March 2025 Newsletter – Lenten Leadership

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Leadership requires action and example. A good leader (and remember, we are all leaders) sets a vision and then engages with others to meet the vision. Consider what bad leaders do. They say: ‘Do this and do that’ but merely sit back and watch. They are not alongside in working to accomplish the vision. They take a lais·sez-faire approach. Even worse, they sit back and criticize when they think you’re not doing it right. We can rightly say: How can we do it right without leadership?

Jesus is the good and perfect leader. He placed His entire self on the line for the vision His Father had set, the establishment of the Kingdom. He led and taught others the how and why. He set out clear goals and worked to get there – He alongside His disciples. He corrected His disciples when they went astray, but did so in a fair and evenhanded manner.

On the First Sunday in Lent our Epistle is taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome. Paul is doing two things. He is contrasting the Law of Moses with its legalistic claim against the free gift of salvific grace offered through Jesus. St. Paul tells the Church that they have the Word of God and that if they confess Jesus as Lord and believe fully in Him they have salvation. They need not offer animal and grain sacrifices or carry out other precepts of the Law to obtain forgiveness or salvation. It is already theirs in Jesus’ sacrifice.

So too for us.

From there, Paul calls on us to lead by our proclamation. This was a call to bold leadership because to confess Jesus as Lord was quite hazardous then. For a Jew it could mean being cast out of family and community including great economic sacrifice. For a Gentile the penalties could include not only separation from family and community, but also arrest and prosecution, later even martyrdom. That’s not too far from reality today. Yet, lead we must without fear. Let us engage and through our Lenten action and example draw many to Christ trusting the assurance that no one who believes in Jesus will be put to shame.

Welcome to our March 2025 Newsletter. We enter Lent on March 5th with Ash Wednesday. Lent provides us with apply opportunity to practice the disciplines of prayer, fasting, and sacrifice. Join in our Directed Giving program to provide food resources in our local community. Looking forward, we are preparing for our Seniorate Lenten Retreat on April 5th and our Basket Social on April 27th. Looking back we announce the winners of our Valentines Raffle. Congratulations to all who participated. You support the faith development of our youth. Read up about CarePortal’s Love Day 2025. What we do really matters. We announce upcoming Ordinations for three of our brothers, Tonsure, and Minor Orders for another five. God bless them! All that and a reflection on the Orthodox Hymn “Open To Me The Doors Of Repentance.”

Read up on all this and more in our March 2025 Newsletter.

June 2017 Newsletter – Vocation to Love

Three things will last forever–faith, hope, and love–and the greatest of these is love.

…and the greatest of these is love. Famous words we recall hearing at almost every wedding. I wonder if St. Paul, in writing to the Church at Corinth, was thinking of pretty words for marriage ceremonies? Likely not, marriage wasn’t even on his radar. Frankly, it wasn’t even on the Church’s radar at that time. Paul cared more about the way Christians interacted with each other and with the world that was awaiting the hope only Jesus could offer. Were Christians, therefore, living and showing the lives the saved and redeemed should be living? We have, in Paul’s words, a certain irony. Words we hear at a wedding – at the beginning of a new sacred vocation for a couple – are words that should inform our vocational lives as Christians. The message of Jesus and of the Christian faith is a call to vocation. We are called to participate full-time, with every breath, in God’s creative and redemptive work. The Christian life is to be vocational to the core. It is a complete and total way of living. As we celebrate and pray in this month of sacred vocations let us remember that each of us is called to the most sacred vocation of all – to love completely as Jesus loved us.

Join us beginning with the celebration of the Church’s birthday at Pentecost, through the post-Easter solemnities, and in enjoying some great fellowship. We will be having our Rummage and Bake Sale, our seniorate Corpus Christi celebration, and we will be gathering bras – that’s right, bras!

You may view and download a copy of our June 2017 Newsletter right here.

Seniorate Lenten Retreat – Year of Regeneration

lent-inviteLenten Retreats in parishes and Seniorates all over the country and Canada are scheduled for this season. The retreats are only one of eight initiatives set forward by this past national Synod for “each and every parishioner to play a role in bringing about a renewed and active spiritual life in the parishes and in the entire Church” as Prime Bishop Anthony wrote in January’s God’s Field. Our Mohawk Valley Seniorate will conduct its Lenten Retreat on Saturday, March 7th at at All Saints Parish, 801 Hickory Street, Rome, NY from 10am to 2:30pm. All our parishioners are invited to participate in this national and international effort for a program built around the theme: Return to Me with Your Whole Heart. There is no charge for this spiritual exercise.

The program outline for this day of reflection and recollection is given here:

Adult Program:

  • 10:00 – Welcome! Presentation in the Temple – The Mission of the Church, Fr Sr. Marian Pociecha
  • 10:30 – Coffee break
  • 11:00 – Penitential Service, The Sacrament of Penance will be administrated in the end and private confession will also be available, Fr. Mark Gnidzinski
  • 12:00 – Lunch served by All Saints Parish
  • 1:00 – Concelebrated Holy Mass, Fr. Sr. Walter Madej – Homilist
  • 2:30-3:00 – Quick Seniorate Meeting (Calendar for 2015 in Mohawk Valley Seniorate)

For Children and Youth:

  • 10:00-12:00 Program for children will be running in parish hall and office if necessary, Fr. Rafal Dadello and Fr. Jim Konicki
  • 11:00 – Children who have already received their First Holy Communion will join the adults for the Penitential Service, younger children will remain in the hall
  • 12:00 – Lunch
  • 1:00 – Holy Mass (those who are altar servers in their parishes, please bring your liturgical vestments)

Parishioners invited to a BBQ

The members of our parish have been invited to a BBQ sponsored by the YMSofR at Blessed Virgin Mary of Częstochowa PNC parish in Latham. The BBQ will be held this coming Sunday, July 8th starting around 11am.

This is a great opportunity to share in fellowship with members of the PNCC from across the Capital District and Mohawk Valley.

The BBQ will be held on the BVMC church grounds at 250 Old Maxwell Rd, Latham, NY. Food and refreshments will include smoked BBQ ribs, BBQ chicken, hamburgers, hotdogs, and of course kielbasa.

Feel free to bring a salad or a side dish to share. Also, bring lawn chairs and if you wish lawn games, umbrellas (for the sun), bathing suits for the water slide, a big appetite, and your favorite music.