A Christmas Invitation

December 24: We will hold a Christmas Vigil Holy Mass at 4pm on Christmas Eve.

December 25: The Solemn Shepherds’ Holy Mass of Christmas begins at midnight. During one of the year’s longest nights, we will break forth with light, song, and pronouncement to celebrate Jesus’ birth. The night’s liturgy begins with one of our parish’s women carrying the baby Jesus to the manger. Then the manger is blessed and the Christmas proclamation is made. The Solemn Holy Mass of the Nativity follows with beautiful traditional music of the season.

December 25: For those who prefer, the Holy Mass on Christmas Day will be celebrated at 10am.

Whichever Holy Mass you choose, it’s important that we not forget the reason for the celebration. Come to Jesus’ house on His birthday (and bring family and friends) for these beautiful liturgies.

Other services of the forty day Christmas season coming up include:

  • December 27: Feast – St. John, Apostle & Evangelist. Holy Mass at 7pm with Blessing of Wine
  • January 1: Solemnity of the Circumcision. Holy Mass at 9:30 and 11:30am. Happy 2017!
  • January 2: Solemnity of the Holy Name of Jesus – Holy Mass at 10am.
  • January 6: Solemnity of the Epiphany of our Lord. Holy Mass with blessing of chalk, charcoal, and incense at 7pm.
  • January 8: Solemnity of the Humble Shepherds. Holy Mass at 9:30 and 11:30am.
  • January 9: Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord. Holy Mass at 8:30am.

December 2016 Newsletter – Joy

Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Last year we dedicated ourselves to focusing on joy. In the spirit of one liturgical and calendar year ending and the next beginning, let’s look back. We began last year in Advent, a season of anticipatory joy. Fitting for us as Christians – God’s children – we awaited the best present ever. Then came that day standing at the stable, looking upon the baby Jesus and living the forty days of joyful celebration that followed. Knowing Jesus is always in our midst as well as newly with us. We walked though each season finding new joy in Christ and each other. Here we are – at the start – again reconnecting, celebrating, and knowing endless joy. Time to smile, shed a tear of joy at the stable, and look ahead.

Join us throughout December for a jam packed schedule of holy events, fellowship, and mostly joy. Escape the harangue of the world and find peace, time out from the madness in Jesus and the family of faith.

Send in your Polish Food Sale orders. Get a memory cross. Pick up those Christmas wafers / OpÅ‚atki. Join us for our annual Christmas Vigil / Wigilia pot-luck will be held on Sunday, December 18th following Holy Mass. Our SOCL students will present a short play for your reflection and enjoyment. Our brother, Derek Westcott will present two musical pieces he has been working on for months. Come see and support them. Genealogy, roots, stipends, college, read up…

You may view and download a copy of our December 2016 Newsletter right here.

Reflection for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2016

What will the Lord
find?

The Lord said, “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. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

The Lord asks His followers a very tough question today. It is the essential question we are faced with every moment – how strong, how reliable is our faith?

Moses is literally held up as an example. He placed his faith in the Lord’s protection. It is not Joshua and the men who would do battle with Amalek, but the Lord. As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight. In a very real way, as long as Moses held up his faith the battle and the war were won. When his faith weakened, the battle was being lost.

We can use the analogy of war and battle to the challenges we are faced with and we have one in front of us right now.

Over the past two months there have been two petty thefts in our parish. The money in the cash box in the parish kitchen was stolen twice.

Where did our minds just go? Some certainly wondered who might have done this. Some may wonder how much was taken. After we swim around in those questions we begin to think of what we should do. Call the police? Set up a camera? Be suspicious of strangers? It goes on and gets worse from there.

Jesus said: “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” So there we are.

How many times did Jesus discuss the need for forgiveness? Jesus answered,”I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. The need to forego judgment: For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. How often has God asked us for complete trust and faith? Can we sing with David: When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?

When we are confronted by the challenge, when those who would hurt us act, when all seems lost will we place our trust and faith in the ways of the world or the ways of God? Jesus even laid out a formula for how we are to confront someone who would do wrong to the family as recorded in Matthew 18. Beginning at verse 15 we read: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you…” Jesus is looking for real faith in us. It is His ultimate test.

