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Reflection for the Solemnity of the Institution of the Polish National Catholic Church 2022

Made whole.

He will not break off a bent reed, nor put out a flickering lamp. He will persist until he causes justice to triumph.

Jesus came to fulfill what Isaiah had written about centuries before. Isaiah writes about a ‘bruised reed’ and a ‘smoldering wick.’ Jesus came, not to destroy the reed or put out the wick, but to take brokenness and the smoldering away. Jesus has healed and re-ignited us. Jesus has brought us into the Kingdom, into lives vastly different.

As we journey through this Lenten season, we reflect and act on our call to be true citizens of the Kingdom, to live up to our call. We look at our inward selves and our outward actions and reform them through more ardent prayer, sacrifice, study, worship, and giving. We come to really connect with the fact that those in the Kingdom live like that year-round, not just during Lent.

One day a Rabbi walked into a classroom full of Jewish religious students. The class was full of excitement. Rabbi, Rabbi, they said in unison, the Messiah has come. The Rabbi walked past the students and went to the window. He turned around, went to his desk, and told his students to sit. He said: The world looks no different; therefore, the Messiah has not yet come.

This is a powerful statement.  We know the Messiah; the Christ has come. We know that He is Jesus, the Son of God. Yet the world looks little different with its wars, obscenities, angers, covetousness, and all the other evils that surround us. What has changed?

One hundred twenty-five years ago a group of people looked about them and said the very same thing. They were immigrants, faithful and hardworking, but their lives were not getting any better. They were persecuted and called names. Their pastors continually castigated them. How could they have a Messiah if nothing changed?

They joined together and in a great act of faith and trust in Jesus and organized the Polish National Catholic Church. It would be faithful to the teachings and structures of the pristine undivided Church. It would have the passion of the first Christians who not only believed but acted on the fact that they had been healed and ignited by the Messiah. It would be the Kingdom Church Jesus had established, where they, their descendants, and anyone seeking the Kingdom could fully live out the Kingdom life, be the change Jesus called us to carry out, where life is indeed different, holy, loving, giving, and self-sacrificing.

So here we are in this body called the Church, with all necessary to live the Kingdom life fully, to bring about justice, to live in dignity together as Jesus’ body. So let us continue in prayer, sacrifice, study, worship, and giving. Let us continue to be different and call others to be saved, to share in life that is vastly different because of Jesus.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC, ,

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Humble Shepherds 2021

And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child

At our three Holy Masses of Christmas we saw references over and over again to Jesus as the light of the world, the light of heaven breaking into the world to change it forever.

We can certainly see how the Lord’s love and mercy have changed us. We no longer live in fear. Our life is eternal, the gates of heaven and all its light are opened to us. We have forgiveness of sin, we have a new relationship with God and to each other.

We who were once strangers and afar off are bound together in a new family, the family of the Church. We are given two important missions by God that spread the light of Christ.

Our first mission is to grow in our personal sanctification, to become more like Jesus, to walk better in His ways. We receive power and strength to do that through the many graces we receive both sacramentally and in living our everyday walk of faith.

Our other first mission, for it is equal to the necessity for sanctification, is to build the Kingdom of God right here and right now.

On Christmas 1919 Bishop Hodur addressed his congregation and spoke of the gap between the very materialistic view of the world, a world only concerned with bodily needs and wants, and the Savior Who came to build up both the body and the soul. He called this materialistic focus an illness, for the worldly do not perceive the wholeness God offers us in Jesus. They limit themselves by their deafness to His word and way.

Jesus pointed to the Kingdom and called us to build. We are to call people out of where they are, out of deafness, to what they can be, not only as individuals, but as a society.

This is the example we celebrate today on this very special Solemnity in our Holy Church — the Humble Shepherds, the Ubogich Pasterzy.

The Shepherds whose life was limited to the care of earthly material things, their flocks and pay and duties, encountered heaven. They met Christ Jesus their Lord and Messiah, God. They met Him as we meet Him each time we come to Holy Mass, participate, pray through the Eucharist, and receive Him. They were left with the same choice we all have. What will I do for my sanctification and for the building of the Kingdom?

The Shepherds set forth to announce and build the Kingdom. In the world’s eyes they remined poor, but in God’s eyes they became whole and rich. Let us decide to as well, as we renew our commitment to God’s mission for us.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC,

Reflection for the Observance of All Souls 2021

And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.

