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Easter Reflection

Yippie!!!!!!!!!
Did our team score?

“Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”

Yippie, alleluia, celebrate, rejoice, dance, sing, shout out, jubilate, glorify, praise, laud, revel, feast, exalt, delight, smile, rise up, laugh, cheer, make merry!

Our team has scored, we have won, and we didn’t even have to play.

One person – the God-man Jesus Christ stuck with it the entire time, He sacrificed, fought hard, laid out our strategy for success, and gave His all, His very life so that our team would win.

Jesus’ victory is the reason we celebrate today. On Good Friday He completed the course. His sacrificial death washed us in His blood. We are no longer bound to sin and death, but freed. When the Father looks at us, His children, He sees His Son Jesus in us. He loves us so much – in the very same way He loves His Son.

Today, Jesus has shown us the promise – what we will be like forever. Since we are in Him and He is in us, we know that we will be exactly like Him in the resurrection.

The VICTORY? – The power of death has been overcome. Death is no more. The devil has been crushed and he holds no power over us.

What does this victory, nearly 2,000 years ago mean for me today?

Christ’s victory means all of the following and much more:

  • We will live forever.
  • The world cannot tell us that this is it; there is nothing else.
  • We have nothing to fear.
  • We have true power and freedom.
  • We are beautiful in God’s eyes.
  • We have a path and a plan that makes our lives wonderful here on earth.
  • We have reason to celebrate.
  • We are all family – as God’s children, Jesus’ brother and sisters, and as community to each other for we have one faith and hope.

We have reason to proclaim this message: God came to save us and did redeem us. We have won because Jesus won the ultimate victory. He has risen, death is no more for us, GUARANTEED!

Christian Witness, Homilies, ,

Reflection for Palm Sunday

Our Brother did this for us.
No words can express our gratitude.

“Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.”

How would we thank a brother or a sister who gave their all for us, who sacrificed everything? How would we recognize their gift, a gift so wonderful and remarkable that it gave us complete happiness, fulfillment, and a great life that lasts forever?

Our Lenten theme has focused on family. Now we are at the pinnacle of that Lenten journey. We enter Holy Week recognizing already that at the end we will walk away with a tremendous gift – a gift that our brother gave us.

Jesus said many times, “this is what I have come to do.” He came to sacrifice His life so that we would have life. He came to bear our sins in the form of a heavy cross, scourging, nails, mockery, and abandonment. This was NO ACCIDENT.

Jesus came with a plan – to show us that we have a heavenly Father who loves us so deeply that He would offer up His Son for us. He didn’t do this for show, but to create a real relationship, to break down the barriers we create to separate ourselves from Him.

St. Paul worked hard to convince the Romans of the power of what Christ had done. He said:

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

Our Brother came at the right time. He came to a family that either didn’t recognize their Father, or thought they were smarter than their Father. He came to a family that didn’t recognize Him. He came to a family that bickered with their Brother, and eventually killed Him. That’s all of us. And in return…?

In return we know we will live forever, are saved, washed clean. We know we are members of God’s family.

Let’s take time this Holy Week to sit with our Brother, to keep Him company in His time of suffering, abandonment, and need. Let’s take this time to whisper a thank you next to His grave so that on Easter morning we can greet the new day – the day we received our Brother’s gift.

Homilies,

Reflection for Passion Sunday

Mom, Dad, tell him to stop bugging me!
Can’t you get along?

“He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”

On Monday morning, October 2, 2006, a gunman entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In front of twenty-five horrified pupils, thirty-two-year-old Charles Roberts ordered the boys and the teacher to leave. After tying the legs of the ten remaining girls, Roberts opened fire on all of them, killing five and leaving the others critically wounded. He then shot himself as police stormed the building. His motivation? “I’m angry at God for taking my little daughter,” he told the children before the massacre.

The story captured the attention of broadcast and print media in the United States and around the world. By Tuesday morning some fifty-television crews had clogged the small village of Nickel Mines, staying for five days until the killer and the killed were buried.

The blood was barely dry on the schoolhouse floor when Amish parents brought words of forgiveness to the family of the one who had slain their children. The outside world was incredulous that such forgiveness could be offered so quickly for such a heinous crime.

Three weeks after the shooting, “Amish forgiveness” had appeared in 2,900 news stories worldwide and on 534,000 web sites.

