Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Month: May 2015

You are Here :
Christian Witness, Homilies,

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity 2015

About-the-Trinity1

I believe in
— —.

Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

Jesus’s words found at the very end of Matthew’s Gospel account give us great comfort. He is ascending, but will remain with us always.

But, why should His words give us comfort? Even those we consider close friends can sometimes offer words, but fail to follow-through. Why are Jesus’ words supposed to give us any more comfort than any other person’s words?

This is where we get down to brass tacks as Christians. What is at the center of our faith? From where do we derive our confidence? How can we prepare ourselves to do what St. Peter asks of us when he says: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you”?

Standing where we are today, and having recited the creeds of the faith as our parents, grandparents, and ancestors have through the centuries it is easy enough to say – God. God is the reason for our hope. We are confident in Jesus’ words because Jesus is God and God cannot speak falsehood. If He said He would be with us always it is obviously and categorically true.

It wasn’t always that way. The Church had to work and fight long and hard, for centuries, to proclaim the truth about God, to settle it all based on what Jesus taught and the Apostles witnessed firsthand. Others came along with theories and opinions – Jesus was not really a man, He was not really God, the Holy Spirit wasn’t a person. These were called heresies – untruths – falsehoods.

The various creeds were written to clearly covey the truth of Who and What God is in opposition to those heresies. What we believe, as is stated in the Athanasian Creed, is the baseline necessary belief for every Christian. God is Three Co-eternal, Uncreated, and Almighty Persons of One Substance.

We have to be very careful to proclaim this truth. If we do not, our baptism in the name of the Trinity is worthless, our prayer is useless, and our hope is baseless. Jesus words are just the words of another faulty human. The Holy Spirit is just a breeze or a warm fuzzy feeling, He has no personhood. The Father – who knows?

Our task this Trinity Sunday is to reconnect ourselves to the truth of God and in doing so recognize the great promise and power that is ours.

Christian Witness, Homilies, ,

Reflection for Pentecost 2015

Jesus-the-real-deal-sm

Get
real.

Brothers and sisters, live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want.

The Solemnity of Pentecost presents us with an opportunity to judge what is real in our life, what is in our best interest.

When the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles in the upper room they had a choice to make. Would they follow the Spirit’s promptings and go out into the world to proclaim the truth or would they just sit there?

As we know, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. The key word is proclaim. They did act to proclaim the truth. They went out into the streets they were confronted by a large crowd of people from every nation and race.

Those people had a choice too. Would they listen and act, accepting the Lordship of Jesus and baptism for regeneration, or would they walk on? They acted to accept what is real, what was in their best interest: Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added that day.

That initial act on the part of the Apostles and those that were added to their number was not the end. If it were, the hope of Jesus would have ended there. Their action was only a beginning. From there they set out to proclaim the word of God. Not only did they proclaim, but they lived God’s word, they remained faithful to Jesus’ way of life.

This is the difficult part of being a Christian both in those days and in the current age. We are confronted with many ways of life; we have choices. What will we proclaim in the face of those choices?

The Christian road, and being real about our faith, is not an easy road. It means we have to say no to the world. It means we have to live by the Spirit that has been given to us. It means making choices that fly in the face of what the world wants from us. It means being faithful to the Church’s teaching because the Holy Spirit dwells in and guides what the Church proclaims. It means that we do not put our faith in government, Wall Street, money, worldly success and power, politics – we can and must say no to those things and more. They stand in opposition to reality.

St. Paul warns us that those who put their faith in the world and make the world their reality: will not inherit the kingdom of God. But, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh. Therefore let us live in the Spirit, follow the Spirit, and be real.

Christian Witness, Homilies,

Reflection for the 7th Sunday of Easter 2015

22635591_640

Let one
stand up.

“For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ‘May another take his office.’ Therefore, it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us, become with us a witness to his resurrection.”

This week the Pew Research Center on Religion & Public Life released its annual survey of religious affiliation in the United States. As with any survey result the pundits began to make predictions, some in churchy circles rang the alarm bells.

The Study tells us that: “The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing… Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly pronounced among young adults, it is occurring among all ages. A large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to identify with the Christian faith. But, the percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – has jumped more than six points.”

The pundits note the decline of Christianity and are ready to sound its death knell. Christianity is irrelevant. Churchy folks, in response, try to make themselves more relevant, looking for ways to draw in the young. Some others see this as the great winnowing, the driving out of imperfect Christians leaving behind only the perfect.