What happens when we die?

It is one of the greatest questions of all time and inquiring minds want to know: What should we expect after we die? What will it look like? Yet, it is exceedingly difficult to answer. No one has come back and filled us in. But we do have guideposts to inform us.

We do know that there are absolutes, heaven and hell. Scriptures tell us that much. We know heaven is paradise and that it is reserved for the holy ones of God. Revelation gives us a picture of what heaven will look like, a place with no more mourning, weeping, pain or fear. Jesus also gave us examples of what Gehenna will be like, a fiery garbage dump where those who lived lives apart from God wail and gnash their teeth. We know from the story of Lazarus the beggar that there is an uncrossable boundary between heaven and hell. Those things give us a fruitful heads-up, a forewarning that no — everyone does not just go to heaven. To say so is in fact heresy.

We know our path starts with faith, faith in Jesus Christ. We need to confess our sins and give ourselves completely to Him. Through baptism and our cognizant profession of faith we are members in His body, and we are washed in His blood. From there, we embark on the path of sanctification — the process of becoming more and more like Jesus. That is why we can never take a break or slowdown in following Jesus. There is always more to become.

This process of becoming and growing in faith is so important because it is an act of caring and cognition — how we live matters. If everyone just goes to heaven, then why Church, why prayer, why the sacraments, why do anything good, why care. If I’m going there anyway nothing really matters. Yes, how we live, how faithful we are matters. How we place our trust in the Father, how we follow the Son’s gospel path and become more like Him, and how we live out the promptings of the Holy Spirit in Strength of Faith one-hundred-percent matters.

Indeed, something happens when we die. We do not just disappear.

The Church, throughout is history, has come up with different theories about what happens after death. At one time, it was thought that the soul did not actually leave the earth for three days — thus one of the purpose of wakes and the funeral on the third day, as well as the Absolution of the Dead. 

Rome placed its bets on the idea of Purgatory, a place of purification — imagine a car with a whole bunch of souls saying — are we there yet? The suffering that leads to purification is achieved in the waiting, in the expectation of desire and longing. The important thing here is the theme of waiting.

The Orthodox do not have any one theory, instead stating that anything we think about the afterlife is ‘speculative theology,’ a theology that tries to define the future by what we do know about God. For this reason, in Orthodoxy, there is diversity in the teachings on what happens after death. This diversity is perfectly okay because attempts at explanation are feeble before the mystery of God. Key concepts are that the soul has awareness, does not lose it identity, and awaits the resurrection of the body because, like Jesus, both body and soul are equally important. Note again the theme of waiting.

There is quite a bit of diversity of thought about what happens immediately after death among Protestants. Most believe that we retain our unique identities after death. Some denominations believe the soul goes immediately to be with Christ in heaven, awaiting the Day of Judgment and a resurrected body. This echoes Paul — but remember that Paul was speaking to Christian communities that were living out their faith deeply and wholeheartedly, often to the point of sacrificial loss. Other Protestants suggest there is an intermediate time of ‘soul sleep,’ an unconscious waiting for the resurrection.

Do the dead go to Sheol — the Jewish concept of a holding tank for souls? No, for Christ emptied that place following His death on the cross.

Further, for our study, Christianity never has taught reincarnation. There is no return trip. While fanciful, it is totally against scripture. Our lives are a what you see is what you get matter.

So why do we pray for the dead, and what is today’s Observance all about?

The Latin phrase Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi literally means ‘the rule of prayer [is] the rule of belief.’ More simply said, we pray what we believe. We pray for the departed based on scriptural instruction and most importantly because of the mystery of the afterlife. We pray for the dead because we believe they need our prayer in a period of waiting.

In the Book of Maccabees (2 Maccabees 12:39-46), Judas Maccabee takes up a collection so prayers will be said for some of his soldiers that had died. Factually, the soldiers were being faithful in fighting for Israel, while at the same time they were unfaithful; their dead bodies were found to be holding idols of false gods. 

And so betaking themselves to prayers, they besought Him, that the sin which had been committed might be forgotten. And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.

We pray because God left us an instruction to do so in Scripture. We pray because we do not know. We pray through the mystery of God, seeking His mercy for our departed loved ones in a time of waiting. Can those not perfectly pure enter heaven by our prayer? Can their sins be forgiven? Is there a place and time of waiting? Our prayer says that is true, and as such we pray and we offer Holy Masses for our departed loved ones, making up by our actions where they had fallen short in life.

