Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Year: 2008

You are Here :
Homilies,

Solemnity of the Holy Trinity

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

St. Paul’s words at the conclusion of today’s second reading take the form of a blessing we are familiar with. On this Solemnity of the Holy Trinity let’s take a moment to think of the meaning behind this blessing.

St. Paul begins by imploring that we be blessed with the grace of Jesus Christ. He asks that we receive the all giving love of Christ called grace – the love that gives us the ability to overcome the oppression of sin, the grace that leads us ever so slowly and incrementally toward the Father. Grace it is that calls us to proclaim the Holy Faith. Grace it is that calls us to unity with God and each other in the Holy Church.

Then there is the Father, the love of God. A love so vast that the Father would see His Son become incarnate for the sole purpose of teaching man how to love like God loves. He came to show us the vastness of the Father’s love, a love so great that He allowed Himself to be sacrificed for us, for our salvation. He died and rose so that we might be joined in unity with the Father who is love.

St. Paul then prays that the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be ours. The Spirit which the Father sent forth to give us life, to strengthen and guide us, to inspire us so that we might all be one as God is One.

Brothers and sisters,

The Three Persons of the Holy Trinity are calling us to unity. The Three persons of the Holy Trinity – One God.

St. John of Damascus in his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith sums up the oneness of God when he says:

So then in the first sense of the word the three absolutely divine subsistences of the Holy Godhead agree: for they exist as one in essence and uncreate.

The Three Persons are One and so we as their witnesses must be one. We must boldly proclaim the revealed truth of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In living and making that proclamation we must be one.

This leads us to the first part of today’s second reading in which St. Paul says:

Brothers and sisters, rejoice.
Mend your ways, encourage one another,
agree with one another, live in peace,
and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with a holy kiss.

St. Paul is reminding us that we must actively live the faith that speaks of the Holy Trinity. We must live as the children of the Holy Trinity. We are in Christ because we are in His body, the Holy Church. When we do evil to one another, when we act uncharitably, when we slander and gossip, when we hold grudges, when we fail to forgive, and when we neglect our duty in love, we loudly proclaim that the Trinity means nothing, that we are apart from God and what God is. For God is not divided, God is One.

Today’s Gospel reminds us:

Whoever believes in him will not be condemned,
but whoever does not believe has already been condemned,
because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Do you believe? Do I believe? Do we truly believe in Jesus Christ. If we do then we act in unity and in love. Not just in this town, not just in this parish, not just with that priest or deacon because I like them better than the other, not just with this family because I agree with it more than the other, but with all members of the Holy Church. We must live lives that show to their very depth that we live in unity and in love with every man and woman who bears the name Christian.

Our God is the One God, the Holy God, the Almighty and Everlasting God. He has come to us and has taught us: You as my followers must be one as I am One.

My friends,

Moses came face to face with God.

The LORD stood with Moses there
and proclaimed his name, “LORD.”
Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out,
“The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God,
slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”

This is our God, the Lord. Our first reaction must be like that of Moses:

Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.

We must recognize the He is God and is due our worship.

Our second reaction must be like that of Moses:

—pardon our wickedness and sins,
and receive us as your own.”—¨

We must be aware of our sin and beg God for mercy because we do not live as He would have us live.

Finally, our life must be the life of the Apostles – life in and of the Holy Church:

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

Lives lived in faithfulness to God and His way – lives lived in unity with God and each other. Lives that say we are members of the Body of Christ. Let it be so so today. Let it be so always. Let us proclaim our oneness in all we say, think, and do. Amen.

Christian Witness, PNCC, Political,

Amen Fr. Jordan

From the NY Times: Tending to a Flock in Hard Hats

The Rev. Brian Jordan had just loped to the end of a long run on a Saturday afternoon, savoring one of those rare times a priest could be considered off duty, when he checked the message on his cellphone. The voice belonged to an old contact in Local 14 of the operating engineers’ union. His words were succinct and specific: —There’s been an accident at 51st and Second. Can you help us?—

Within minutes, Father Jordan covered his running gear with the brown habit and capuche he wore as a Franciscan and drove from the Rockaway beachfront back to Midtown Manhattan. The scene he found there on March 15 was a chaos of rubble, crushed cars, rescue crews, ambulances, gawkers and, at the center, a collapsed building and a buckled construction crane.

