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Month: August 2010

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Events, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Summer — food and festivals

Minneapolis, MN: From the Twin Cities Daily Planet: Two Polish festivals for Minneapolis

For Polish families in Northeast Minneapolis there is the Twin Cities Polish Festival – and then there is THE Polish Fest. The latter, sponsored by Sacred Heart of Jesus Polish National Catholic Church, was Saturday, August 7, at the church at 420 22nd Ave NE. Parishioners at Sacred Heart of Jesus know that their fest long preceded the neophyte Twin Cities Polish Festival which is coming up August 14-15 at St. Anthony.

The bottom line: you just can’t have enough Polish festivity.

The Twin Cities Polish Festival, new on the festival scene, features a wide range of cultural, historical and educational displays, musical and dance entertainment and traditional foods and beverages. Attendees of whatever ethnic persuasion will enjoy “all things Polish,” presenting a kaleidoscope of unique cultural and educational displays, food and entertainment. Highlights include the Kresy-Syberia Exhibit, a literary display featuring Polish writer Joseph Conrad, a major Chopin performance, a whirlwind of polka, and a Polish Film Festival co-sponsored by Minnesota Film Arts.

Albany, NY: The Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave Ext, Albany is sponsoring a Polish-American buffet, Friday, August 13th from 4 to 8pm and a Polka dance – picnic with Rymanowski Brothers Band on Sunday, August 15th from 2:30 to 6:30pm. Call 518-456-3995 for more information.

Wilkes-Barre, PA: Takeouts-Only Chicken Barbecue on Saturday, August 14th from 1 to 4pm at Holy Cross Polish National Catholic Church, Sheridan Street, Heights, Wilkes-Barre. Dinners are $8. Tickets sold at the door.

Buffalo, NY: Annual Dozynki Harvest Festival and the Third Buffalo’s Best Pierogi Contest at Corpus Christi Church, 199 Clark Street, Buffalo, NY on Saturday, August 21st from 12:30pm till 11:30pm and Sunday, August 22nd from 12:45pm until 5:30pm. The Pierogi Earting Contest will take place Saturday at 4:30pm.

So come watch or particpate!!! The Church’s Pierogi contest has grown to become a big hit. This year they will have three categories… traditional, non traditional, and for the first time commercial (restaurant, businesses, etc.). The judges…Steve Watson (Buffalo News), Greg Witul (Local Historian), Tom Kerr (Executive Director of the Broadway Market), Alan Bedenko (The Buffalo Pundit and restaurant reviewer for Buffalo Spree), Marc Poloncarz (Erie County Comptroller), Marty Biniasz (Dyngus Day Buffalo/Forgotten Buffalo), Christina Abt (Local Author and host of Buffalo Style On WECK), Mark Lewandowski (President, Central Terminal Restoration Corporation), And Josh Boose (WGRZ-TV)…

Christian Witness, PNCC, , ,

Renewal and joy in Denver

From the Denver Post: Griego: Theft at church rallies goodwill

St. Francis of Assisi (Polish) National Catholic Church, from which the statue of St. Francis was stolen sometime the evening of July 30, is a small building tucked off South Jersey Street and East Leetsdale Avenue. “You know where the McDonald’s is? We’re right across the street,” the Rev. John Kalabokes says.

Despite the name, the Polish National Catholic Church has not served a predominantly Polish congregation for a long time. Kalabokes, you might notice, has a distinctly Greek ring to it. Father John is, in fact, the grandson of Greeks, with a little Italian thrown in. He grew up in the Greek Orthodox Church, though he attended Sunday school with a Methodist friend. Young John Kalabokes had long been inclined to the life of the soul, though he did not become a priest until he was in his 50s. Ask him how this came to pass, and he will say: “I finally relented.”

The name, PNCC, speaks to the church’s organization in the late 1800s by Polish immigrants to the United States who could not find a home within the Roman Catholic Church. The PNCC shares more in common with the Roman Catholic Church than it does not, but the differences are significant, and among them are that the PNCC does not adhere to the belief in papal infallibility. Also among the differences, its priests are allowed to marry after ordination. Father John is a husband, father and grandfather.

This little church was started by a former Episcopalian priest named Father Mustoe. The building once housed a pediatric practice. The congregation, most of them older, many on fixed incomes, worked themselves to transform the offices into the lovely, light-filled church it became. They celebrated their first Mass in the building on Easter Sunday in 1990. Eighteen joyful people sitting on lawn chairs.

Every year, St. Francis of Assisi runs at a deficit, and every year the financial secretary warns Father John they might not make it. But they do.

In the past couple years, the congregation has doubled in size to about 50 people who sit in their regular spots and listen to Father John sing the Mass. They are a family in Christ, yes, but a human family as well. So it was not from a building that vandals stole a statue. It was from them.

The St. Francis statue stood about 5 feet tall. It was located at the front doors of the church and so greeted all who entered. It was white and constructed from fiberglass and so was not particularly heavy, but the parishioner who installed it 12 years ago did so with attention to detail and the desire to prevent the wind from knocking it over.

