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Reflection for the 18th Ordinary Sunday 2025

Christian Witness

Reflection for the 18th Ordinary Sunday 2025

Christian Witness

Reflection for the 18th Ordinary Sunday 2025

Christian Witness, Events, PNCC, , ,

Revived By Grace: Revival, Renewal & Restoration

10391445_833664746691798_1176176903936145504_nThe fifteenth National Mission & Evangelism Workshop of the Polish National Catholic Church themed “Revived By Grace: Revival, Renewal & Restoration” will take place at St. Martin & St. Rose Parish, San Antonio, Texas from Friday, February 27th – Sunday, March 1st, 2015.

Beginning on Friday, Februay 27, 2015, the PNCC will present the Fourteenth National Mission and Evangelism Workshop. The Workshop will be held in San Antonio at St. Martin & St. Rose Parish.

Over the past fifteen years the National Commission on Mission and Evangelism has presented to the faithful and clergy of the Church an opportunity to explore one of many faith-driven aspects of the Church on a National level, as well as experiencing the Church on a local Parish level.

Our goal for each Mission Workshop has been that the Faithful come away with a burning desire to bring faith-driven work of the Workshop back to their parishes, and be a light to that local Community of Faith, the Parish, and the communities in which they live.

This year’s Mission Workshop will be held in San Antonio, Texas. The hotel is located next to the Alamo and other historical sites, the River Walk, and the River Center Mall, St. Martin & St. Rose is about four miles from the hotel.
Arrangements have been made with the hotel for extra days to be added to our workshop days. Consider spending a couple additional days either before or after the workshop for some R & R.

Please click on the links below for Workshop resources:

Workshop Pamphlet which includes the tentative schedule, names, phone numbers and email addresses you may need.

Workshop registration form and Hotel reservation form. The Registration Committee requests that you call the hotel directly for reservations. When making reservations please use the hotel code: “Polish National Catholic Church.” The cutoff date for obtaining the guaranteed room rate of $109 plus tax ($16.75) is February 15, 2015.

Please fill out the registration form and send it along with a check for the Workshop Registration Fee of $75.00 per person. Please make the check payable to: St. Martin & St. Rose Parish.

Deadline for registering for the Workshop is February 15, 2015. For registrations post-marked after February 15, 2015, the registration fee is $95.00.

We pray that you will consider joining us for the Fifteenth National Mission & Evangelism Workshop of the PNCC, and we look forward to your attendance.

If you have any questions, please contact:

Rev. Raymond Drada, Workshop & Commission Chairman Parish Phone: (586) 978-1125 or Very Rev. Gus Sicard, Pastor Phone: (210) 924-1043

Christian Witness, Events, PNCC, , ,

Thoughts on my Ordination to the Holy Priesthood

Overwhelmed by love – from preparing for my ordination to the Holy Priesthood, to the actual liturgy on the Commemoration of St. Nicholas, to my first Holy Mass offered on Sunday, December 7th, the Second Sunday of Advent for the people of my parish, living and deceased, and for my dearly departed parents. The love of the Lord has been poured out on me through the family of faith in our Holy Polish National Catholic Church, our many friends, and of course my family. This love is overwhelmingly powerful and life changing. I am so thankful for all of you who are a gift to me, a gift from God. I remember in a special way the many blessings I have received through our Church, its congregations, its priests and deacons, and most particularly the love and support of our Prime Bishop Anthony who has guided, supported, and cared for me since he was a priest and my Bishop ordinary, Bishop Bernard who reminds me of the many ways Christ is at work in our Church and in me, and of holy memory, Bishop Casimir Grotnik who loved me as a son. I am overwhelmed by this tremendous love and my heart desires only to love and serve God and His body – our family of faith. Thank you and bless you all.

Thank you to Fr. Robert for the following pictures. Pictures from my first Holy Mass will follow once they are available.

By the way – any interesting ideas on a new name for this website? Let me know.

Homilies,

Reflection for the 2nd Sunday of Advent 2014

23862

The power of
one.

John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.

The power of one is really something.