Father Jordan looked past all of it, searching for the men in hard hats —” his parish, his flock. Some were crying, some were hugging, some were kicking at the ground. A couple recognized the priest from the months they had spent at ground zero in Lower Manhattan.

On this day, as on those days, Father Jordan picked his way into the ruins. Four construction workers were known to be dead, and the bodies of two more workers would be found days later (along with the body of a woman who had been visiting from South Florida). Their surviving comrades lifted off their hard hats as the priest sprinkled holy water amid the wreckage and prayed that God would grant the souls of the departed eternal rest.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, Father Jordan has ministered to the building trades, which has meant both celebrating acts of material creation and mourning those killed in this dangerous work. The six workers’ deaths on March 15 were the most he had dealt with on a single day since Sept. 11, and came amid an especially tragic 12 months, with 26 fatalities on New York work sites.

On April 28, Father Jordan officiated at a Mass for Workers’ Memorial Day in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In most years, safer years, the annual event had been easily accommodated in the priest’s home church, St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street. Regardless of the setting, Father Jordan has preached a consistent message.

—Union construction workers have sacred instruments,— he said in his homily at St. Patrick’s. —No, not just their tools, machinery and computerized systems that they are trained and responsible for. These sacred instruments are their hands.—

—As a surgeon has sacred hands while performing a medical operation, as a priest has sacred hands while celebrating the Eucharist, so are union construction workers with their sacred and skillful hands— doing godly work by building hospitals, schools, family homes. —I am not stretching the imagery of sacredness,— he continued. —I am simply stating a fact.—

Father Jordan, 52, grew up in the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn, the son of a bakery-truck driver who was the shop steward in his Teamsters’ local. —My father used the term ‘solidarity’ when I was a kid,— Father Jordan recalled in an interview. —He’d say, ‘When we go to church, we pray together. When we do a job, we work together. When we stand up for something, we stand together.’ So I had that concept from a young age.—

Still, Father Jordan entered Siena College near Albany with the goal of becoming a lawyer. It was the Rev. Mychal F. Judge, then an assistant to the college president, who recruited the undergraduate with this sales pitch: —Don’t be an unhappy lawyer. Be a happy priest.—

During seminary, through ordination in 1983 and in his initial parishes in the Bronx, Boston and suburban Washington, Father Jordan counted Father Judge as his mentor. In particular, he learned from the example Father Judge set in his role as chaplain to the New York City Fire Department.

So it was almost eerily appropriate that on the day Father Judge died at ground zero while tending to the fallen, Father Jordan arrived there with his holy water, beginning 10 months of praying for the dead and the living alike.

—Caring for people, making time for people, not worrying about your own needs,— Father Jordan said of his mentor’s example. —He always said, ‘Time is a gift from God. What you receive as a gift, give as a gift.’ He said that to me 30 years ago. Still makes sense.—

In acting on Father Judge’s advice, Father Jordan has worked extensively among immigrants as well as construction workers. Increasingly, he has seen the lines blur between his two specialties as immigrants have moved into the building trades. Father Jordan’s role requires a series of balancing acts: being on good terms with labor unions as well as contractors, visiting union workers as well as nonunion worksites, empathizing with illegal immigrants while hearing out rank-and-file members convinced that those same immigrants are driving down wages. On one point, though, Father Jordan has been repeatedly, publicly assertive: he believes that nonunion contractors do not provide the high level of training that construction unions do and that, as a result, nonunion workers face a greater risk of injury or death…

Because of the work I do in my non-clerical profession I know of what he speaks – and I have seen it first hand. The abuse of workers (also see here, here, and here) is rampant and is keyed in to one thing – improving the bottom line. I have often said that the abuses that take place, especially those aimed at the immigrant worker community, equal the horrors seen in the the manufacturing environment in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

The Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) is the church of these workers. It was founded by the hard working coal miners of Pennsylvania, as well as those who worked in manufacturing in Chicago and Buffalo. Their struggle for fair wages, education, health and safety protections, and the elimination of child labor was championed by Bishop Hodur.