Fresh from the funerals where they had buried their own children, grieving Amish families accounted for half of the seventy-five people who attended the killer’s burial. Roberts’ widow was deeply moved by their presence as Amish families greeted her and her three children. The forgiveness went beyond talk and graveside presence: the Amish also supported a fund for the shooter’s family.

Today we are presented with the gift of forgiveness. As the family of God we are offered this wonderful gift, this chance, and not just once, but over and over. Jesus did become the source of salvation to all who obey Him, and the words we must obey, as the family of God, are to forgive. We are to forgive as the Amish did.

Next week the crowds will greet Jesus with adulation, and we will strike the cross with our sins. We will then hear Jesus say clearly: “Father forgive them…” for no sin is so great that it cannot be overcome by His love. Let us stand in awe – and always remember that regardless the burden, God’s heart is open to us.

Homilies,

Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

Are we there yet?
its only 5,615 miles…

Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD, the God of heaven, has given to me, and he has also charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be with him!”

We’ve all heard or seen those instances on a trip where someone in the car or airplane asks: “Are we there yet?” It is usually a small child who is impatient with the trip.
Our Lenten journey can be like that. By the time we close in on Easter we might ask ourselves (or others), “Are we there yet?”

If we were saying that now, it wouldn’t be uncommon because from a time perspective we are more than half way there. Yet we may still be at the bottom of the hill.
The Jewish people had been exiled from Jerusalem for 70 years.

They longed to return. They lost their music, their joy, and in their penance found reconciliation with God.

We must continue on our journey to find reconciliation with God. We may need to refresh and renew our Lenten sacrifice. We may need to reconnect to where we should be, and get back on the road.

The days ahead will be an uphill struggle. Penance will increase. We will find it harder to comply with the Church’s requirements and with our best intentions.

This is where family becomes essential to our journey. We do not need to travel 5,615 miles to get to Jerusalem the city or to family. The city is of no matter because it is only a place. Where we’re headed is the new and heavenly Jerusalem. This is our family dwelling, the house that belongs to us because we are His children.

We can be assured that our acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, in faith, has put us on the road. Our membership in the family of faith, the Church, gives us the love and support we need to get there.

“Are we there yet?” Yes. “Are we still on the road?” Yes, that too. We have both a home and a family to support us as we journey there.

Homilies, PNCC,

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Institution of the PNCC

If I’m part of the vine…
can I drink more wine?

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

We have been studying family as our Lenten theme. Today, we lighten our Lenten practice a bit and engage in a celebration of – no wait – yes family. Amazing isn’t it?
Today we celebrate the organization of our Holy Polish National Catholic Church.

Church can be a lot of things to a lot of people, but one thing it certainly isn’t is a stagnant shell of a corporation based on dusty old books.

Church is the reality of our relationship as family in Christ. There are so many quotes about that, but a key one is taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 4:4-6:

There is one body and one Spirit… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all.

We have been grafted onto Jesus. He is the vine and we are the braches. That makes us one being, one entity, and sharers in His nourishment and love.

If Church were dusty old books, it would not be a living entity. If it were a stagnant shell, we would have no reason to be part of it, or feel alive in it.

Being part of the vine does give us reason to celebrate, to become intoxicated with the happiness that comes from being part of the living body of Christ.

Our Holy Church is a beacon and the joy of life. It is a place of happiness, reconciliation, mutual labor and support, the one place where we can endeavor together to reach God.

In the Holy Church we find ourselves already connected to God, part of Him, members of His family – and as St. Paul focuses on, one in every aspect of who we are.

We are not strangers who bump into each other on occasion. We are Polish National Catholics who live and abide in Jesus Christ, who bring His life filled Church, His life-giving message, to the world. There we will gather and join others to the life-giving vine, the place where we will all drink the wine of joy!

Homilies, ,

Second Sunday of Lent 2012

First reading: Genesis 22:1-2,9-13,15-18
Psalm: Ps 116:10,15-19
Epistle: Romans 8:31-34
Gospel: Mark 9:2-10

“This is my beloved Son.”

Relatedness:

Today we continue our Lenten study of family focusing on the topic of relatedness, how we relate to the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and each other as well as the things that mark, or indicate that relationship.

The dictionary tells us that relatedness means a particular manner of connectedness or relationship. The opposite, unrelatedness means to be disconnected.

In educational psychology human relatedness is defined as the ability to bond emotionally with others.

