THANK YOU so much!

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers (Ephesians 1:16)

Thank You God Bless You AbundantlyOn Sunday, April 6th we held our annual Basket Social. It was a wonderful day filled with the blessings of fellowship, generosity, support, great Polish food, excitement as well as a record 104 baskets, multiple door prizes, and 2 grand raffle prizes. You, our friends, filled our hearts with joy through your presence.

We extend our thanks to all attendees. We so appreciate your support and hope that your day was great fun.

Our appreciation and thanksgiving is extended to all who worked so hard to make the day a success, especially those individuals and businesses who donated remarkable and extremely inventive, beautiful, useful, and fun baskets. We were blessed by, and are so appreciate of, the commitment and work of our volunteers — those who prepared beforehand, the ticket table workers, drivers, cooks, servers, runners, and the Social’s stalwart and dedicated leadership; all who made our guests welcome and made the day a great success!

Each and every one of you are in our prayers. May our Lord bless you as you have blessed us.

Reflection for the First Sunday of the Passiontide – 2014

14718

Sometimes I just
cry

When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”

‘Jesus wept’ at the death of His friend Lazarus. While the most cited passage in scripture of Jesus weeping, it wasn’t the only time He cried. Jesus wept over Jerusalem as He approached the city: “And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it.” Jesus wept in the garden as He prayed before His betrayal: And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zeb’edee, He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with Me.” When Jesus was dying on the cross He felt totally abandoned and alone. He cried out to His Father in deepest sadness: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

There are several interpretations concerning Jesus’ weeping.

Jesus’ tears demonstrate that He was indeed a true man, with real bodily functions (tears, sweat, blood). His emotions and reactions were very human. In His humanity Jesus wept for His friend Lazarus.

Jesus tears also demonstrate the sorrow, sympathy, and compassion He felt for all mankind. Jesus’ tears show the rage he felt against the tyranny of death over mankind.

Jesus’ tears at the graveside showed His sympathy and empathy for all who sorrowed over Lazarus’s death. He was one with them in their sorrow.

Jesus may have cried as well at the fact that those around Him, including Martha, Mary, His apostles and disciples, and the Jewish mourners remained blind to the reality of Jesus as the Messiah. He cried in spirit because even those who were closest to him failed to recognize Him as “the resurrection and the life.”

We cry for many of the same reasons. We feel hopeless, abandoned, and sorrowful. We feel compassion and empathy for friends, family, co-workers, and others who are sad. We cry in rage over injustice. We feel hurt when we are not recognized. We cry mostly in regret over our failings and sin; the way we fall short of our commitment to the Gospel.

To cry is to pray. When we pray we cry out to God in both our need and our joy. Today we walk through our failings and face our sins with regret and sadness at having hurt God and others. We weep. Jesus sits with us and weeps with us in sympathy. He holds out His hand with the gift of forgiveness – to relieve our sadness so that our tears of regret are transformed to tears of joy at our renewal.

Basket Social in Schenectady This Weekend

Our annual and ever popular Basket Social will be held this Sunday, April 6th at the VFW Hall at 1309 Fifth Avenue in Schenectady. Doors open at noon. Besides our usual wide array of baskets, there will be door prizes and great Polish food and homemade desserts from our traditional Polish kitchen. Come by and enjoy an afternoon of fun, good food, and plenty of chances to win one or more amazing baskets.

BasketSocial2014

April 2014 Newsletter – Holy Week, Easter, and more

It is April and our newsletter has arrived. It is filled with information on so many holy and exciting events. We start by looking at Low Sunday and what fellowship really means. We invite you to take part in this wonderful and holy season, to connect and enter into fellowship with Jesus and us right here in Schenectady. Lots of other news too including new movies, our Basket Social, and legends. You may view and download a copy right here — April 2014 Newsletter.

acts2_42sm

Reflection for the 4th Sunday of Lent 2014

whoIsHe

May my sight
never falter

“We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. We do not know how he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age; he can speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue.