This day, in the end, calls us not just to prayer for the dearly departed, but also to an honest evaluation of our own spiritual state, to measure where we are on the road, and toward what destination so that by living genuinely Christian lives and following Jesus’ gospel path more closely we may reduce any time we need to wait in getting there.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC, Saints and Martyrs,

Reflection for the Solemnity of All Saints 2021

“Blessed are… Blessed are they…

One day a man was walking through a beautiful church building with his four-year-old son. As they walked, the young boy looked around. He stopped and was curious about the stained-glass windows that looked so beautiful with their bright colors and the dappled light they shed. As he looked at the windows, he asked, “Who are all the people in the windows, daddy?” “They are Saints,” said the father. “Who are Saints daddy?” the kid asked. The father was stuck. How was he going to explain who saints were to a four-year-old boy? As the boy was still looking up at the windows and the father was still wondering how he would explain who saints are, the young boy suddenly shouted out, “I know who saints are daddy; they are the people that the light shines through.”

Sometimes we mistakenly think of saints in the same way we may think of angels or, at the very least, only the very select few from the past such as Saint Francis or Saint Anthony, or the Apostles, Evangelists, and many of the Church Fathers.

In recent years, some Churches have been cranking out new saints like factories make cars. In past ages, it was very hard to get to that level. It required far more than holding an office or making up a vision; it required a life of heroic virtue.

The problem with all these formulaic approaches to “sainting” someone is that the approach makes it too easy or process oriented to be a saint. By doing that, the faithful get confused, and we either walk around feeling completely unable to reach sainthood or thinking, hey, I am already there, I don’t even have to do anything.

So, who is a saint and how can I possibly get there?

Saints are human. Ok, we got that. We are human.

A saint is a follower of Jesus Christ.  Ok, we got that. We follow Jesus.

Saints were fishermen, students, farmers, tent makers, doctors, teachers, carpenters, former prostitutes, extortionists, outcasts, robbers–you name it. Saints were both rich and poor. They were orphans or members of large families. Ok, we got that. We come from many different backgrounds.

Saints were born again people, or as we refer to it, were regenerated by the Holy Spirit. If we have had that conversion experience in our lives, we understand that. We were certainly changed inwardly and outwardly by our baptism-confirmation where sacramental regeneration took place, and somewhere along the line we knowingly and with full intent confessed our sins and offered our lives completely to Jesus. This is where we start seeing the separation between the casual churchgoer, or the I got baptized and the I’m never going back there crowd, and faithful believers whose lives have been transformed.

Saints were called and they answered by living lives that were holy and extremely dedicated both in terms of attitude, and in the sense of being set apart. This is also where we also see some separation. In fact, we are all called by Christ through the Holy Spirit. The answer to that call, the saying yes to God is what makes the difference. Am I one who is living a holy and dedicated life? Am I all about Jesus, or have I left things in the way of holiness and dedication? The answer tells me where I am on the road to sainthood.

Saints were still real people – ok we are human, we already answered that – but that is not what this means. What this means is that saints were far from perfect. Saints weren’t infallible. Sometimes saints disagreed with one another. Just think of all the mistakes the Apostle Peter made… or John… or James. What made the difference for them was not their sin and failings, it was the fact that they learned as they went. They learned from their mistakes. They learned by allowing Christ to forgive them, by accepting Christ’s forgiveness and moving on in Christ. Bottom line, the mistakes of their earlier lives trained them not to do it again. They did not persist in sin; they did not let themselves remain in ignorance. They would not allow sin to stand and confronted it both in themselves and in the world.

We are real people. We are on the same journey… the journey of following Jesus… the journey of learning to be more and more like Jesus… which is a process of constant growth in Strength of Faith where we become more and more faithful, loving, and indeed vocal in calling others to Jesus. We do not let judgmentalism, condemnation, and prejudices take root in us, nor do we stand for it in others. If I am on that road I am on the road to sainthood.

We are in a process, a process of becoming ones who allow the light to shine through them. We are in the process of becoming ones of whom it can be said, Blessed are they… 

We have checked the boxes, human, Christ follower, from many backgrounds, regenerated in the Spirit, called, and a real person who is learning from mistakes, acknowledges forgiveness, and doesn’t let it happen again. What next?

