Saints Victorinus and Companions, Martyrs, (284)
St. Caesarius of Nazianzus, Confessor, (369)
St. Tarasius of Constantinople, Bishop, (806)
—It is written, One does not live on bread alone.—
It’s always something about food isn’t it? God seems to like to use food as symbol and metaphor. He’s even gone so far as to use food as the means of conveying Himself to us.
In reading over the scriptures for this Sunday I couldn’t help but focus on food.
As many of you know, I am the cook in my family. I love cooking for my family and for relatives and friends.
The whole concept of cooking is multi-faceted. It’s the joining together of tastes, textures, and atmosphere into something that delights the senses, awakens memories, and ingrains new memories.
Cooking has become one of the trendiest activities out there. We have a television network dedicated to food with Iron Chefs, mega-chefs, CIA chefs, and down-home chefs. We have celebrities like the ubiquitous Emeril, BAM!, Nigella, and local celeb, Rachel Ray. I still remember the days of the Galloping Gourmet.
Moses stressed the importance of food —“ as a gift to God —“ long before there were Iron Chefs:
Moses spoke to the people, saying:
—The priest shall receive the basket from you
and shall set it in front of the altar of the LORD, your God.
Not any food of course, but the firstfruits of a person’s labor were for God. The people were to say:
Therefore, I have now brought you the firstfruits
of the products of the soil
which you, O LORD, have given me.
They were to give from the top, the best stuff to be burned-up as an offering to God. The best is for God, because God provides all.
In his second epistle St. Clements says:
What return, then, shall we make to Him, or what fruit that shall be worthy of that which He has given to us? For, indeed, how great are the benefits which we owe to Him! He has graciously given us light; as a Father, He has called us sons; He has saved us when we were ready to perish. What praise, then, shall we give to Him, or what return shall we make for the things which we have received?
Cooking is very much like our Lenten journey.
The process of cooking starts with thought and preparation. Cooking challenges a person on many levels, combining timing, temperature, mixing, and artistry.
I looked at a particular incident that happened in the course of cooking this week, and this happens to me a lot. I want to talk about, and I want you to think about spillage —“ that’s right, spilling things.
Have you ever tried to transfer things from one container to another? Perhaps you’re combining flour or sugar into one canister. For my part I can never seem to pour the ingredients safely from one canister into another. Some always goes over the edge and spills out.
This week I would like you to consider how God spills His gifts out before us. Malachi 3:10 is very famous and is very pertinent:
—Bring your whole tithes to the storehouse.
And trust me in this. I will pour out such a blessing upon you
Your storehouses will not be able to contain it.—
What we bring to God during Lent is ourselves, and if we are sincere and humble enough we bring the firstfruits of our lives before God during Lent. We bring God our all and everything, and we lay it before Him as a sacrifice. We literally empty ourselves out, and like an empty canister, God will fill us, fill us to overflowing.
God’s love and grace will fill us to the point of overflow.
That overflow will be evident in our actions towards and with each other. That person next to you and me, our spouse, our friends, our children, our buddy at bingo or at the club will be affected by God’s outpouring. Our enemies, those right here in the Capital District who hate our Church, will be won over.
In Malachi God challenges us to trust Him. He literally says:
And trust me in this.
Test Me, Check Me out, put Me to the test. If we bring our all, our tithe, our firstfruits into the storehouse of God, if we place our lives in God’s hands, He will pour out such a blessing upon us that our storehouses will not be able to contain it.
We will be changed, and because of the change in us, the world will be changed, one person at a time.
This is what we are to believe, ponder, and live. That by our acceptance of God in faith, by our Lenten humility and penance, by our heartfelt commitment to emptying ourselves out, we will be changed, and as Paul says:
For one believes with the heart and so is justified,
and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
After High Holy Mass tomorrow morning Fr. Andrzej, a few parishioners, and I will be off to St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Cathedral in Scranton, PA (our Diocesan See) for the installation of our bishop, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Anthony Mikovsky as the seventh Diocesan Bishop of the Central Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church.
The Most Rev. Robert M. Nemkovich, Prime Bishop of the PNCC will conduct the installation and Bishop Mikovsky will celebrate a Holy Mass of Thanksgiving immediately following. There will be a buffet in honor of the occasion at the St. Stanislaus Youth Center immediately following the service.
Spent a little time playing with the blog set-up this evening.
What are you doing, right now?
That question is asked and answered by my first addition, Twitter. This is a really cool social networking tool. It basically lets me tell you what I’m doing at any particular moment. You’ll see the Twitter News box in the first right hand column. I can post updates to my Twitter News when I can’t blog. I can do the posts from my cell phone, from an IM program (limited selection I think), or from the Twitter site. I’m using the Twitter sidebar widget for Word Press from Velvet Unraveled.
Imieniny
I’ve added a PHP script to list the current name day. Name days, in Polish ‘Imieniny’ are the days on which a particular saints are commemorated. In Poland the “name-day” is important and is typically celebrated like birthdays are celebrated in other countries. In Poland only your closest relatives celebrate your birthday. The Imieniny PHP script is from Adam Brucki. I updated it for UTF-8 compliance and tweaked the output. If I get ambitious, I’ll create a widget out of it.
Feast – St. Matthias, Apostle
Saints Montanus, Lucius, and Companions, Martyrs, (259)
St. Praetextus, Bishop and Martyr, (586)
Thaddeus Kościuszko, the Polish engineering genius whose special skills helped George Washington win America’s War of Independence, became part of this year’s Black History Month observances.