Our heritage, our way of life is to live faith driven, to trust in God’s promise and follow His way. We are to pray first, set aside questions, and know – really know – that God will defend us, will break all chains when He finds faith in us.

Solemnity of the Christian Family 2016

On the
level.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image.

As family He created them! God’s plan, set out from the very beginning was that we were to live as family. God’s creation and intervention follows along a singular thread that is family. On this special Solemnity, found only within our Holy Church, we focus on what it means to be the Christian family.

As we have just heard, the family that is our God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – created us in their image. Four chapters later in Genesis God calls out to Cain: “Where is Abel your brother?” Cain replied, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” God was asking such a basic question – where is your brother, why didn’t you see him as your brother, why didn’t you love your brother? Cain’s insufficient answer, his excuse is a lesson to us. God holds us to a much higher standard.

From the beginning God communicated to family. Abraham came from Ur with his wife and brother, and all their family. God saved Jacob and his sons through their brother Joseph. Those sons were the progenitors of the twelve tribes. God’s people were one family, one genealogy. God sent Moses and Aaron to bring His people, His family out of Egypt. They would be victorious and they would fail together. They would do penance together and they would enter the land of promise together. Over and over they fell and rose together. Together they awaited the promised One of God. Together they failed to recognize Him. The gospel as recorded by St. John, which we will hear at the end of today’s Holy Mass, calls to mind: He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.

St. John goes on to proclaim our hope: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. What was a family genetically related, born out of the sons of Jacob, has been replaced by a new definition of family. It is the Christian family born as children of God in the blood of His Son, Jesus.

Christian family is inclusion and participation in the Divine family. It means we live in a different way. We live as family from our first profession of faith and our baptism in water and the Holy Spirit. This family means no artificial barrier, no distinction in race or class. We are one family standing at the foot of the cross, where the ground is level, where we all look up and recognize our hope. There we receive salvation on the level. We say with the Psalmist: My foot stands on level ground; in the great assembly I will bless the Lord.

October 2016 Newsletter – Finding true joy

For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

Each of us tries to rearrange Jesus’ phrases to make ourselves more comfortable. But comfort is not the great gift Jesus came to bring. That gift is a joy-filled life lasting forever. We explore the gift of Jesus’ promised joy this month.

October in an exceptionally busy month with our craft fair, blessing of pets, the Prime Bishop’s presentation on the Solemnity of the Christian Family, our annual rummage and bake sale, Heritage Sunday and so much more. Check it all out in this month’s newsletter.

You may view and download a copy of our October 2016 Newsletter right here.

Reflection for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2016

Relationship
changed!

I, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus, urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment; I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. Perhaps this is why he was away from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother.

Today we encounter Paul’s shortest letter. It is a letter to his friend and co-worker Philemon and his family. This letter is only one chapter containing twenty-five short verses.

Generally any letter from Paul deals with a crisis at hand. In this case the crisis is neither doctrinal nor a confused morality. Philemon and the fellow Christians that meet at his house seem to have their faith on straight. This letter is about one man and his relationship to another. Philemon’s slave Onesimus had run away, perhaps guilty of theft in the process. Onesimus ran off and found Paul in Rome. They had likely met during Paul’s stay with Philemon. Paul brought Onesimus to knowledge of and faith in Jesus. Onesimus spent time helping and serving Paul during his imprisonment in Rome. Now Paul was sending Onesimus back as a changed man.

Paul knew that in sending Onesimus back, Philmon would have to confront the reality of his faith. Paul’s lesson here, his teaching of the Gospel, is focused on getting relationships straight. For Paul, the essential fruit of the Gospel is transformed relationships. Who was Onesimus now – and how was Philemon supposed to relate to him?

Philemon and Onesimus were both to learn that being a Christian means being transformed and being part of a new relationship between oneself, God, the rest of humanity, and the world.

Faith in Jesus is to bring change to our lives. It is not just an interior thing, but also an exterior one. They way we relate and interact with others is to demonstrate our faith – faith truly lived. This changed relationship often stands at odds with the surrounding secular order. Philemon could easily and rightly have Onesimus killed in dozens of horrible ways for even the slightest of offenses, much less running away. Thus the social conflict that emerges from being Christian in an anti-God world. Paul focuses on this interpersonal conflict and the way we must revise and reform our relationships. How will our relationships be changed despite the world’s rules? How will Philemon react? Will Christ or the world rule our relationships?

