Thoughts and opinions from a Priest in the PNCC
Please join us for our annual Basket Social on Sunday, April 3rd at the VFW Hall – Fifth Avenue, Schenectady (Crane St. to 6th Ave. then right on Webster to 5th Ave.).
Come out and enjoy Spring, socialize, have a good time, and try your luck. Everyone is welcome! Please call 518-372-1992 for more information.
Caroline Wozniacki is Now # 1
By Raymond Rolak
South Miami hosts the WTA and Celeb’s
MIAMI– The new glamour-gal of world-wide tennis is 20 year old Caroline Wozniacki. The blonde native of Denmark is also the world’s ranked number one woman and is now set for center stage at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Florida. All the fashion, glitter, nightlife and celebrity party activities that South Beach is noted for will be center stage.
Currently, Wozniacki is the top talk of Danish and Euro sports media. She also has a great following in Poland because of her heritage. Her mother and father were born in Poland but decided to stay in Denmark after her father retired from playing Danish professional soccer in Odense. Her mother Anna had previously played volleyball for the Polish National Team. Her older brother Patrik got her started in tennis.
The Women’s Tennis Tour and the South Florida community combine for the next two weeks in what is known as the peoples, ‘Party Tour’. The players along with the Sony Ericsson Open folks made appearances at the famed CocoWalk in Coconut Grove. This area, known for its boutiques, restaurants, and night clubs transformed into a tennis and musical extravaganza. It offered a chance to get up close with the players and be part of the activities. The Ritz Carlton Hotel is ground zero for most of the glitter activities and also offers great chances to see the players up close and casually.
Other than the U.S. Open in New York this event has the most off-court celebrity appeal. Belgian Kim Clijsters last years champ returns as the second-ranked player in the world and the No.2 seed. She has been nursing a recent shoulder injury.
At the Sony Ericsson Open preview, Wozniacki said, “I’m a different player for sure… more experienced.” “I feel like I’m on a roll right now,” said the top seed. She added about her special training regimen. “I do a lot of boxing training. It’s a great way to stay fit and relieve stress.” There will be 46 of the world’s top 50 ranked women participating here.
Jelena Jankovic, the No. 6 seed, has had a solid string of results after losing in the second round of the Australian Open and believes she’s on the right track to success. “I’m feeling pretty confident. I’ve played a lot of matches the last month. My game is coming back and I’m working hard.”
Jankovic, a finalist here in 2008, knows that court conditions vary on a day-to-day basis. When I made the finals, it was sunny all week. The players and fans all enjoyed the weather,” Jankovic said. “Last year, it was quite windy and rainy, so it can be different each time.”
During the ‘Players Party’ at the Paris Theater in Miami Beach, Sony Ericsson executive Stefan Croix said, “Tournaments are about the stars and fans, so you need things to go well. There’s good energy this year so far but you always want to improve upon the previous event.”
The world class tennis performers were front and center on the ‘Red Carpet’. Another Sony Ericsson representative, Steve Walker added, “We have a lot of new products coming out, so this tournament is a great platform to introduce them.” Consumer electronics and phones were showcased and new video games were highlighted practically everywhere at the gala.
The 2011 Sony Ericsson Open will be played thru April 3, at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park in Miami. The two-week combined event is owned and operated by IMG of Cleveland and is considered the most glamorous event on both the ATP and WTA tours. Over 300,000 in attendance are expected and the finals will be broadcast on CBS.
The first tournament was in February, 1985 with Tim Mayotte and Martina Navratilova crowned singles champions.
36th Year of Tennis in Palm Springs
Wozniacki had the young strong legs and her side to side ease defeated Marion Bartoli 6-1, 2-6 and 6-3 to win the BNP Paribas Open. The victory kept Wozniacki at the number one world ranking. After the match she was jubilant, as Wozniacki was runner-up here to Jankovic a year ago.
It was her 14th Women’s Tennis Association title and her second this year. She had also won at Dubai. She has appeared in the finals for her third consecutive tournament.
“This is such an amazing event and everyone loves playing here. I’m already looking forward to playing here next year,” Wozniacki said post match.
The Indian Wells Tennis Garden had its best attendance ever during the 36th year of the event. “I can keep playing out there for hours and hours,” Wozniacki said smiling. She won the tournament by running down her opponents.
The victory allowed Wozniacki to improve her results for the fifth straight year in the popular Palm Springs area tournament. She earned $700,000 for the title.
Near the end, Wozniacki asked for her coach, who is her father. Piotr Wozniacki came courtside and gave advice. She responded by holding serve in the next game before Bartoli double-faulted to fall behind 4-1. “He said, ‘You’re playing great. Just keep it up. It’s just one break in the second set. Just hang in there,’” she said afterwards. “My dad calmed me down.”
She rolled through the first set, breaking Bartoli three times with and having the runner-up going from side to side.
Wozniacki got to the final after besting Maria Sharapova, 6-1, 6-2, in a quick hour and twenty minutes. “It’s pretty much a two-week event, and you have days in between like in the Grand Slams. It’s a big tournament, and I’m very, very happy,” said Wozniacki.