Given this, Father John speculates the thieves, or, as he says, the kidnappers, wrapped the saint in a chain, attached the chain to a truck and hit the gas. Father John suspects the perpetrator(s) might be teenagers out getting their kicks. It could have been someone who simply coveted the piece, though it’s hard to imagine anyone knowingly stealing the replica of a saint who turned his back on worldly possessions.

The theft of St. Francis was discovered Saturday morning by the woman who tends the flowers in the church yard.

“It was devastating,” Father John says. “We all got a little angry about the theft, the kidnapping, but if we know and practice our faith, we will forgive, and we pray for the thieves. We don’t expect to ever get the statue back.”

Here is what happens after the theft. Father John calls a few media folks. Parishioner Thomas Lynch calls a few others. Stories hit the air that weekend. We run a brief story that Sunday. Checks start coming in. Not a lot of them. But just enough. They amount to about $1,500 and come from outside the parish. From a neighbor. From one of Father John’s former bosses from his days in the information-technology field. One comes from a former parishioner, the very same man who had installed the first statue.

By Wednesday, Father John had already picked out a new statue. On Sunday, he told his parishioners he’d placed the order.

“The congregation burst into applause,” Lynch tells me. “It was really moving.”

It was Lynch who called me over the weekend. He sounded jubilant. “There are so many good people in this world,” he says, “and they cared enough to help this little church.”

Father John believes good will come from bad. It has already, he says. The reunion with the former parishioner, the reaffirmation of goodness in people, the attention to a church that has otherwise gone unnoticed. He says he hopes the statue arrives by early October. He will ask all who desire to bring their pets to the church in honor of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals, and under the beneficent eye of the new statue, he will offer both his thanks and his blessing.

PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, ,

Odd, sad, and odder yet

Why PNCC members should use care when referring to themselves as the “National Catholic Church” without the PNCC qualifier:

From the Florida Times Union: St. Anthony’s celebrates priest’s 10th anniversary

St. Anthony’s National Catholic Church in Jacksonville will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of its priest’s ordination during the 10:30 a.m. Mass on Aug. 15.

The Rev. Marsha McKinlay Brandt is pastor of the parish, part of the National Catholic Church of North America. The denomination ordains women to the priesthood and permits clergy to marry. Formerly known as the Free Catholic Church, it is not part of the Roman Catholic Church…

Noting oneself as the “National Catholic Church” confuses us with a lot of vagante communities out there. If you visit their website, note the stress on “Apostolic succession,” a common feature of vagante type churches.

When the gods get angry

A sad story, but reading the Polish struck me as funny. From Wirtualna Polska: Piorun śmiertelnie poraził mężczyznę

Ok. 50-letni mężczyzna nie żyje, a drugi został ranny w wyniku porażenia piorunem w Mokrej koło Jarosławia (Podkarpackie) – poinformował rzecznik podkarpackiej policji, Paweł Międlar.

– Obaj pracujący przy budowie autostrady mężczyźni przed deszczem schronili się pod drzewem. Jednego z nich piorun poraził śmiertelnie. Jego kolega trafił do szpitala, nie pamięta jednak zdarzenia – powiedział Międlar.

Na Podkarpaciu gwałtowne burze w pojawiły się głównie w okolicach Przemyśla, Lubaczowa, Jarosławia, Przeworska i Leska. Uszkodziły m.in. most w Majdanie Sieniawskim koło Przeworska

In short, lighting struck and killed a 50 year old man in Jarosław. Another man was injured. If you don’t know, Piorun was the name of the god of thunder and lightning in Slavic mythology. Reading the article’s title overly literally, Piorun fatally struck a man.

Eternal rest grant onto the man who was killed, O Lord.

PNCC, , , ,

From Sta. Sunniva Mission Parish, Bergen, Norway

Their summer picnic. Their priest (in cassock – hope its summer weight) is the Rev. Erik Andreas. Prior to coming to the Nordic Catholic Church in 2001, Father served as a Norwegian Naval Chaplain. He was ordained a deacon in Holy Mother of the Rosary PNC Cathedral in Buffalo on November 29, 2001 and as priest on November 30th. Between 2001 and 2004 he served as an assistant priest and later vicar at the Parish of St. John the Baptist and St. Michael in eastern Norway. From autumn 2004, he has served as chaplain and administrator in the Sta. Sunniva Mission Parish in Bergen. He and his wife Solveig have three children.

Christian Witness, Perspective, ,

The Economist and last week’s Gospel

I was paging through my copy of the Economist last week and came across an article, The rich are different from you and me — They are more selfish

Recall last week’s Gospel from Luke (Luke 12:13-21).

Then he said to the crowd,
—Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.—

Then he told them a parable.
—There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, —Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!—’
But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves
but are not rich in what matters to God.—

As the Economist notes:

Life at the bottom is nasty, brutish and short. For this reason, heartless folk might assume that people in the lower social classes will be more self-interested and less inclined to consider the welfare of others than upper-class individuals, who can afford a certain noblesse oblige. A recent study, however, challenges this idea. Experiments by Paul Piff and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, reported this week in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, suggest precisely the opposite. It is the poor, not the rich, who are inclined to charity.