All the words in both Greek and Hebrew that are used in the Bible and are translated into the word “saint” all have the same definition. According to Scripture, a saint is sacred, holy, pure, blameless, dedicated. If you look at the lives of the saints of old, you will see that they met that definition. So can we.

Of course, the word “holy” doesn’t mean “perfect,” it means “set apart,” “set apart to serve God.” Will we pledge as we did in baptism-confirmation to be “set apart?” 

The only way we can be “pure and blameless” is through the blood of Jesus shed on the Cross covering and washing away the stain of our sins. Will we pledge to trust in Jesus’ sacrifice which washes away our sins and makes us pure and blameless?  

But “dedicated.” Dedicated is a whole different level. Yes, a saint is dedicated. Yes, a saint may fall, but a saint gets back up again. Yes, a saint may fall into sin, lose their temper, hurt another by word or deed, but a saint asks God for forgiveness, accepts that forgiveness and asks God for the strength to grow in love. That’s what it means to be “dedicated.”

A dedicated follower of Jesus Christ may not always love their enemies, but that is their goal. When they find that they cannot love their enemies, they ask God for God’s love to overcome their anger and hatred. When they find it difficult to pray for those who mistreat them, a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ prays for those who mistreat them anyway. If a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ finds it nearly impossible not to judge another person, they admit this failure to God and ask God to enable them not to judge. They pray to God to help them to love all persons, no matter who that person is, what they look like, or how they live their lives. And because dedicated followers of Jesus Christ are called to “turn the other cheek,” and if someone takes their coat–they are to give their shirt as well… they are to pray to God that they don’t demand “special rights and privileges” from the world and from other people. Saints are not to take others to court, blast other people in the media or from the pulpit, or from the ballot box. There can be no doubt that this kind of living, the lifestyle we are called to is as radical as it can possibly get…and no one gets it completely right, but can I pledge to dedicate and re-dedicate myself to walking the gospel path?

It’s been said that “A saint is someone whose life makes it easier to believe in God.” A saint is someone through whom we catch a glimpse of what God is like – someone who lets God’s light, in Christ, and through the Holy Spirit shine through them. The four-year-old was right. We can do that. In fact, we are on the road to becoming saints. Let us then close any gaps and live what we are called to be – saints – and so join with Mary, the glorious band of Apostles and Martyrs, and all the saints around God’s throne. Amen.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC,

Reflection for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Strength of Faith.

He who consecrates and those who are being consecrated all have one origin. Therefore, he is not ashamed to call them ‘brothers.‘

Over the months of Ordinary Time, a time dedicated to growth, we focus on how we live out the Christian faith, how we walk in Strength of Faith. We are focusing on our growth in Strength of Faith.

What does God, Who is all powerful, perfectly just, Who knows everything about us, even those things we hold in the secret of our heart, do for His people?

Some might say that sits as judge. That would be correct, for He has that role. Some might say He loves, for indeed that is His attribute as well. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews asks us to consider this:

For it was fitting that He, for Whom and through Whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the Leader to their salvation perfect through suffering.

The writer says that it is fitting, i.e., proper, and appropriate for God to choose the path of suffering for His Son, so that through this suffering we might be saved. Not only that, so that His Son would fully comprehend us, have the same experiences and trials as us, and walking with us show us the way to glory. By the Son’s strength of faith we are called to strength of faith.

Now we might figure, God could have done this differently, and of course He could, but then we would miss the vastness of His love, of His willingness to suffer and sacrifice all for us. His willingness to make us His brothers.

God not only loves as a concept but loves completely and sacrificially. He loves so much that He was willing to raise us up to the level of brotherhood with Him by His likeness to us.

This is an awesome and all-encompassing love. It is a compassionate love. It is a love that will not let God stand on the side as a spectator, but rather that involves Him intimately in our lives, because He humbled Himself in His sufferings to raise us higher than angels; to give us a triumph that is everlasting.

The symbols of marriage discussed in Genesis and today’s gospel mark not just a rule for life, a dictate for men and women to follow, but more so a call to be living symbols of God’s love toward us, for this is how God is, how He loves, and lives.

What God does for is people is to live a marital union of fidelity with us. Offering sacrificial love constantly, God only asks that we join ourselves to Him. Indeed, God calls us to live as one flesh with Him. He Who has so loved us that He gave His whole self for us asks us only to love Him and be joined with Him in return.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC,

Homily for Solemn Vespers of Thanksgiving on the Centennial of the Parish

He predestined us to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ, simply because it pleased him to do so. This he did for the praise of the glory of his grace, of his free gift to us in his Beloved, in whose blood we have gained redemption, and the forgiveness of our sins.