On November 30, 1919 Bishop Hodur gave an address at a reception for Maciej Leszczyński held in Scranton’s town hall. Mr. Leszczyński was in the United States as a delegate to the International Conference of WorkersSee the History of the ILO, specifically: The ILO has made signal contributions to the world of work from its early days. The first International Labour Conference held in Washington in October 1919 adopted six International Labour Conventions, which dealt with hours of work in industry, unemployment, maternity protection, night work for women, minimum age and night work for young persons in industry.. Those in attendance at the event included congressman John Farr and District President John T. Dempsey of the United Mine Workers. At the reception Bishop Hodur said:

One of the greatest achievements of modem civilization is respect and honor for human labor. In the past, labor was undervalued, work was shameful, and what goes with that, working people were mistreated and abused. There was kowtowing and bowing before those who did not need to work hard, and those who did work hard and with their toil created wealth and fed others were regarded as half-free or slaves. Even the greatest of the ancient thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle regarded this economic system as just and the only one recommended, in which a minority rules and possesses full rights of citizenship and the majority works and produces. This majority of people had no rights, it was not free. And such a system lasted whole ages.

Truly Jesus Christ came on earth as the greatest teacher of humankind, the spiritual regenerator, and he condemned a social order based on cruelty and injustice…

Not until the beginning of the nineteenth century were the commandments of Christ the Lord remembered, His teaching about the worthiness and value of labor…

And from that time, that is, more or less from the middle of the last century, begins the organization of workers on a larger scale in the name of the rights of man, in the name of the value and worthiness of labor. Everything that workers did in the name of their slogans was good.

And today one may say boldly that the cause of labor is the most important one, and that progress, the development and happiness of the whole nation, of all mankind, depends on its just resolution. Workers today have more privileges than they have ever had.

In this reasonable and just struggle for rights, bread for the family and education for children, for common control of the wealth created by the worker, our holy Church stands before the worker like a pillar of fire, and the hand of Christ blesses him in his work.

Fathers, PNCC

May 17 – St. John of Damascus from An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

Likewise we believe also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life: Who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son: the object of equal adoration and glorification with the Father and Son, since He is co-essential and co-eternal: the Spirit of God, direct, authoritative, the fountain of wisdom, and life, and holiness: God existing and addressed along with Father and Son: uncreate, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful, of infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any lord: deifying, not deified: filling, not filled: shared in, not sharing in: sanctifying, not sanctified: the intercessor, receiving the supplications of all: in all things like to the Father and Son: proceeding from the Father and communicated through the Son, and participated in by all creation, through Himself creating, and investing with essence and sanctifying, and maintaining the universe: having subsistence, existing in its own proper and peculiar subsistence, inseparable and indivisible from Father and Son, and possessing all the qualities that the Father and Son possess, save that of not being begotten or born. For the Father is without cause and unborn: for He is derived from nothing, but derives from Himself His being, nor does He derive a single quality from another. Rather He is Himself the beginning and cause of the existence of all things in a definite and natural manner. But the Son is derived from the Father after the manner of generation, and the Holy Spirit likewise is derived from the Father, yet not after the manner of generation, but after that of procession. And we have learned that there is a difference between generation and procession, but the nature of that difference we in no wise understand. Further, the generation of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit are simultaneous.