Allison:

Allison grew up in a loving and supportive family. She was an honor student whose life stalled, then careened dangerously downhill because of alcoholism. Throughout her life she felt disconnected, unrelated, and was unable to develop friendships. It was only after “hitting bottom,” and a chance encounter with a struggling member of Alcoholics Anonymous, Mike, that her own life was put back on track. At her second AA meeting Allison was invited to speak. There, she found her Higher Power. She recognized God in the faces of the people in the room. She said: “I saw it…the understanding, the empathy, the love…This is what I had been looking for all my life.”

Allison found relatedness. First in Mike who “got her,” understood where she was and her need. Then in that AA meeting she broke through and saw the love of God in her connection to others. What she experienced was a sense of belonging, relatedness.

Allison’s life bloomed. She is gainfully employed, supporting herself financially, with plans to buy a house. She has friends because, as she described it, she had learned how to be a friend, to be related. She went on to find a special man for her life with whom she has been involved for almost five years.

God created:

In our study of family, we realize that God’s creation is centered on our relatedness, our connection to others starting with our parents, siblings, and our extended families. We reach out from there to friendships and larger social relationships.

As we discussed last week, God works through families and the larger social family. In His creation, these relationship, this relatedness is at the heart of His design for His family.

References:

In today’s readings and Gospel we hear about relatedness. Abraham was put to the test, and the test required him to do the hardest thing possible. It is why its description is so stark, so shocking. Abraham was asked to sacrifice the son that he loved.

In our Gospel, the Father overshadows Jesus and the Apostles at the Transfiguration, clearing stating for all: “This is my beloved Son.”

Saving through relatedness:

In case we might miss it, God lives in a state of relatedness. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons in one God. The center of that relationship is tremendous and perfect love. That is why God understood how hard of a test He was imposing on Abraham, and why He rewarded Abraham for his willingness to offer his beloved son as sacrifice.

Consider how we are saved by that exact relatedness. The Father’s Son, Jesus, was offered on the cross for us. While God stayed Abraham’s hand from sacrificing his son, God sacrificed His own Son, Who He loves with tremendous and perfect love, for all of us.

We are both saved, and assured of our relatedness to God, through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.

To God:

God loves us so much, so tremendously, that He gave His Son for us. We are not just bystanders, or people unworthy of love, unrelated. God loves us with the very same love He holds for His Son Jesus. In Jesus, we have become members of God’s family. We are children of the our Father. Jesus is our brother. Our relatedness to God, our connection to Him is not something we invented, but something God desired. God took action to create our relatedness to Him and to each other.

To each other:

By being made children of God we have become related, connected to each other. We are siblings.

Our relatedness exists in what we share: We have one birth into the family of God through water and the Holy Spirit. We have one faith. We have one Father in heaven and one Lord and Savior, our brother Jesus Christ. We share in the one Spirit. We speak the same language in worship and prayer. We do the things that family does – in spending time together, communicating, trusting, fulfilling each others needs during times of struggle, and celebrating together in times of joy. We share the same ancestors in faith and are joined with them, with our Blessed Mother and all the saints. They pray and intercede for us because we are all family.

In God we are connected. We are related. We are in a relationship with Him and each other. We are bonded as family, spiritually and emotionally with each other.

We have one goal, and it is not just getting to heaven because who wants to be in heaven alone. It is reaching heaven as a family where we will dwell as one. We will reach heaven through our relatedness, through the hands that help, support, and guide us, who pray for us in our mutual journey to God. This is our family of faith here on earth and in heaven. Amen.

Christian Witness, Homilies, ,

Reflection for the Second Sunday of Lent

Can I trade in this kid?
Ummm, NO!

“God put Abraham to the test… ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ ‘Here I am!’ he answered. ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy. Do not do the least thing to him. I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.’”

Relatedness – The dictionary tells us that relatedness means a particular manner of connectedness or relationship. Unrelatedness means the lack of any particular manner of connectedness.

We might wonder if Abraham had any troubles with his son Isaac. Maybe, at one time or another, he regretted his relatedness to Isaac, and thought, maybe I could trade this kid in for something better.

God puts Abraham to the test, he asks him to sacrifice his son. Scripture tells us that Abraham loved his son, but maybe, somewhere in his mind he thought, maybe God is going to give me an even better son on trade. It is one of the unfortunate consequences of our humanity, our ability to set aside our relatedness. We all have someone with whom we have a strained, distant, or disconnected relationship.

Being part of God’s family, being the brothers and sisters of Jesus and of each other can put us to the test. How do we exercise our relatedness – how do we keep connected?