Jesus cures a man born blind.

Rather than being thankful for this tremendous miracle, the Pharisees argue about the nature of Jesus – is He good or evil. They formed arguments to refute the goodness and holiness of Jesus, to show that He was not from God. They went so far as to summon the man’s parents, hoping they would testify that their son wasn’t really blind, or that this wasn’t their son. They testified that it is their son and he was indeed born blind.

The parents wouldn’t go so far to admit that Jesus had cured their son; they were afraid of losing their social standing.

The Pharisees were trying to disprove what had happened. The parents were trying to avoid what happened. Everyone was closing his or her eyes before the man born blind, a man who could now see.

The man born blind gives solid testimony and states the facts: I was born blind. Jesus made mud, told me to wash, and now I see. Jesus is a prophet. I will not pass judgment on Jesus, as you would have me do. All I know is that I was blind and now I see. Then he stands up and rebukes the blind Pharisees:

“This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.”

Their blindness was so deep that they cursed him and threw him out.

We must take care to avoid blindness. We must not harden our hearts and shut our eyes to what is obvious. When we do falter in seeing, we must repent of our blindness.

Our Lenten journey calls us to recognize the blindness in our lives. Is it judgmentalism and legalism – living like the Pharisees and believing that we have all the right answers and everyone else is sinful and wrong? Is it fear, like the man’s parents, such fear that we hold back from bearing witness to God’s truth? Let us call upon Jesus. Jesus who said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see.” Let us ask Jesus for the ability to see and ask for His healing. Let us ask Him for courage and the grace to never falter in seeing rightly.

Annunciation of the B.V.M.

121_Annunciation02Today, March 25th, is the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the B.V.M. On this day let us remember that God always offers us a choice. In order to carry out His plan for humanity’s salvation He needed the cooperation of the Blessed Virgin. The angel came to her and presented God’s plan to her. She was not forced or coerced into saying yes to God’s plan. In fact, her life would become more difficult if she said yes. Still, she did say yes to God.

God constantly asks of us. He calls us to follow Him, to live in His way. It isn’t always easy, yet God gives us the grace we need to follow Him loyally. Pray this week for Mary’s intercession so that we may receive the grace to say yes to whatever God asks of us.

Reflection for the 3rd Sunday of Lent – 2014

christ-and-the-samaritan-woman.jpg!Large

I hope, and will not
be disappointed.

And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

We have all been disappointed at one time or another. These disappointments may be big or small. Perhaps a spouse, child, or friend has let us down. Maybe a job didn’t come through. Maybe we didn’t win the lotto.

Depending on our experiences we may find ourselves trusting less and less in hopes and dreams. If we have been let down a lot we may find that any offer of hope leaves us cold. We may find that we cannot even grasp onto hope at all.

Faith changes that perspective. A change takes place in our psychology, in our state of life, in our ability to hope when we become true believers.

Hope seen through faith no longer leaves us cold; it warms us. Hope seen through faith allows us to reach out and grasp God’s offer of life.

Our proclamation of faith, our regeneration, brings us to peace and confidence in the hope God offers us.

What is key is that this hope is not an invented hope.

The hope we have comes to us through the outpouring of God’s love. This love flows from the action of the Holy Spirit. This is God’s perfect, free love. It remains with us and in us engendering hope – even when we fall and fail. It call us to renewal, repentance, and forgiveness. God’s love is so strong that it looked past the failings, the disloyalty, the evils committed by men and women. It looked past faults and failing with a love so strong that God came to us and offered Himself for us.

As St. Paul says, Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person … but God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the great Peace-bringer, the Mediator between God and man. We have the proof of witnesses and history to support our hope. Jesus picked us up from our brokenness to new life, a life filled with hope.

We said we would trust on the day we accepted Jesus. Now, in our Lenten journey, we are called to renew our trust. We are called to affirm the fact that God will not disappoint us. Whenever we face suffering, disappointment, or letdowns, let us reach out to God with confidence; the hope that says: we will not be disappointed.