked about the heavenly revelation experienced by the humble shepherds. This week, all who stood along the banks of the Jordan would experience heavenly revelation, the showing of God as He is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Some of this might be lost on us. We encounter heaven weekly in this church. We know God as He is. In our worship, our Eucharistic experience, we are pulled into heaven and all of eternity is made real, graspable, to us. God’s Son shows Himself and we commune with Him. We are drawn together, in Him and with all who receive Him here on earth and in the heavenly kingdom. We don’t ordinarily recognize the wonder of this moment, we don’t see it because Jesus is so available to us. It wasn’t always that way.

This revelation of God, His manifestation in a way discernable by the senses only occurred a few times in the Old Testament. God walked with and spoke to Adam and Eve in Eden. He spoke with Cain, Noah and his sons, and with Abraham and Sarah. Moses first encountered God in the burning bush. Later, at Sinai, He spoke with Moses face-to-face, as one would speak with his neighbor, in clear sight and not in riddles. Because of these encounters, Moses was visibly changed. When Moses retuned from his second encounter with God on the mountain the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

Moses shined with the glory of God, and as Moses had been afraid before the burning bush, now the people were afraid. In fact, God’s glory was too much for them and they made Moses cover his face: when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.

Imagine that – being so changed in the presence of God – that you actually retained that presence in your body and on your face. Yet, that is in fact what is happening right here! Today! To us!

God is revealed. He has come to us. We have met His glory. We should look in the mirror. Are our faces shining? Are we glowing with the radiance of the heavenly kingdom opened to us each week, right here?

We might say, I am not worthy. We might say, I cannot see it. We might say, not here, in upstate New York, in Schenectady. Yet here He is, revealed, real, present and active in our lives. It is not our worthiness, but His great love that makes us shine. Bruised, just smoldering? Perhaps, but here He is to ignite us and give us glory.

January 2018 Newsletter – Arise and Shine

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Arise and shine, I can just hear my mom saying those words as I covered my head with the blankets. Never all that happy to get up in the morning, here I am in 2018 as a priest of our Holy Church, leading a wonderful family of faith in our worship of God through His Son, Jesus. Of course that means I have to get up early. It’s worth it! The prophet Isaiah, using the words above, was speaking to the dejected people of Israel. They were in captivity in Babylon, with covers over their heads. He tells them to get up, to wipe the sleep from their eyes, to shine because an amazing thing was happening. They were being saved, recalled from exile. They were being called home. This happened to us that first Christmas. We were called to take on a new attitude. No more pulling the covers over our heads. The time of Jesus is here. We are being saved. Salvation had come, redemption is being accomplished. All we have to do is get up and meet and accept Him. Funny things happen in life. Sometimes not too “haha” funny. The light dims, the warmth cools, and we start pulling the covers over our heads again. When that happens we have to recall these words from Isaiah. We have to reconnect with the Manger, the start of great light and warmth. We have to gather the courage to engage in worship and community once again. The New Year is here. We are being called. Time to arise and shine.

Join us during this Christmas season (all forty days of it). We celebrate the Circumcision of the Lord, the Holy Name of Jesus, the Epiphany, and the Baptism of the Lord. The SouperBowl of Caring is coming up – help us feed those in need in our local community. Take part in our annual Outrageous Valentine’s Raffle. Stop by for a great homemade spaghetti dinner. Schedule a home blessing. Learn about our music scholarships. Become a member and sign up to help serve the community. We so look forward to meeting you. Time to arise and shine!

You may view and download a copy of our January 2018 Newsletter right here.