At ceremonies held at the Presbyterian Church of St. Albans, the Polish American Congress presented a reproduction of General Kościuszko’s last will and testament to the United for Progress Democratic Club of Queens, New York.
Shown above are: (left to right) Chet Szarejko who heads the Political Activities Committee of the Downstate N.Y. Division of the Polish American Congress; Essie Lowry, president of the Progress Club who holds the copy of Kosciuszko’s will; Henry Murphy, member of the club’s board and master of ceremonies; and Frank Milewski, president of the N.Y. Congress.
Before Kościuszko left the United States in 1798, he directed the executor of his will, Thomas Jefferson, to distribute all his property he was leaving behind for ‘purchasing’ black slaves and “giving them liberty in my name.”
In describing Kościuszko, Jefferson stated, “he is as pure a son of Liberty as I have ever known and of that liberty which is to go to all and not to the few or rich alone.”
The PAC’s Milewski was a guest speaker at the Black History Month commemoration. “Kościuszko is an example of the true Polish spirit,” he said.
I received this via E-mail today:
On behalf of the organizers of the poetry evening, originally planned [in Washington] for this Sunday, February 25, I regret to inform you that this event HAS BEEN CANCELED. Organizers apologize for this last minute change.
–Jan Karski Institute
…they were bigots?
It appears that one of the New Yorker’s cartoonists, Robert Weber, thinks that Polish parents drink a bit too much, thereby resulting in their children having ‘funny’ names like Zbigniew.
You can see the offensive cartoon at Cartoonbank.
I don’t tend to make a big deal out of ethnic humor. To me it says more about the person telling the joke than about the people of the ethnic group being targeted.
Television networks and the media have made lots of money on anti-Polish humor:
- ABC – Barney Miller, Drew Carey
- CBS – All in the Family
- NBC – most recently Office, but add Conan O’Brien and a whole host of NBC shows to that list.
Those are the ones that come most directly to mind. Do they care – no. Are they moved by protest – no. Will it continue – sure.
For my part I will pray for Mr. Weber, and maybe that’s what we should all do. Direct our indignation to prayer. Forgive Mr. Weber for his ignorance and bigotry and pray for a change of heart.
…and for Mr. Weber, here’s a few of those children born to drunken parents:
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Preisner
Zbigniew Herbert
Zbigniew Religa
Zbigniew Boniek
Zbigniew Oleśnicki
Zbigniew Nienacki
Zbigniew of Poland
PS.: ZBIGNIEW, Gender: Masculine, Usage: Polish, Pronounced: ZBEEG-nyef, Means “to dispel anger” from the Slavic elements zbit “to dispel” and gniew “anger”.
PPS.: David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker responding to criticism leveled at the cartoon.
St. Serenus the Gardener, Martyr, (302)
St. Alexander Akimetes, Confessor, (430)
St. Dositheus, Confessor, (530)
Premiera w Stanach Zjednoczonych 1-go marca, 2007
PIEŚNI I TAŁƒCE MAZOWSZA jest wspaniałym widowiskiem pełnym emocji, które elektryzuje znakomitym tańcem, żywymi barwami i pięknem obrazu. Niezrównany zespól MAZOWSZE zachwyci widza szalonym wirem, podskokiem, tempem, piosenka i muzyka. Sławi on kulturalny dobytek Polski tanecznym krokiem i przepiękna melodia. Bobby Vinton, śpiewak polskiego pochodzenia, jest narratorem programu.
Mimo tego, ze Mazowsze reprezentuje aż 39 rożnych regionów Polski w swoistym ludowym stylu, choreografia i układy muzyczne tego dynamicznego widowiska sięga poza widza polskiego pochodzenia. Zespól 65 tancerzy i śpiewaków występuję w niekończącej się serii przepięknych, autentycznych, ręcznie wykonanych ludowych strojów, jeden piękniejszy od drugiego. Jest ich w sumie 1000, i niektóre waza ponad 30 funtów, tym bardziej zadziwiając publiczność wyczynami tancerzy na scenie. Akompaniując zespołowi 23-osobowa orkiestra przygrywa ukochane od wieków przez Polaków piękne melodie ludowe w układach muzycznych sięgających od prostych przyśpiewek wiejskich do kompozycji Chopina. Fachowo umocowane kamery filmowe i mikrofony wysokiej jakości nagrały ten olśniewający koncert —na żywo— w Teatrze Wielkim w Warszawie.
Zespól Mazowsze występuję na arenie międzynarodowej jako ambasador Polskiej kultury. W ostatnich 50 latach zaliczył ponad 6000 koncertów naokoło świata. Założyciele Zespołu, aktorka/piosenkarka Mira Ziminska i dyrygent/kompozytor Tadeusz Sygientyński, po zniszczeniach drugiej Wojny Światowej, z ogromnym poświęceniem pracowali nad przechowaniem bogatej kultury pieśni i tańców polskich dla następnych pokoleń.
Program:
- —Kołem, Kołem—
- —Piekna Nasza Polska Cala—
- Tramblanka Polka
- Oberek
- —Co Ja Myślę— —“ w strojach Kurpiowskich
- Karnawał w Wilamowicach
- Krakowiaczek
- Krakowiak
- Pieśni i Tańce z Jurgowa na Podhalu
- Bamberki
- Przyśpiewki i tańce z Podegrodzia
- Winobranie w Lubuszu
- Tańce Góralskie z wysokich Tatr
- Żywiec —“ Taniec z Chusteczka i chodzony
- —Cyt, Cyt— w strojach Łowickich
- —Furman— solista: Stanisław Jopek
- Tańce z Łowicza
- Tańce Sannickie
- Finale