The singer and musician Bono founded an organization called ONE that campaigns and advocates on an international level to take action to end extreme poverty and preventable disease. More than 6 million people have joined in as ONE. We also know the power of one vote. A look at elections over the past several years reveals that many are won or lost by very close margins. Every vote does count. A little research shows that many elections in the United States and elsewhere are won or lost by an average 449 votes out of an average 771,000 votes cast per election. A good group of those were won or lost by one vote. In mathematics, the number 1 is considered neither prime nor composite but in a class of its own. It is the multiplicative identity, so it is also a unit and a divisor of unity. John the Baptist was only one figure but prepared many for the Lord.

In Greek neo-platonic philosophy, The One is the ultimate reality and source of all existence. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria regarded the number one as God’s number, and the basis for all numbers. Every Sunday we clearly proclaim that we believe in One God. Advent presents us two ways to look at one and one point of arrival.

The first thing we must look at during Advent is ourselves. Do we see ourselves as ‘the one’ and others as them? In our singleness, our self-identity, our oneness – which is really aloneness – do we fall short of Jesus’ call to be part of His body? Do we serve ourselves and hurt others in the process? Or rather, do we use the gifts God has given us as individuals to build up His one body?

The other thing we must look at this Advent is the One who came into the world and is coming again. Are we letting others know how beautiful it is to be part of the One in the family of faith? Are we preparing to meet Him, not just on Christmas as a single day, but prepared to welcome, live with, and abide in Him for all eternity?

Advent is a time of focus. We will all arrive at one point in time, a single point where we will live in unity or disunity with the One. Are we ready to draw into union as one with Him? The power of the One draws us, calls us, drives us, and gives us a choice. The power of the One is truly beautiful. Let us join as one in preparing worthily for the One.

Christian Witness, Homilies,

Reflection for the 1st Sunday of Advent 2014

Countdown

What’s on your
clock?

Jesus said to his disciples: “Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”

Many of us have heard of some of the most well know timekeepers. There is Big Ben in London and the ball that drops at Times Square on New Year’s Eve in New York City. Both are symbols of the passing of time. The United States Naval Observatory in Washington D.C. operates the master atomic clock ensemble which provides the time standard for the Department of Defense. FOCS 1, an atomic clock in Switzerland, started operating in 2004. It looses only one second every 30 million years. The Doomsday Clock at the University of Chicago is a symbolic clock face that represents a countdown to possible political related global catastrophe (a nuclear war or irreversible climate change). The closer the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock to midnight, the closer the scientists believe the world is to global disaster. We are also in the midst of a whole group of sports seasons – football, basketball, and hockey. The clock at the top of our bulletin represents the last ten minutes of the game.

What’s missing? Of course, the score! Who’s winning? That is a question we tend to ask as time draws down. Who is winning, we even ask that in our lives as time draws down. Have I won, am I winning?

That should be a question Christians avoid. If we are focused on our successes and failures, the winning and losing of everyday life, we aren’t responding to Jesus’ call, we missed His request of us. If we aren’t much concerned with success, but are just allowing time to pass, biding our time in quiet, waiting for time to run out, we aren’t responding to Jesus’ call, we missed His request of us. Jesus tells us: He has placed His servants in charge, each with his own work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.

Advent is the season of the year that we should be taking account of our watchfulness, how we have responded to the Lord’s call. Are we at work for Him? We should use this time to redouble our efforts to be about our Master’s work, not our personal wins and losses.

All of the world’s timekeepers keep running, whether they are symbolic of the passing of time, predictive of the end of our times, or scientific instruments measuring its passage. We are always in the countdown period and our Lord’s return is near. What ends up on our clock will not be wins or losses, but how well we have responded to Him.

Christian Witness, Homilies,

Reflection for the Solemnity of Christ the King 2014

13023

The best life
can be.

I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal

Why did Jesus come to us? Why would the eternal Son of the Father give up the glory of heaven, His absolute power and Kingship to walk among us as a man, subject to all the temptations, pains, suffering, and sorrows we so often face as human beings?

Love! God’s answer to us is always love. He came so we would know exactly how much He, as God, loves us. He came to give us the promise only love could give: I love you so much that I am willing to give it all up. I am willing to empty Myself of everything and lay My life on the line, so you could have the promise of love – a life that will never end, in perfect joy and peace, with me in heaven. If I do not give up my life for you, you could never enter into heaven. Now you can, because I loved you enough to do all that for you.

