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Reflection for Trinity Sunday 2025

Christian Witness

Reflection for Trinity Sunday 2025

Christian Witness

Reflection for Trinity Sunday 2025

Current Events, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia

From the Polish Catholic Church

Mr. Robert Strybel’s syndicated column, which appears in Polish American World, notes the following regarding the Polish Catholic Church (a daughter of the PNCC):

Poland’s first Roman-Polish Catholic nuptial in a Polish-Catholic parish has occurred in the southeastern town of Łęki Dukielskie, the PC fraternal organ “Rodzina” reported recently. Elżbieta Nycz was able to marry Polish-Catholic Norbert Gruszczyński after receiving dispensation from her bishop – something the RC Church had earlier been reluctant to grant…

The local Polish Catholic parish is the Church of the Good Shepherd.

Current Events, Perspective, PNCC

Motu photo (Lingua latina fugat)

Someone should have taken a picture of the eager faces of R.C.’s who are awaiting the return of the Traditional Rite of the Holy Mass in Latin (something the PNCC has always had – and in the vernacular) as word creeps out that the Pope’s Motu proprio on its restoration will be a no-go. This word is in opposition to the word from other sources here, here, here, and here.

As The Young Fogey points out – it’s not about Latin, but rather Godwardness, holiness, and respect for what one is doing in the Sacrifice of the Mass.

He picked up on the story in No Motu proprio. He also picked up on another story I read last night: Pope’s Latinist pronounces death of a language in which the Rev. Reginald Foster says of the Motu porprio:

He said reports that Pope Benedict will reintroduce the Tridentine Mass, which dates from 1570 and is largely conducted in Latin, were wrong —“ not least because of the Pope’s desire to avoid more controversies. A speech last year offended Muslims and more recently he gave initial support to a Polish archbishop who was eventually forced to resign, after admitting that he had collaborated with the communist-era secret police.

“He is not going to do it,” Fr Foster said. “He had trouble with Regensberg, and then trouble in Warsaw, and if he does this, all hell will break loose.” In any case, he added: “It is a useless mass and the whole mentality is stupid. The idea of it is that things were better in the old days. It makes the Vatican look medieval.”

The whole exercise tells me that R.C.’s have less respect for the Pope than the Orthodox, Orientals, and PNCC combined. Sure he’s a great figurehead (sort of like the Queen of England), but if he tries to play the part the ultramontane want, he gets shut down. Can anyone say committees (Curia, local bishop’s conferences) run amok.

As to the Rev. Foster’s points, that medievalist attitude has paid his room and board for a long time, dead languages and all. He’s gotten his fill at the table of academic exercise. I’d like to see him in a poor rural parish now that his skills are no longer necessary, medieval, and simply old. There’s no going back Rev. Foster, there’s no going back.

Current Events, Political

Could be, maybe, we sorta think

The United States is criticizing Israel’s use of cluster bombs during its invasion of Lebanon last year, albeit grudgingly and couched in all sorts of ambiguous ‘well it kinda looks like’ language.

From the AP via The Guardian: Report cites possible misuse of U-S-made cluster bombs:

WASHINGTON (AP) – Israel probably misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon during the war against Hezbollah last summer, the State Department said Monday.

Department officials sent a preliminary report on the issue to Congress on Monday. By law, lawmakers must determine whether further investigation by the State Department is warranted.

The report represents an embarrassment to the United States and Israel, one of its closest allies. During last summer’s war, the U.S. was seen as letting Israel continue attacks inside Lebanon long after many other countries had demanded a halt to military action.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack would not provide details of the report, which was classified.

But he told reporters the department had made a preliminary finding “that there may – likely could have been some violations” of the agreement by which Israel purchased the weapons from the U.S. He would not specify what those agreements were.

When Israel purchases cluster bombs and other lethal equipment from the United States, it must agree in writing to restrictions on their use.

The report, McCormack said, “is not a final judgment.” He declined to speculate on what action may be taken against Israel if a violation is confirmed.

The United Nations said last summer that unexploded cluster bombs – anti-personnel weapons that spray bomblets over a wide area – litter homes, gardens and highways in south Lebanon.

…

Danny Ayalon, the recently retired Israeli ambassador to Washington, said Israel had no choice but to use the munitions against villages. “This was a clear-cut case of self-defense, in order to stop incoming Katyusha rockets aimed at our own population centers, and it was done to areas that were likely to be abandoned by Lebanese civilians,” Ayalon said.

Yeah, about that. You see we have jets, laser guided bombs, sophisticated American weapons, tanks, a whole arsenal of vastly superior firepower (plus nuclear weapons). How dare you fire vintage unguided munitions at us. Oh, and sorry about grandma, grandpa, and your children and cousins who were on-site. Couldn’t have foreseen that.

But the New York-based Human Rights Watch said the report’s findings “should lead to an immediate cutoff of all U.S. cluster munitions sales to Israel.”

The U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center has said it is not illegal to use the cluster bombs against soldiers or enemy fighters, but the Geneva Conventions bar their use in civilian areas.

