Day: September 25, 2008

Christian Witness, Current Events, , ,

Crop Walk in South Deerfield, MA.

Holy Name of Jesus Parish in South Deerfield, Massachusetts will be participating in Crop Walk on Sunday, October 19th The walk begins and ends at the South Deerfield Congregational Church. There is a 2.5 mile course and a 6 mile course. Holy Name will be providing a water station for the event. I encourage my readers in the area to support the parish’s efforts by volunteering, walking, or sponsoring a walker.

Like all Crop Walk events 25% of all proceeds stays in the local community to benefit local programs.

Remember too that the PNCC is a participating denomination in Church World Service.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political, ,

Homogeneity, neighborhoods, the good life…

I found an interesting article at The Catholic Thing: Neighborhoods Thrive Throughout America wherein the author states:

—It is easy to see in this mutuality of obligation,— writes sociologist Andrew Greeley, —a continuation in the urban environment of the old peasant loyalties of village and clan.—

The Catholic immigrant experience proved that homogenous neighborhoods can enhance American urban life —“ quite a contrast the 1960s big-government social engineers who, in the name of urban renewal, turned many of them into municipal deserts.

I refer to this as the good life because this environment, the associations created therein, and as the author states, this “mutuality,” is part and parcel of God’s design for mankind. We are designed to grow in our understanding of our obligations toward each other. We are meant to act within a supportive and connected community, valuing our family and our neighbor (Luke 10:29). The good life is found in communities that build up and support the right aspirations of their members — aspirations founded in the Gospel and the teachings of the Church. The confluence of right teaching and communal membership forms a microcosm for teaching and passing on an understanding of our moral, social, and religious obligations.

From experience we know that such communities were not without their sins and shortcomings. That is where we all fall short. That said, we must not negate the greater value provided by those communities all-the-while rushing headlong into forced unanimity. As we have ventured into new, unexplored, individualistic territories, under the mask of unanimity, we have seen the fabric of society torn in numerous ways. As recent events tell we have all played the role of robber-baron in an attempt to claw to the top, enriching ourselves at the cost of family, community, and our nation’s treasure.

As our PNCC experienceThe author notes the growth of ethnic rather than territorial parishes in urban centers. The National Church movement was a key motivator in this arena. R.C. bishops were focused on homogenization, but homogenization into the culture, language, and traditions they personally espoused at the expense of people’s natural connections. demonstrates, the joining together of the component parts of the universal Church is not a denial of the Church’s universality, but rather a strengthening of its component parts – each offering its skills, talents, and abilities to the enrichment of the wider community.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia

Bishop of Portsmouth bans Polish Mass

I am on a streak — catching up with old items I wanted to opine on. Here’s one:

From Damian Thompson at the Telegraph: Bishop of Portsmouth bans Polish Mass.

It’s a wonder that stuff like this still happens. As the Young Fogey pointed out at the time – not only are Bishops who do this against tradition, they are fighting against the very folks who do go to church.

If anyone wonders: Why the PNCC? they need not take a stroll through a hundred plus years of history, they can see it day-to-day, in the here and now. The reasons are obvious, from church closings to clergy that fail to relate to the needs, desires, and aspirations of people in search of God. The reasons for the PNCC were expounded from our first day. It is about respect for God and those who believe in Him, respect for Holy Tradition as well as tradition, respect for those who pay the bills, and central to all these, respect for each person’s God given dignity. Freedom and democracy apply or they do not. Man’s right to use his intellect, talent, and freedom in the service of God apply beyond a bishop’s desire that the believers pray, pay, and obey.

As we declare:

The Church is an organized body of free religious people who strive with the help of their organization, to achieve life’s highest purpose. Every religious act must evolve from man’s free will; it must not yield in any way whatsoever to external compulsion. Neither religion nor the Church as its exponent, should be servants of political parties, governments or tools of the potentates of this world for combating the free aspirations of man or a nation toward liberty; but on the contrary, they are to strengthen men’s spiritual powers, assist them in life’s struggle – in fulfilling their mission nationally and to humanity as a whole. — Principle 5, from The Eleven Great Principles of the Polish National Catholic Church.

Fathers, PNCC

September 25 – St. Gregory of Nyssa from the Great Catechism

To return, then, to its reasonableness. Whether we regard the goodness, the power, the wisdom, or the justice of God, it displays a combination of all these acknowledged attributes, which, if one be wanting, cease to be Divine. It is therefore true to the Divine perfection.

What, then, is the justice in it? We must remember that man was necessarily created subject to change (to better or to worse). Moral beauty was to be the direction in which his free will was to move; but then he was deceived, to his ruin, by an illusion of that beauty. After we had thus freely sold ourselves to the deceiver, He who of His goodness sought to restore us to liberty could not, because He was just too, for this end have recourse to measures of arbitrary violence. It was necessary therefore that a ransom should be paid, which should exceed in value that which was to be ransomed; and hence it was necessary that the Son of God should surrender Himself to the power of death. God’s justice then impelled Him to choose a method of exchange, as His wisdom was seen in executing it.

But how about the power? That was more conspicuously displayed in Deity descending to lowliness, than in all the natural wonders of the universe. It was like flame being made to stream downwards. Then, after such a birth, Christ conquered death. — Chapter XX through XXV.