From this evening’s Canticle taken from the first chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Church at Ephesus.

This evening we begin this three-day celebration, marked by worship in liturgy and in festive repast. We start with Vespers, the age-old rhythm of prayer in which we join with the entire Church praying through the psalms. How fitting that we pray with the whole Church as the whole Church prays with us.

This prayer, as with the Holy Masses we will celebrate is a communal action, joining the Body of Christ outwardly and mystically.

The words joining, communal. the whole – all speak to the unity we have in the Holy Name of Jesus. It is what St. Paul often speaks of- the one Body of Christ, each person with a role, each person a member. In Ephesians 1 Paul calls us adopted children through Jesus Christ.

As adoptees, we are members of the family of God. We have become co-heirs to the promises of the Father right beside His Son Jesus. This is a wonderful and happy prospect. It is a gift given to us by the Father’s beloved Son, Jesus.

The amazing and Most Holy Name of Jesus. It is interesting that this parish, currently Holy Name of Jesus, grew out of St. Joseph’s parish. It was Joseph, who having received instruction in a dream, gave God’s Son the name Jesus. Joseph listened to the voice of God and did what was asked of him. So, back-in-the-day the people of this parish listened to the inspiration given them and decided to dedicate this parish to Jesus’ Holy Name.

The amazing and Most Holy Name of Jesus. I suppose it would have been a bit easier to keep the name St. Joseph’s for this parish. We can relate to Joseph as a person, as a holy and righteous man who carried out God’s instruction. It is kind of hard to relate to an idea like a name. That is more conceptual. What does a name mean, what does it denote, what can it do?

We have plenty of scriptural evidence that tells us of the power of Jesus’ name, what it denotes and does. In Acts 3:16, the Holy Name of Jesus heals. Seventy-five times in the Gospels and Acts we find phrases like: the name of Jesus, the name of the Lord, His name, and other references. Jesus’ name is one of power and hope. In Acts 4:12 we hear Peter and John tell those persecuting them that: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” True life, eternal life, freedom from sin come from the Name of Jesus. Acts 2:21 tells us: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” So, we have been privileged to call upon His name and to be dedicated to His Holy Name, to be saved by and in His Holy Name.

But there is more.

During this weekend of celebration, look around. Look into the faces of people touched by our bearing witness to the Holy Name of Jesus. Then look deeper.

As Christians we often bandy about the idea that everyone is created in God’s image, that each person is a reflection of Jesus. You know, whatever you do or say to them, you do or say to Me. That is absolutely true. But there is more. Each person also bears within themselves the Name of Jesus.

For some, it is right out there for all to see. Some can certainly say: I bear the Name of Jesus in all I say and do. I proclaim Jesus wherever I go.  For others it may be more subtle, not quite on top, but we can perceive through their actions, their goodness and compassion, that they bear the Name of Jesus. Still for others, it is much harder to find, so much so that we forget they bear the Name of Jesus in them. We forget that Joe, Mary, Estelle, Nancy, Hypathia, Tony or the other is marked with the Name Jesus just as much as we are.

This is where that great hymn we began with should jump to the fore of our minds and lips: Holy God we praise Thy Name. For if we fail to act with compassion and charity toward anyone, we do not praise His Name we reject it, and thus reject the adoption, salvation, and healing His Holy Name brings.

This is a great and humbling lesson we must carry forth from here. It is a lesson for the next millennia – to continue to carry out the work underway here since 1921. 

For one hundred years, a century, we have opened our hearts and have seen the Name of Jesus in others, caught a glimpse of His image in them and welcomed them. We have grasped unto His adoption, healing, and salvation. We have brought comfort to the dispossessed, the stranger became no more a stranger. Those whose dignity was insulted found restoration here. Those who came without left filled.  We praised His Holy Name. We greatly and rightly praised the Holy Name of Jesus.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC,

Reflection for the Solemnity of Brotherly Love 2021

Strength of Faith

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?“

Over the months of Ordinary Time, a time dedicated to growth, we focus on how we live out the Christian faith, how we walk in Strength of Faith. Remember to focus on our Strength of Faith.

Today we again take a brief break from Mark’s gospel account and this time venture into Luke’s account of the challenge Jesus faced from the lawyer. How do I get to eternal life? What must I do?