She was a sponsors dream, as Wozniacki concluded the ABC Television broadcast with gracious statements for her opponents, spectators and supporters. She finished by saying, “I played very, very well, I thought, actually in the whole match, it was in the first set, I felt like I had the most control. I just love playing matches. I like winning. I like holding the trophy.”
Wozniacki now has two WTA titles this season, having won at Dubai earlier in the year. She now has 14 career titles. She also got a lot of post match attention about her conventional style but very denim-blue colored tennis dress with a ruffled neck strap. She wears adidas apparel by Stella McCartney.
(Lars Hjelmroth of Denmark contributed)
Fratelli e sorelle, preghiamo il Padre affinché colmi la sete di verità e di amore che anima il nostro cuore, donandoci lo Spirito di Cristo che sostiene la nostra speranza nel suo amore infinito.
Preghiamo dicendo: Ascoltaci Signore.
From Rev. Luciano Bruno to the PNCC in Italia Facebook page.
First reading: Exodus 17:3-7
Psalm: Ps 95:1-2,6-9
Epistle: Romans 5:1-2,5-8
Gospel: John 4:5-15,19-26,39-42
But the hour is coming, and is now here,
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth;
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
Lord for us Your wounds were suffered.
O, Christ Jesus, have mercy on us!
Grumbling:
Three days after Israel was led out of bondage in Egypt the people began to grumble against Moses, Aaron, and God. This was the beginning of a pattern. Whether it was water, food, or outside threats, the people just complained.
Now God was being obvious. He led the people out of Egypt as a pillar of fire. He sent manna and quail for food, he caused water to flow from the rock. He destroyed their enemies. No matter how He had shown Himself, and His love, it seems that God has been treated as a target of grumbling, complaints, and misunderstanding by His people. He wasn’t often seen as the object of love.
At Jesus:
Here’s at you Jesus. Haven’t you become the object of ridicule, of grumbling.
Looking at Jesus’ life on earth we see Him as a target from the beginning. First from Herod who wanted Him dead. Then the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Scribes as well. They didn’t like what He said or did, and eventually it led to the week we commemorate, that is just around the corner. He will be arrested, tortured, crucified, and killed.
God again — treated as a target of grumbling, complaints, and misunderstanding by His people. Those who should know Him as the object of all love just don’t get it.
At the well:
The Samaritan woman comes to the well. She doesn’t get Jesus either. Why are you talking to me? Why are you asking anything of me? How can you give me anything? We have nothing in common! She wasn’t exactly all in for Jesus. She didn’t get Him, and certainly didn’t understand Him. A different kind of grumbling certainly, but still complaints and misunderstanding.
And it goes on —
The world is like the Samaritan woman, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes, the Israelites led out of Egypt. More and more we find grumbling, complaints, and misunderstanding about God. We find it even among the faithful — the very arguments the Samaritan woman set forth: Where is is right and proper to worship.
People who are supposed to get what God is all about fight over the little things. People who don’t get God don’t even want to attempt understanding.
Not what it is about:
We engage in a process of attempting to understand our lives, our world, our relationships. Sometimes, perhaps too often, we fail to grasp what we attempt to understand. When we do, the results of our failure are grumbling, complaints, and resultant misunderstandings. These can be directed at the world in general, fate, other people. Even family, friends, and co-workers, our fellow faithful do not escape. Sometimes God doesn’t even escape.
What Jesus came to tell us is that He is about love. He outright forgives the grumbling, complaints, and misunderstandings. He isn’t about division or theological argument. He only cares about the relationship we are supposed to be establishing with God and each other. God addresses and establishes us in love. He just asks that we see it and do the same.
He asks that we see the love that protected His people on their journey, that didn’t ignore them, but gave them food and water, that provided them with protection. God asks that we see the love that doesn’t call for worship style arguments, but rather for “worship in spirit and truth,” worship from a heart filled with the love and knowledge of God. It is the love that St. Paul speaks of when he reminds us that:
God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
Getting past
Our faith, our Church is not about debates, or some sense of rightness or being better than others. The Church certainly has its practices and rules, but not just to have them. They are helpful guides in our learning to put aside grumbling, complaints, and misunderstanding, so that we find the truth of God. For example, when we abstain during Lent, and most of the year, we learn control over our desires. By learning self control we learn to control our appetites. That control teaches us the means for controlling our grumbling, complaints, and misunderstandings.
In the end
In the end it comes down to our decision, do we revel in a life of grumbling, complaints, and misunderstandings or do we seek the living water that Jesus promised us. It is found only in Him who told us that He provides “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
God has come, seeking us. Jesus fully informed us of His love, and showed us the depth of His love by offering Himself so that we might all have access to the everlasting fulness of love. Do we choose to grumble, complain, misunderstand, or do we open to the spirit of truth which requires that we worship and live in the love Christ taught? Let us spend these days of deep reflection so that we may control what destroys us, and build to the confession of faith that will save us. We will be justified in that faith which only speaks love. Amen.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” — John 4:21-26