God Himself has told us that we are connected, we are related, and we are part of one body. He never abandons His relationship with us because we share the DNA of Jesus; it is imprinted in our hearts and souls.

Our Lenten journey is about correcting those instances where we feel we have grown unrelated. We have to recapture those markers of a healthy relationship with God. We have to rebuild what is strained between sister and brother.

We bear the signs of family, our shared birth in water and the Holy Spirit, our shared language of prayer and praise, the way we work together and support each other. We know, as members of God’s family, there are no trades allowed. The Father gave His Son for this family. What Jesus did to bring us together as one family is worth rebuilding; wherever it might be strained. Let’s set to that task.

Homilies

Reflection for the First Sunday of Lent

Hey, this is my boat!
You cannot go alone…

“God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you.”

Consider Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Mary, John the Baptist, Jesus, and Peter – what do all these, and the rest of the heroes of the Bible have in common? They were all members of a family.

Our Lenten theme is all about family. We see that God makes His promises not just to one person, but to the human family.

God always deals with family, with people’s relationships with each other. God isn’t building His kingdom on hermits and loners. Rather, He is looking to us as His children, and a single body (the body of Christ), as a community that is defined as a family.

Remember that Jesus always referred to His Father as our Father. This wasn’t some sort of light saying, just to make us feel good. Jesus meant what He said. His Father is our Father.

Jesus came to rebuild His Father’s family and He did so on Calvary – reconnecting us to God.

God is our Father, and we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters. This makes us His family and family to each other. We have even taken the steps necessary to be born into that family, through the waters of Baptism, by our regeneration.

There’s a lot to study this Lent, so let us begin our focus on the fact that we are members of one body – the Church, the body of Christ, and that makes us one family. With that comes a knowledge of how we were born into this family, how are related, how we relate to the Father, Jesus, and each other, our responsibilities as family members, our importance to the family, and the inheritance that is in store for members of God’s family.

Brother, or brethren, is found 319 times in the New Testament. Child, or children, is used 168 times in the New Testament. God didn’t send Noah onto the boat alone, and doesn’t make His promises to only a select few. His promises are for all of us as a family. He doesn’t want us to go it alone. He is our loving Father.

Homilies, ,

First Sunday of Lent 2012

First reading: Genesis 9:8-15
Psalm: Ps 25:4-9
Epistle: 1 Peter 3:18-22
Gospel: Mark 1:12-15

“God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you.”

Families:

Consider Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham. Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Mary, John the Baptist, Jesus, and Peter – what do all these, and the rest of the heroes of the Bible all have in common? They were all members of families.

Noah had his wife, his sons and their families. Abraham had Sarah and their son Isaac. Isaac had Rebekah, Esau, and Jacob. Jacob had Rachel and Leah, and his seven sons including Joseph. From the Old Testament to the New, we see family.

Think too of all the words used in the Bible to denote family. The New Testament mentions brother, or brethren, 319 times and child, or children, is used 168 times. Everything we see of God’s revelation comes to us through the lens of family.

Theme:

Our Lenten theme is all about family. We will work though this Lent learning about God’s promises – promises made to the body of Christ, the family of faith. Our first reading, where God makes promises to Noah and his family, his descendants, is a foreshadowing of the way God relates to us as family.

God wants us as family:

God always deals with family, with people’s relationships to Him and each other. God isn’t building His kingdom on hermits and loners. Rather, He is looking to us as His children, and a single body — the body of Christ. God’s family is more than just the individual believer, a local community or church — it is all the faithful, past, present, and future joined together as family.

Remember that Jesus always referred to His Father as our Father. This wasn’t some sort of light saying, just to make us feel good. Jesus meant what He said. His Father is our Father. Jesus even taught us to pray, invoking the Father.

But its tough:

The way God set everything up can be tough at times. Family relationships aren’t always easy. You remember the old saying: “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.” Sometimes that’s said after a family member has disappointed us or let us down. Still, they are family, and we offer forgiveness and reconciliation to our family. That is the model for the entire Christian family. We are all related together in that way, and we share in one body and one blood – the blood of Jesus Christ.

The key is that family is central to our lives as Christians. This unity, in family, makes us stronger, heals our wounds, brings us joy, and allows us to support each other in tough times.

Reconnecting:

Jesus’ entire ministry was centered on revealing the Father to us. He came to rebuild His Father’s family and He accomplished that on Calvary. There He broke down the enmity between God and man. He healed our separation, our distance from God. There He reconnected us to God, and joined us together.