The Jewish faith, from outward appearance, even to this day, has a very strong emphasis on doing. Wear this, wash this way, cook this way, spend the Sabbath like this. Pray this way. Responding to Jesus, the lawyer could have just quoted every one of the 613 commandments and all the rabbinical commentary on them. If you do all this, you shall live.

Perhaps the lawyer was just a bit wiser than that. For him, it came down to the two core commandments of love, love of God, love of neighbor.

Then confusion set in, for the 613 commandments make very clear distinction between insiders and outsiders. Commandment 166 and 167: A bastard child cannot become an Israelite. A eunuch or sexually mutilated man may not enter the community. Or 596 and 597: Destroy the seven Canaanite nations. Not to let any of them remain alive. Then there is always 449: A skin-diseased person will tear his clothes, grow his hair long, and cry out, “unclean, unclean.”

Could these people possibly be my neighbors? Do I have to love them? They are outside the community.

We all know that Jesus takes the Samaritan businessman, and uses him as the example of right behavior, for proper brotherly love, for strength of faith. Jesus is being totally politically incorrect and inappropriate for the Samaritans were more despised than the gentiles. A Samaritan woman was always considered ‘unclean.’ Jews and Samarians hated each other. Some Pharisees even accused Jesus of having a demon and being a Samaritan Himself, as insulting as one could get.

This detour into Luke tells us two things. The first is that our studies on strength of faith cannot be just studies. Faith does not live if it is on a bookshelf. We are to live out our strength of faith. We must move from discipleship to apostleship, from students to doers of love.

The second lesson is that strength of faith calls us to the harder work. Ever meet one of those people who when presented with a challenge are already underway in taking it on; before the question is even over? Yes, that is how we are to be. Strength of Faith must be translated not only into doing, but into heroic doing. We are called to love in great self-sacrificing ways, to conquer even the most challenging call to love in Jesus’ name. That is what we must do.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC,

Reflection for Labor Day 2021

For where your treasure is there also your heart will be.

I like Labor Day, in fact I really love Labor Day because it gives us an opportunity to reflect on what we do each and every day, whether we do it as retired people, when we hop in our car or get online to go to work, when we go to school, or the work we do when we’re searching for new work, for a new job, for a new opportunity. It takes time it is a struggle. It is a constant effort to do those things and to do them well as a representative of Christ Jesus.

The thing we must be careful of each day and what is pointed out by God on this day especially, is that we cannot compartmentalize our lives. We cannot say: Well, it is 8 a.m or 7 a.m or if you’re a construction worker 6 a.m. Now it is time to go to work and I am going to do my work and that is going to be one little compartment of my life. Then I am going to drive home at the end of the day and that is going to be another little compartment. Then I am going to get home with my family and that is going to be another compartment. Then I am going to watch some TV and do some gaming and do some other things around the house that need to be done (maybe mowing the lawn or pretty soon shoveling the snow). That is another compartment.

As you have likely experienced, we tend to break things into ordered segments. The segments of our lives are ordered according to the schedule of our days. As such, what we must be careful of, and what God calls us to consider this day, is that all those segments must not be segregated from our work as Christians.

Bishop Hodur, in organizing the Church, was a great advocate for the Labor movement. Why? Because he saw the Labor movement as a reflection of God’s kingdom design. In Unions people come together to accomplish. He did not say: Well the Labor movement is going to do this and they’re going to do their work in this little box, No, he said Labor and the work of the Christian member of Labor has to be a consistent activity focused on the building up of the Christian man or woman, of their families, and all pointed to the building up of the Kingdom of God.

No, work cannot be segregated from God. Pleasure and time spent in relaxation cannot be segregated from God. Time spent in school, time spent searching for work, time spent shoveling the snow or mowing the lawn or caring for the garden cannot be segregated from God.

We are called by God to live a consistent and holistic life that is focused on the work of the Kingdom. If we do that, what Saint Paul points out will be accomplished in our lives. We will be building with gold, silver, and precious stones.

Remember, Paul is saying that a foundation has been laid in Christ. That is the foundation we are building upon in every aspect of our lives. As Christians, we do not build in some small Sunday compartment. Everything in our lives is meant to build upon the foundation established in Jesus Christ.

It is about how we build on the foundation. Some build with gold, silver, and precious stones. They put their whole selves into the work of the Christian life, not segregated or compartmentalized.  Other use wood (probably not pressure treated), straw, or hay.