Frankly, I can’t believe the U.S. government is actually (well kind of) saying these things. I guess there was just too much civilian blood on the roads of southern Lebanon to ignore it.

Nothing against Israel’s right to exist, but I’ll up Human Rights Watch one better. The U.S. should extract itself from the Middle East, Iraq, Israel, the whole mess.

Current Events, Poland - Polish - Polonia

Ambassador Who Defected From Poland Dies

From the AP via Newsday

WARSAW, Poland — Zdzislaw Rurarz, a former Polish ambassador to Japan who humiliated Poland’s communist regime by defecting to the U.S. in 1981 to protest its imposition of martial law, has died of cancer, his daughter said Saturday. He was 76.

Rurarz died Jan. 21 at the Inova Fairfax Hospital in northern Virginia, his daughter, Ewa Rurarz-Huygens, told The Associated Press by telephone from Reston, Va., where his family lives.

Rurarz was one of two Polish ambassadors who defected after Poland’s last communist leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, imposed martial law on Dec. 13, 1981 in an attempt to crack down on Solidarity, a trade union pushing for democratic change.

The defections of the two communist party loyalists from such prestigious positions came as a humiliating blow to the regime that, it later turned out, was poised to collapse eight years later.

Solidarity, led by Lech Walesa, eventually prevailed, helping to end communist rule in 1989. However, Poland endured 19 months of martial law — harsh military rule that saw Solidarity leaders, including Walesa, imprisoned and about 100 people killed.

The other ambassador to defect was Romuald Spasowski, the ambassador to the United States…

PNCC, , , ,

Music Scholarship Sunday

God ascends amid shouts of joy,
Yahweh at the sound of the horn.

Praise God, praise him with psalms!
Praise our king, praise him with psalms!

For God is the ruler of all the earth;
praise him to the utmost of your ability.

— Psalm 47:5-7

The PNCC observes Music Scholarship Sunday on the last Sunday in January.

Polish National Catholics are encouraged to support the scholarship program and are asked to encourage youth in their pursuit of music education, to pray for our organists, choir directors, and choir members, and to take part in the ministry of song – raising their voices unto the Lord. We are also asked to pray for all those who have gone before us and who have worked for the glory of God through music ministry.

Persons wishing to apply to the National United Choirs scholarship program may obtain an application from their pastor or choir director or by writing to:

Music Scholarship Committee
National United Choirs
280 Valley View Dr
Westfield, MA 01085.

Applications are available between January 1st and March 20th. Applications must be received no later than April 1st.

There is also a Junior Incentive Award. Applications may only be obtained through your pastor, assistant pastor, administrator, deacon, choir member, director or organist, or Parish Committee member.

Homilies,

The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.

I am going to speak today from the first person singular, for I have something I need to say to all of you.

I was asked to prepare several reports for the recent annual meeting. In preparing those reports I sinned.

Those reports were prepared with a stunning lack of charity. They were polemics, they were diatribes, they were uncharitable, they were inappropriate, and they were unfitting for a man who is ordained to the ministry of service.

These reports were not reports. They aren’t an abstract concept. I cannot say that I prepared a report and the report is wrong. No, I prepared the reports and I was wrong.

I have given grave offense to many, and I am deeply and truly sorry.

This issue, this sin of mine has borne down upon me. In reflecting on this sin I recalled the words from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

In translating scripture the word love, as used by Paul in this passage, is interchangeable with charity, so:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not charity, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And Paul goes on to remind us:

So faith, hope, charity abide, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

In recalling those words I found that I was not filled with faith, hope, or charity —“ but only with myself.

I want to thank those who have confronted me about this. One family in particular gave the greatest example of living by biblical principals. They followed Jesus’ method in correcting me. In Matthew 18 Jesus says:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.—

I have listened to my brother and sister. I have heard their words. I have taken them to heart.

In their words they pointed out that having my name on the reports was a non-issue. They would have known who had written them simply by the tone and tenor of what was said. It was 100% me.

I’ve created quite a public and private persona. I am harsh, demanding, judgmental, and most of all uncharitable.

The words of Psalm 51 apply:

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

My problem is exactly this. The exterior harshness of my personality is a shadow of the interior harshness with which I treat myself. When I sin, when I continually fall into the same sins, I am tempted to give up hope, to resign myself to my own evil, to loose faith completely and in doing so to reject God.

I was recently told that the cure for this type of giving up, this personality disorder, is to tie oneself ever closer to the crucified one. My sin is great, His love is greater.

Ezra echoes that in today’s first reading:

Do not be saddened this day,
for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!—

The Lord must be my hope and strength.

David goes on in Psalm 51, which we sing at the beginning of most Holy Masses

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Fill me with joy and gladness; let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice.
Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

I ask the Lord for a new and right spirit. I trust and hope in Him. I beg you for your forgiveness and your continuing fraternal correction.

It will not be easy for me to turn harshness to charity, but with God’s grace, the love of the Church, and your love everything is possible.

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.

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