All then that the Son and the Spirit have is from the Father, even their very being: and unless the Father is, neither the Son nor the Spirit is. And unless the Father possesses a certain attribute, neither the Son nor the Spirit possesses it: and through the Father, that is, because of the Father’s existence, the Son and the Spirit exist, and through the Father, that is, because of the Father having the qualities, the Son and the Spirit have all their qualities, those of being unbegotten, and of birth and of procession being excepted. For in these hypostatic or personal properties alone do the three holy subsistences differ from each other, being indivisibly divided not by essence but by the distinguishing mark of their proper and peculiar subsistence.

Further we say that each of the three has a perfect subsistence, that we may understand not one compound perfect nature made up of three imperfect elements, but one simple essence, surpassing and preceding perfection, existing in three perfect subsistences. — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.

Fathers, PNCC

May 16 – St. John of Damascus from An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

And this also it behoves us to know, that the names Fatherhood, Sonship and Procession, were not applied to the Holy Godhead by us: on the contrary, they were communicated to us by the Godhead, as the divine apostle says, Wherefore I bow the knee to the Father, from Whom is every family in heaven and on earth. But if we say that the Father is the origin of the Son and greater than the Son, we do not suggest any precedence in time or superiority in nature of the Father over the Son (for through His agency He made the ages ), or superiority in any other respect save causation. And we mean by this, that the Son is begotten of the Father and not the Father of the Son, and that the Father naturally is the cause of the Son: just as we say in the same way not that fire proceeds from light, but rather light from fire. So then, whenever we hear it said that the Father is the origin of the Son and greater than the Son, let us understand it to mean in respect of causation. And just as we do not say that fire is of one essence and light of another, so we cannot say that the Father is of one essence and the Son of another: but both are of one and the same essence. And just as we say that fire has brightness through the light proceeding from it, and do not consider the light of the fire as an instrument ministering to the fire, but rather as its natural force: so we say that the Father creates all that He creates through His Only-begotten Son, not as though the Son were a mere instrument serving the Father’s ends, but as His natural and subsistential force . And just as we say both that the fire shines and again that the light of the fire shines, So all things whatsoever the Father does, these also does the Son likewise. But whereas light possesses no proper subsistence of its own, distinct from that of the fire, the Son is a perfect subsistence, inseparable from the Father’s subsistence, as we have shown above. For it is quite impossible to find in creation an image that will illustrate in itself exactly in all details the nature of the Holy Trinity. For how could that which is create and compound, subject to flux and change, circumscribed, formed and corruptible, clearly show forth the super-essential divine essence, unaffected as it is in any of these ways? Now it is evident that all creation is liable to most of these affections, and all from its very nature is subject to corruption. — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.

Fathers, PNCC

May 15 – St. John of Damascus from An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

So then in the first sense of the word the three absolutely divine subsistences of the Holy Godhead agree: for they exist as one in essence and uncreate. But with the second signification it is quite otherwise. For the Father alone is ingenerate, no other subsistence having given Him being. And the Son alone is generate, for He was begotten of the Father’s essence without beginning and without time. And only the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father’s essence, not having been generated but simply proceeding. For this is the doctrine of Holy Scripture. But the nature of the generation and the procession is quite beyond comprehension. — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.

Perspective, Political

Freedom to eat

From the AP: Chicago overturns ban on foie gras in restaurants

CHICAGO (AP) —” Dining on foie gras —” a delicacy made of duck and goose liver —” will soon be legal again in Chicago.

The City Council on Wednesday repealed its two-year-old ban on the gourmet dish, drawing dissent from animal rights activists who consider foie gras cruel because the birds are force-fed to make their livers bigger.

But there were no worries in chef Didier Durand’s restaurant, Cyrano’s Bistrot.

“All of us are so excited,” Durand told reporters as he held his pet duck, Nicolai, named after French President Nicolas Sarkozy. “People miss it. They used to go to the suburbs to get foie gras and stopped going to specifically French restaurants.”