Paul reminds Philemon of his encounter with the Jesus. So we must be reminded. The strength of our life in Jesus is tested in relationship. In daily crises let Jesus change our lives and our way of relationship.

Free Summer Meal Sites in Schenectady

Click on the attached Master Schedule of Summer Meals sites in Schenectady and a Schedule of sites by neighborhood. For the site nearest you, please call United Way’s 2-1-1 or text FOOD to 877-877.

Sites in Mont Pleasant include:

  • Faith Deliverance Tabernacle, 1028 Ostrander Place, 6/27-8/12, 12:15-1:30
  • Mont Pleasant Library—Mobile Site*, 1026 Crane Street, 6/27-9/2, 2:10-2:30
  • New Day Christian Empowerment Center, 1259 Chrisler Avenue, 6/27-9/2, 12:30-1:45
  • Orchard Park—Mobile Site*, 733 Orchard Street, 6/27-9/2, 1:45-2:00
  • Quackenbush Park, Forest Road, 7/5-8/19, 11:45-1:00
  • Wallingford Park, Congress & 5th Street, 6/27-8/26, 12:45-2:00

*Look for the SICM Mobile Meals Truck

Reflection for the 12th Week in Ordinary Time 2016

All children of one
God and model.

Brothers and sisters: Through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s children, heirs according to the promise.

This beautiful text from Paul’s letter to the Church at Galatia calls to the forefront the new model we live in Jesus. It reminds us that we are changed and have become children of One God and Father when we have clothed ourselves in Christ.

In putting on Jesus in baptism we take on the new man, the new person. We take up a privileged position with and in Christ. In fact this new union is Paul’s main emphasis in each verse By faith in Christ Jesus, and being baptized into Christ… we are clothed… with Christ, one in Christ Jesus, and belong to Christ. Since Jesus is the Son of God, all who by faith are in Christ are now also sons of God; co-heirs in Him to heaven’s promise and all being children of One Father.

The positive privileges of union with Christ far outweigh and greatly surpass the old set of relationships under the old Law, Jews were the children of God and Gentiles were sinners. But now we are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

This must have been a shocking declaration for a Jew to hear. In Jewish literature, “sons of God” was a title of highest honor, used only for the members of righteous Israel, destined to inherit the blessings promised at the end of time. But now all are called “sons of God.” All are equal. All have the same privilege and rank under One Father.

The wonderful day we gained heaven was the day we came to Him, as Paul tells us: through faith and baptism in Christ Jesus. Let us think kindly on that day for in it we were blessed to grab hold of our Heavenly Father, we clung to Him and felt His loving embrace as our Father.

As baptism pictures the initial union with Christ by faith, being clothed with Christ portrays our participation in the moral perfection of Christ. The title sons of God and the two ceremonies of baptism and being clothed with Christ point to the reality of our new relationship with God. We are literally changed and our way of living is opened to perfection. Our new relationship with our Father results in a new relationship with one another.

As we reflect on this Father’s Day, let us think of that man, or those men, in our lives brought us to our Heavenly Father, who gave us the privilege of not just being sons and daughters of men, but true children of God.

May 2016 Newsletter – What does it take to be satisfied?

Still on the early newsletter streak – one day early once again.

“Be satisfied with what you have.” Our moms didn’t want us to be jealous or covetous of others. Instead they wanted to focus us on our blessings – what we have – and most especially on all that God has done and has in store for us. Good lessons for life of course given out of love. Don’t chase after empty things – focus on what is really important: faith in God Who brings all things to perfection. With Him we have family, community, true knowledge, and our work is blessed even if the world doesn’t see it. The explicit promise in our being “satisfied with what you have” is God’s provision for us. God will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us. I will never run away from you He promises. During this month we consider the depth of God’s provision. Even if the entire world has abandoned us, even if our mom were to reject us, God remains at our side.

Also in our newsletter, great thanks for support of our annual Basket Social, reflections and family prayers for the Year of Reverence, Mother’s Day and a very full month of activities. Check out our Holy Mass for healing, bible study, and so much more…

You may view and download a copy of our May 2016 Newsletter right here.