God is our Father, and we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters. This makes us His family and family to each other. No one is excluded or outside the family, and our arms are open to all who wish to enter our family. They can come, just as we did, to be born into God’s family through the waters of Baptism, by regeneration.

Road ahead:

There’s a lot to study this Lent. Today we have focused on the fact that God’s model, God’s way, is that we live as family. He is our Father, Jesus is our brother. We are members of one body – the Church which is the body of Christ. We have been born into this family and that same birth is available to all. Anyone can join God’s family by accepting Him.

From here we will learn about our relatedness, how we relate to the Father, Jesus, and each other and the things that mark, or indicate that relationship. We will learn about our responsibilities as family members. We will consider our importance to the family. We will learn about the gifts that come from being members of God’s family. Finally, we will rejoice in the victory we have been given by the inheritance that is in store for members of God’s family.

We are family:

God didn’t send Noah onto the boat alone, and He hasn’t given His promises to a few individuals who exist apart and alone. His promises and His love are for all of us as members of a family. God is our loving Father, and we are His children, brothers and sisters of Christ and each other. Amen.

Homilies,

Ash Wednesday

First reading: Joel 2:12-18
Psalm: Ps 51:3-6,12-14,17
Epistle: 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 and 2 Corinthians 6:1-2
Gospel: Matthew 6:1-6,16-18

Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart

Focus (this morning):

Today, the first day of Lent. After three weeks of preparation you would think I would wake up ready to go. Well, this morning was not that kind of morning. Instead of waking prepared with Lent in my heart and mind, I woke in a haze. I focused on what I normally am, rather than what I should be becoming. I was self-focused. In the midst of preparing chicken and baloney sandwiches it finally hit me — it is Ash Wednesday.

It wasn’t just the no meat Lenten sacrifice, it was the sudden realization that I had a long way to go this Lent. It would be a journey from inward self-sufficiency, self-focus, to becoming emptied.

Emptiness:

Think of an iron bar. It is strong, complete, self-sufficient. You cannot add anything to it or change its nature. It is what it is.

Think now of a musical instrument: woodwinds, brass, guitars, or violins. These instruments are hollow. Their emptiness is intentional. These instruments are empty so that they may reflect what their master does – produce and echo music that is beautiful.

For my part, and for many of us, we exist like iron bars. We are who we are. We feel rather complete and total, solid, self-sufficient. Our task this Lent is to change from iron bars to musical instruments.

Process of emptying:

Lent is a process of emptying, of moving from the iron bar to a state of emptiness, away from self to becoming a reflection of God’s music, God’s light, God’s way.

Full of God:

In Lent we work to empty ourselves so that we become full of God. We work to reflect His light and His music. We recognize once again that He is the Master of our lives. We wipe the sleep from our eyes and clear the fog from our heads so that we can see our lives as part of God’s life; God who exists within us and within our brothers and sisters.

We are not separated, God here, us there. We are unified, together.

Lent gives us the opportunity to have God once again permeate, fill, encompass and saturate our thoughts and actions, our words, our deeds.

St. Paul reminds us that we cannot be self-sufficient iron bars because:

He died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for them (2 Corinthians 5:15).

We have to live with a focus on being filled by God.

Full of family:

If you read the sign outside the church, you will note that our theme for Lent is God’s cell therapy. In Jesus we have been changed from a random group of individuals to adopted children of God, and brothers and sisters in faith. Our old mortal cells are being replaced and we are a new being, a new people, and members of one family of faith in Jesus Christ.

We must empty ourselves so that we become better family members. This is not just to our immediate or biological family, but to all the members of the family of God.

Throughout Lent we will focus on what makes us family, as well as the joys and responsibilities as members of the family of God.

Reconciling family:

Today we begin the process of reconciling, of emptying ourselves. Things like our Lenten self denial and sacrifice are makers along the road toward our becoming the people we ought to be. We are changing from iron bars – but we will not become empty, music-less instruments either. We will become, by the time we reach Easter, and for the days ahead in our lives, members of God’s family, each others brothers and sisters, and gloriously, the reflection of God’s light and music in the world.

Inheritance:

Our work, the road ahead is not without a promised reward. That promise is from God – that we will enter life everlasting as one family, as one people, as God’s children and as brothers and sisters. We have our inheritance before us. It won’t be paid out to iron bars, but to family filled with the light and music of God. Amen.

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