This Sunday the PNCC celebrates Passion Sunday and thus begins the Passiontide. For more information on this topic/tradition see the wiki on Passion Sunday. Our parish will also be celebrating our Lenten penitential service at the beginning of all Holy Masses.

February 16th is the 53rd Anniversary of the death of the organizer and first bishop of the Polish National Catholic Church, Francis Hodur.

My thoughts on this day focus on thanksgiving for this man of Christ. I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for everything he experienced, for every blessing and hardship he received. Each of these made him the servant of God that he was. They built his character as well as the mental and physical fortitude that allowed him to proclaim God’s Word across the globe.

He knew poverty because he was poor. He knew the desire for education because it had been denied to him for ten years. He knew hard work because he worked hard. He knew struggle because he struggled. He knew persecution because he had been persecuted. He knew the sweetness of freedom because he and his people had been denied freedom. Most of all he knew Jesus Christ because throughout it all Jesus was his focus and his goal.

I love reading his works and his homilies. His talks, the minutes of meetings and synods in which he played a key role, each speak of a man of God who wanted only to connect the poor to the love of God.

On this day I reflect on the events of 1897. A group of disaffected and brokenhearted parishioners from Scranton, Pennsylvania showed up at the door of his parish in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.

I can see the faces of these people. They were definitely not wealthy. They were poor coal miners and laborers, housewives. All of them were regular people.

Nanticoke is about thirty miles from Scranton. The distance is not easy. It is hilly and rugged. This is 1897. There were no cars or buses. They were poor so the idea of using a horse or carriage was beyond their means. They probably walked. They had to get there and get back because the mine and factory whistle didn’t wait.

They stood there and asked to see Father Francis. He invited them inside. He listened to them.

They sacrificed so much so that the body and blood of our Lord could reside in a beautiful place. They gave up their pennies so that God might be glorified. For their sacrifice they had been mocked, laughed at, physically beaten, dragged to prison, and locked out. Their blood was not only in the walls of the church, it was upon the walls.

They sat around the table by candle light. Father Francis listened to them. He said, I will bring Christ to you. Like Christ, I will serve you and I will help you.

Father Hodur did not serve them by pandering to the people. He did not serve up an easily digestible meal. He called them to the things of God. He called them commit to Christ and to build the kingdom. He told them to study, to learn, to be self-reliant. He held them accountable for their sins and steered them back to Christ whenever they veered.

Father Francis not only called on them to do things, but provided for the means by which Christ’s work was to be done.

Father Francis did not believe in a half-way God. He believed in God; the one, the almighty, the ageless. He maintained them in the catholic faith. He built churches to the honor of Jesus’ name. He founded institutions of learning, fellowship, and mutual support. He taught the people and informed them. Most of all he worked with them. Christ always in front, the clergy and the people following Him and tending to God’s field.

Thank you Lord Jesus.
Thank you for the gift that Bishop Hodur was for us.
Thank you for the gift and charism that he is today.

As he was faithful to You, may we be faithful.
As he taught may we teach.
As he served, may we serve.

May the Holy Clergy following in his footsteps be inspired by his example.
May Your clergy and Your people work together,
Reborn, regenerated, and committed to Your Kingdom.

Amen.

I am home again after spending two days at our Diocesan Seat in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday evening a solemn vespers service was held. The Most Rev. Robert M. Nemkovich, our Prime Bishop, presided, assisted by the Senior Priest, priests, and deacons of the church. The Senior Priest of my seniorate, the Very Rev. Walter Madej, gave the homily.

It was a wonderful message that put before us the great gifts of the Holy Spirit offered to those called to the service of the Church. These gifts do not preclude suffering or sacrifice, but take that effective sacrifice as an offering for our people.

Bishop Grotnik had both great joys and great suffering. The greatness of his heart, his generosity, his love for his people and his clergy, the welcoming reality he lived and practiced were the reality that came from his joys and sufferings.

On Thursday morning the clergy of the church sung Mattins which was then followed the Holy Funeral Mass. Bishop Grotnik had and Prime Bishop Nemkovich has a wonderful talent and gift for music. The solemnity of the traditional liturgy of the Church coupled with the love and warmth of our time together before God, remembering and praying for our dear Bishop, was everything Bishop Grotnik struggled to preserve and engender within our Church.

Needless to say, the choir of St. Stanislaus Cathedral and the planning and preparations that were overseen by Fr. Anthony Mikovsky were true expressions of love for our dear Bishop.

I shall miss my spiritual father greatly and I have already seen and experienced the power of his intercession before the Lord. With the confidence the Catholic/Christian faith offers I know he is with our Father in heaven.

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As an aside, as I was in thought after Holy Communion I looked over at the portrait of our first Bishop, Francis Hodur. Bishop Hodur was watching over the body of Bishop Grotnik, and could not help but think that Bishop Grotnik is now with Bishop Hodur, whom he spent many years researching and writing about.

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Eternal rest grant onto him O Lord! Also, please pray for his wife Krystyna, his children, and grandchildren.

Our Bishop Ordinary, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Casimir J. Grotnik passed away today. I ask all of you, my readers and friends, to please pray for the repose of his soul and to pray for his wife and family.

Bishop Grotnik ordained me. He was a wonderful, insightful, and practical man. He was also a great intellectual and writer. I will miss his good humor and his guidance very much. He had a certain way of looking into your eyes and through them to your soul. He saw into you with a certainty founded in faith. He loved his people and his clergy.

As deacon, I was his hands, eyes, and ears in our Parish. We were connected by grace and by filial love and admiration.

The last time I saw him was at the Central Diocese School of Christian Living conference. He was not doing very well. He had a kidney replacement about a year ago. Recently it was found that he had cancer and hew had recurrent boughts of pneumonia. He suffered greatly, but always saw through the suffering to his faith. We have a biography of Bishop Grotnik on our Parish’s website (click here…).

Eternal rest grant onto him O Lord, and may the perpetual light shine upon him.