These groups are missing something very important. They attempt to define adherence and faithfulness in light of relevancy and perfection. That is something Christianity is not attempting to achieve.

Living the life Jesus has called us to live makes us quite irrelevant by the world’s standards. The world’s criteria’s are never the measure of our success. In the same way, perfection is not the yardstick by which we are to measure being a good Christian for as St. Paul told the Romans: for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God. If the imperfect are to be driven out every church will be empty.

Our true measure is our willingness to mature in faith and to stand up to declare our faith in ways both big and small. Our call is to witness to what is truly relevant: Jesus’ community – the Church – guides us to eternal life. Now that’s really what is relevant for everyone.

Homilies, PNCC,

Reflection for the 6th Sunday of Easter 2015

callherblessed

Love as
God loved us.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

We are a busy Church today. As we observe the Sixth Sunday of Easter we also observe the 64th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Joseph Padewski and Mother’s Day.

It may seem to be a difficult challenge. We have to, as a Church, concentrate on Easter. That is our first duty, to proclaim Jesus’ salvation and the promise of His resurrection to the whole world. How do you mix that with the fact that members of the Church are sometimes called to suffer and even die to proclaim this message – something happening right now in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Then couple all that with honoring our Blessed Mother and our moms in a special way.

Certainly, each of these events can stand alone and with deep significance for the Christian faithful. Thankfully, our Lord has already showed us how all this is bound together: This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Jesus told us what we should do, but as opposed to false prophets and made up gods – He walked the walk. He laid down His life for all of us voluntarily. As St. John recounts Jesus saying: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.”

Bishop Padewski lived his vocation and followed in Jesus’ footsteps. He returned to Poland from Albany to serve God’s people in the devastation following World War II. He did not consider his own safety or comfort, but rather followed the commandment of love and walked into the horrors of the communist takeover of Poland. He was arrested, tortured, and killed for his love of God’s people and his faithfulness to Jesus.

The Blessed Virgin is the exemplar of love for Jesus. We not only honor her as our heavenly mother, but also as our example of love and dedication to her Son, Jesus. She sacrificed her heart and life for Him. So too our mothers, the first example of love in our lives. They laid down their lives in a great act of sacrificial love.

All of these themes, all of Christianity, is joined together by love – love of God and for each other – giving all we are for the truth of love.

Christian Witness, Homilies, , ,

Reflection for the 5th Sunday of Easter 2015

452602891_640

Times of challenge
and peace

The church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace. It was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord, and with the consolation of the Holy Spirit it grew in numbers.

Saul has been converted and because of the generosity, friendship, wholeheartedness, and witness of Barnabas is brought into the fold in Jerusalem even though the fellowship still feared him. Saul is welcomed and he sets out with zeal to proclaim the name of Jesus. The Greek Jews, having heard Saul’s witness set out to kill him and the Church spirits him away, back to his hometown of Tarsus.

The first three years since Jesus’ ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit had been both edifying and trying. Judas was replaced. Many believers were added. The faithful witnessed out-in-the-open. They prayed in the Temple, healed, and talked about Jesus to all who would listen. Many were added, and the Church was of one heart and soul and marked by a consistent spirit of harmony, but a price was being paid. The Apostles were hauled into court and they were whipped. Stephen was martyred.

Certainly Saul’s conversion did not end prosecution. Others likely followed in his footsteps. The Greek speaking Jews plot to kill Saul shows the hatred that existed. Yet suddenly the Church was at peace.

Some scholars point out that the Jewish leadership had to take its eyes off the Christians for a while. They were probably having bigger problems with Rome. The Governor wanted to erect a statue to Caesar in the Temple. There could be a thousand other reasons as well.

As in the early Church our faith is tested at times and at other times we find ourselves at peace. Decades ago a faith commitment was seen as a likely part of most people’s lives. Going to church and following the tenants and aims of the Christian faith were ‘normal.’ In the modern age any true witness to the reality of Jesus and commitment to following His commands would be met with laughter and mockery at a minimum. We might find ourselves thought of as old-fashioned and outdated. At the extreme we may lose friends, face ostracism at work, possible termination from jobs or clubs and organizations, and even a court appearance or two. To us these may be fates worse than death.

The common thread we hear today is that Christians must witness publicly to Jesus – to His way. We must do this whether the Church is filled with joyous zeal, is under persecution, or is living in times of peace. In all times the Church will grow in numbers by the commitment and dedication of His disciples (us) to the One who is the only truth and the true vine.

All Right Reserved © 2005 - 2023