When the DAY comes, and Paul is referring to the end times, all of that is burned away. What will be left but the gold, silver, and precious stones.

What is going to burn away is the work of those who compartmentalize and segment their lives. They are not all-in. they have built weakly, with straw and with hay and with wood rather than gold, silver, and precious stones.

So, our whole efforts, our entire work, everything we do is to be within our life in Christ and Christ in us. On this Labor Day then, let us reflect upon what we do each day and resolve to be builders for God, building with only our best.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC, , ,

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Institution 2021

Be not afraid!

“I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.”

So far in Lent we have focused on the change and reform necessary in our lives. We have been focusing on the various Lenten disciplines, the means and methods by which we achieve conversion, change and reform. These disciplines help us become more ardent and faithful livers of Jesus’s gospel way.

The subjects of fasting, sacrifice or giving, and study have been covered thus far. Next week we resume with the consideration of prayer and proclamation.

Our Holy Church pauses today to celebrate. We sense it because today we hear the Gloria and the Alleluia. Lenten purple is put away for this moment and is replaced by joyous white.

We celebrate because this Sunday, one-hundred and twenty-four years ago, a group of oppressed immigrants, people treated disrespectfully by oppressors in their home countries, right here in the United States, and even by their church, people thought little of by their neighbors, took the lessons learned from the Lenten disciplines they faithfully practiced and put them to action. 

This Sunday what they learned from fasting, sacrifice, study, prayer, and the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus, humanity’s Emancipator, bore fruit. They found themselves the branches of the true Vine – alive in Christ. They found themselves freed of the dead old branch pruned away because of its corruption, pruned away because it heeded deceitful spirits and followed men with seared consciences.

These heroic people stood on the side of Jesus and just as proclaimed in Wisdom, He, the Just One, confronted their oppressors with great confidence. Those oppressors stood there in awe and they still do today.

As with every true Christian. from the time of the Acts Church. those faith filled immigrant heroes stood up without fear. They heard Jesus say, Fear not little flock. They inherited and have passed on to us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

We have Christ Jesus. We are His branches. His Father strengthens us and fills us with His good grace. We can face any fear and no longer be debilitated by it. The tender love of God has freed us from terror, from being held down, and from slavery to the opinions of those who do not know the Lord. A disciplined life strengthens us for this. Faithful trust is the fruit of the reform necessary in our lives and the world. Today we celebrate those who trusted and say with them:  In You O Lord I place my trust. Boże, do Ciebie się uciekam!

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Reflection for the Solemnity of the Holy Family 2021

By what standard?

Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.

Straight to the point. I ought to start this by saying that today’s Epistle, as outlined in the Lectionary gives us two choices. We can read all of Paul’s admonitions in Colossians 3:12-21 or we can skip over the hard parts, things that make us uncomfortable.

We all know what God wants, right – to skip over the hard parts? 

We can certainly agree that God never wants us to skip over the hard parts of His instruction. Jesus told us: “In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.” (John 16:33).

What disturbs us about Paul’s words is that we read them from a perspective that the godless world pushes on us. That perspective is one in which there is no analysis, there is no search for deeper understanding. We somehow believe that English is the anointed language by which all must be understood, and heaven forbid that anyone use the word subordinate. Obviously, I, me, comes first.

I, me first, is not of Christ.

In Genesis, God creates a model of family and as we heard in today’s gospel, His very Son, Jesus, lived within that model. But let’s not just stop at the outward appearance of that model, because the inward nature of the family model is brought to the fore by St. Paul in his writing to the Colossians.

Paul is discussing an inter-relationship among the faithful. We are first and foremost a community that practices mutual love and respect. We offer each other heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. We bear with each other and forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven us (catch that – live as the Lord lived). Above all we put on love as our mutual bond of perfection. Is that hard?

Jesus was born into a family that lived all that, and one in which each person lived a sacrificial existence, where the good of the other came before their own good. That is what being subordinate is. That is what love and obedience are. That is what total giving is.  In family we must be willing to decrease so that our wives, husbands, and children may increase. That is love in mutuality. Is that hard?

Never mistake this direction as having to do with being a slave. A slave does not have a choice in the giving of self. We do. 

The bottom line – How are we to live together? What do we consider hard? For us the standard within family and community is God’s standard. A life of total self-giving should not be hard for Christians.

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