…an analysis of the results showed that generosity increased as participants’ assessment of their own social status fell. Those who rated themselves at the bottom of the ladder gave away 44% more of their credits than those who put their crosses at the top, even when the effects of age, sex, ethnicity and religiousness had been accounted for.

The prince and the pauper

In follow-up experiments, the researchers asked participants to imagine and write about a hypothetical interaction with someone who was extremely wealthy or extremely poor.

A final experiment attempted to test how helpful people of different classes are when actually exposed to a person in need. This time participants were —primed— with video clips, rather than by storytelling, into more or less compassionate states. The researchers then measured their reaction to another participant (actually a research associate) who turned up late and thus needed help with the experimental procedure.

In this case priming made no difference to the lower classes. They always showed compassion to the latecomer. The upper classes, though, could be influenced. Those shown a compassion-inducing video behaved in a more sympathetic way than those shown emotionally neutral footage. That suggests the rich are capable of compassion, if somebody reminds them, but do not show it spontaneously.

One interpretation of all this might be that selfish people find it easier to become rich. Some of the experiments Dr Piff conducted, however, sorted people by the income of the family in which the participant grew up. This revealed that whether high status was inherited or earned made no difference—”so the idea that it is the self-made who are especially selfish does not work. Dr Piff himself suggests that the increased compassion which seems to exist among the poor increases generosity and helpfulness, and promotes a level of trust and co-operation that can prove essential for survival during hard times.

Then again, perhaps the rich should recall the words of Matthew 19:24 and rethink their position. Seems the Economist was grooving with the Gospel, at least for a week.

Christian Witness, Homilies, Perspective, PNCC, Political, ,

Preparing, a few weeks before Labor Day

From indeed – a job search website: Job Market Competition: Unemployed per Job Posting

How hard is it to find a job in your city? Here’s the number of unemployed per job posting for the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the U.S…

Most upstate New York cities have 1 opening for every 4 unemployed persons, and this is after significant population losses in those cities. Workers are facing job losses, and the loss of prospects in an unprecedented way, and likely without recovery in sight for the next 8-10 years. If jobs aren’t completely gone, hours have been cut and benefits have been slashed. People need the hope an encouragement of the Church, as well as its activism. Recall the PNCCs long history of Labor activism.

If you plan to speak to working people the Sunday before Labor Day, to speak a word of hope and encouragement, Interfaith Worker Justice has resources available in its New Resources for Labor in the Pulpits 2010

Is your congregation holding a Labor Day service or event as part of this year’s Labor in the Pulpits/on the Bimah/in the Minbar program? If so, let us know about it! If not, consider celebrating the sacred link between faith, work, and justice by inviting a union member or labor leader to be a guest speaker on Labor Day weekend, or focus your Labor Day weekend service on worker justice issues.

Perspective, Political, , ,

We need more Erica – we don’t need no educational indoctrination

From SwiftKick: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech. By the way, her hometown is not too distant from Albany. Do you think anyone in a hallowed halls of the State’s educational bureaucracy is having cold chills?

Last month, Erica Goldson graduated as valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School. Instead of using her graduation speech to celebrate the triumph of her victory, the school, and the teachers that made it happen, she channeled her inner Ivan Illich and de-constructed the logic of a valedictorian and the whole educational system.

Erica originally posted her full speech on Sign of the Times, and without need for editing or cutting, here’s the speech in its entirety:

Here I stand

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years . .” The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” Replied the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.”

This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn’t you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I’m scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don’t do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not “to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States…”

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC, ,

Recognizing God in His Homilies

From Ben Myers at Faith and Theology: On failing to be a good preacher

I had a good discussion with some students today about preaching. If you’re preparing for ministry, you’ll need to develop some basic homiletical skills and techniques, and you’ll need the kind of critical feedback that can help you to become a better preacher. But you don’t really ever want to become a “good” preacher —“ the kind of trained professional who can deliver flawless, carefully calculated and perfectly executed homilies. To preach is to accept responsibility for the Word of God in the world. It is to put ourselves in an impossible position: we should speak God’s word, but we can’t make this happen. No amount of exegetical mastery or homiletical savviness can ensure that God will speak to the congregation. As Karl Barth famously put it: —As ministers, we ought to speak of God. We are human, however, so we cannot speak of God. We ought therefore to recognise both our obligation and our inability, and by that very recognition give God the glory.—

For me, the paradigmatic experience of preaching is not the good sermon, but the failed sermon: when you’re trying to speak God’s Word, but you’re looking out at a sea of bored, distracted, yawning faces, people furtively glancing at their watches —“ when you yourself, the preacher, are glancing at your watch and wondering when it will all be over. Anyone who has to preach regularly will know this experience. It is an exemplary experience, because it’s here that you encounter the real nature of preaching: the fact that it arises not from the preacher’s fullness, but from an unbearable emptiness; the fact that it is always bound to fail —“ it has to fail —“ unless some miracle occurs, unless God speaks…

Particularly incumbent on us to recognize God’s intervention as ministers of God’s Sacrament of the Word.

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