Durand was one of a coalition of restaurateurs who started Chicago Chefs for Choice, a movement to overturn the ban, which went into effect in August 2006. He said Wednesday that he would begin serving foie gras again as soon as the repeal goes into effect later this month.

“You might disagree with serving foie gras, but you don’t do a ban and forbid everybody to have foie gras,” Durand said. His restaurant was one of many across the city that held foie gras dinners in the days before the ban took effect…

Amen chef, Amen! The government looses control over one more aspect of our lives. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it. Protest against it. Use your mind and your wits to convince others of your argument, but don’t put me in prison because I disagree with your perspective.

Fathers, PNCC

May 14 – St. John of Damascus from An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

Accordingly the everlasting God generates His own Word which is perfect, without beginning and without end, that God, Whose nature and existence are above time, may not engender in time. But with man clearly it is otherwise, for generation is with him a matter of sex, and destruction and flux and increase and body clothe him round about , and he possesses a nature which is male or female. For the male requires the assistance of the female. But may He Who surpasses all, and transcends all thought and comprehension, be gracious to us.

The holy catholic and apostolic Church, then, teaches the existence at once of a Father: and of His Only-begotten Son, born of Him without time and flux and passion, in a manner incomprehensible and perceived by the God of the universe alone: just as we recognise the existence at once of fire and the light which proceeds from it: for there is not first fire and thereafter light, but they exist together. And just as light is ever the product of fire, and ever is in it and at no time is separate from it, so in like manner also the Son is begotten of the Father and is never in any way separate from Him, but ever is in Him . But whereas the light which is produced from fire without separation, and abides ever in it, has no proper subsistence of its own distinct from that of fire (for it is a natural quality of fire), the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father without separation and difference and ever abiding in Him, has a proper subsistence of its own distinct from that of the Father. — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.

Perspective, PNCC

Who’s that man in a dress

…and why is he dancing with that little girl?

Deacon Jim and daughter

In New York’s Capital Region we have several public access TV stations. One of the stations carries a Polka show (I think its called Polka Joe – but I’m not sure). Anyway, this gentleman travels from Polka event to Polka event and films the events. The events are later broadcast via public access. It’s a niche demographic.

A week or two ago one of my staff members caught up with me to tell me that her mother-in-law was watching this Polka show and saw this guy in a dress dancing with a little girl. She called her over to see a scene filmed at my parish’s annual PolishFest. My staff member looked closely and saw that it was my daughter and me.

Q. Who’s that man in a dress?
A. He is a deacon at that church.
Q. Why is he dancing with a little girl?
A. It’s his daughter.
Q. Why is he wearing a dress?
A. Clerical attire.

All sorts of hilarity ensued.

When I attend a public event – especially at the parish, I wear a cassock and cincture. I also have a biretta, but that only comes out for liturgical events. What I found most interesting is that the person asking is probably old enough (and Roman Catholic enough) to remember cassocks, birettas, etc.

I was born just prior to Vatican II and remember my pastor walking his dogs wearing a cassock and biretta. I remember the way he came to the altar wearing the biretta, and then removed it as he ascended the steps. The priests of that day may have worn a “dress” and a funny hat but they were men.

I personally hope that their use becomes more prevalent. Beyond the basic message the cassock conveys (remember at tonsure you are reminded that you are no longer adorned in the fashion of the world – ab omni servitute saecularis habitus hunc famulum tuum emunda, ut dum ignominiam saecularis habitus deponit, tua semper in aevum gratia perfruatur), wearing a cassock make the balance of the liturgical garments a clergy member wears look far better. The lines are cleaner and you don’t look messy with pant cuffs hanging below your opaque alb (bleh…).

Just a little story outlining the things lost in the twilight zone called V-II.

Poland - Polish - Polonia

Belated May 3rd

Because of a lack of free time and various travels I neglected to post a little something in honor of Polish national holiday recognizing the Constitution of May 3rd, 1791.

Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kosciuszko

The May 3rd Constitution was the world’s second modern codified national constitution. Political scientists recognize it to be a very progressive document for its time. The anniversary of its enactment kept the hope of a free Poland alive through the dark times of occupation and its memory lives on in this annual celebration.

In honor of the May 3rd holiday here are a few excepts from the thoughts of Thaddeus Kosciuszko, hero of Poland and the United States. He defended freedom in the newly formed United States and fought for the May 3rd Constitution against Poland’s foreign occupiers.

Kosciuszko’s Advice to a Youth

To do honor to your family and yourself and at my recommendation, you must reread what follows every day so that it will be engraved on your memory on which your well being will depend.

Rise at four in the summer and six in the winter. Your first thoughts must be directed towards the Supreme Being; worship Him for a few minutes. Set yourself to work with reflection and intelligence, either at your prescribed duty carried out in the most scrupulous manner, or perfect yourself in some science in which you should have true mastery. Avoid lying under any circumstances in your life, but always be frank and loyal and always tell the truth. Never be idle but be sober and frugal even hard on yourself while indulgent to others. Do not be vain nor an egotist. Before speaking or answering on something, reflect and consider well in order not to lose your point and say something foolish. Never fail to give due recognition under any circumstances to the person who is in charge of your well being. Anticipate his desires and his wishes. Pay close attention with proper humility. Look for an opportunity to be useful. As you are a foreigner in the country, redouble your concern and efforts to gain trust and preference over the natives legitimately by your merit and superior knowledge. If a secret is entrusted in you, keep it religiously; in all your actions you must be upright, sincere and open; no dissimulation in your speech, do not argue but seek the truth calmly and with modesty, be polite and considerate to everyone, agreeable and obliging in society, humane and helpful to the unfortunate according to your means. Read instructive books to embellish your mind and improve your spirit. Do not degrade yourself by making bad acquaintances, but rather those with high principles and reputation thus your conduct should be such that the whole world approves it and that wherever you may be it will be considered irreproachable.

Kosciuszko’s Will

I, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, being just in my departure from America, do hereby declare and direct that should I make no other testamentary disposition of my property in the United States thereby authorize my friend Thomas Jefferson to employ the whole thereof in purchasing negroes from among his own as any others and giving them liberty in my name in giving them an education in trades and otherwise, and in having them instructed for their new condition in the duties of morality which may make them good neighbors, good fathers or mothers, husbands or wives and in their duties as citizens, teaching them to be defenders of their liberty and country and of the good order of society and in whatsoever may make them happy and useful, and I make the said Thomas Jefferson my executor of this.

Thaddeus Kosciuszko
5th day of May, 1798

Fathers, PNCC

May 13 – St. John of Damascus from An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

(We believe) in one Father, the beginning , and cause of all: begotten of no one: without cause or generation, alone subsisting: creator of all: but Father of one only by nature, His Only-begotten Son and our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Producer of the most Holy Spirit. And in one Son of God, the Only-begotten, our Lord, Jesus Christ: begotten of the Father, before all the ages: Light of Light, true God of true God: begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through Whom all things are made: and when we say He was before all the ages we show that His birth is without time or beginning: for the Son of God was not brought into being out of nothing , He that is the effulgence of the glory, the impress of the Father’s subsistence , the living wisdom and power, the Word possessing interior subsistence , the essential and perfect and living image of the unseen God. But always He was with the Father and in Him , everlastingly and without beginning begotten of Him. For there never was a time when the Father was and the Son was not, but always the Father and always the Son, Who was begotten of Him, existed together. For He could not have received the name Father apart from the Son: for if He were without the Son , He could not be the Father: and if He thereafter had the Son, thereafter He became the Father, not having been the Father prior to this, and He was changed from that which was not the Father and became the Father. This is the worst form of blasphemy . For we may not speak of God as destitute of natural generative power: and generative power means, the power of producing from one’s self, that is to say, from one’s own proper essence, that which is like in nature to one’s self. — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.

All Right Reserved © 2005 - 2023