This presents us with a challenge. How can we possibly respond to this enormous love? Our response is contained in the picture at the top of our bulletin: by making the rest of our life the best of our life. What does it mean to have the best life? Is it gathering goods, focusing on our personal successes, being satisfied in what we have and our pleasures? No, not at all! Making the rest of our life the best of our life means being changed, that we allow ourselves to be changed by the love of God and to be about the business of love.

To be engaged in the business of love starts with making love known. Jesus points out many ways we can do this: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’

Of course, those are means – but what’s the point? These actions only make sense, make a point, if they are the means by which we bring knowledge of Jesus’ love to others and help them enter His love. We use human means to make Jesus known and as an invitation. This includes our charity, words and the way we act toward others. Making Jesus known and inviting others into His love is the point, the basis, of every Christian’s life. It is the way we make the rest of our life the best of our life. It is the way we carry out His work and help people into the Kingdom. To make the rest of our life the best of our life let’s set to work in helping people know how good and loving God is. The world is missing His love. Let us help them partake of His love.

Christian Witness, Events, PNCC, , ,

Personal news

To all my faithful on-line readers and friends,

I invite you to pray for me as I prepare to enter the next chapter of my ministry in our Holy Polish National Catholic Church. On Saturday, December 6th, the Commemoration of St. Nicholas, His Grace, the Most Rev. Dr. Anthony Mikovsky will ordain me to the order of presbyter in our Church. I will celebrate my first Solemn Holy Mass on Sunday, December 7th, the Second Sunday of Advent. Attached below is more detailed information and my invitation to all of you. You have supported me, prayed for me, challenged me, and worked with me over these last nine years. You have helped me to grow in faith and in my commitment to the work Jesus has called me to do.

Ordination Invitation - Holy Priesthood

Christian Witness, Perspective, Political, ,

A Strong Economy for All

From Strong Economy for All:

The 213 members of the New York State legislature are currently agitating for a pay raise from their current base salaries of $79,600 per year. At the same time, three million New Yorkers working full-time at poverty-level pay are also fighting to raise the minimum wage up from the current $8 an hour, about $16,640 per year.

85If lawmakers are actually going to vote to raise their own pay, they absolutely must vote to raise the minimum wage at the same time. The Raise Up New York package would boost the statewide wage to $10.10 per hour, index it for inflation, and allow cities and counties to adjust it up to 30% higher to meet local living costs. It’s backed by Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders, and it must be part of any special-session package that raises pay for legislators or state commissioners.

Raising the minimum wage makes good economic sense. Economists have identified stagnant wages as the biggest barrier to broader economic recovery. Right now the states with the highest minimum wages have the most new jobs and most economic growth. Small businesses across New York support a wage boost because it would put more money in the pockets of their customers, boosting spending and sales.

And raising the minimum wage makes good moral and ethical sense — and you’d better believe that raising lawmakers’ pay without a raise for the millions at the bottom is senseless.

If we want better government and a stronger economy for all of New York, as well as a democracy that lives up to our ethical standards, any pay raise for the legislature must be matched with a pay raise for the lowest-paid New Yorkers.

Christian Witness, Homilies, , ,

Reflection for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2014

parable-of-the-talents

What is our
return on investment?

His master said to him in reply, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter? Should you not then have put my money in the bank so that I could have got it back with interest on my return? Now then! Take the talent from him and give it to the one with ten. For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

So a person walks up to one of us and gives us a bunch of money and says, go do something with it. Now let’s add to the scenario – this individual is someone we know and we know they can be really demanding. What do we do?

None of us may believe we are particularly shrewd or great investors. We may have worked for others all our lives, or we worked in the home. We have never run a business. What do we do?

Let’s add one more fact to this scene – the money this individual gives us is incredible – literally more than we could make in a lifetime. What would we do?

This is the situation Jesus was describing. A talent, as a unit of money, was the largest unit of currency at the time. Some calculate the talent in the parables to be equivalent to 20 years of wages for the common worker. Today, in New York, this would represent twenty times $63,000, which is average yearly wage paid in our state. One talent would be worth $1.3 million. If we had ten, we would have $13 million. What would we do?

God has invested richly in us, a value we cannot calculate or even estimate. He invested His life, suffering, and death for our salvation. He paid more than any money could measure and says to us: ‘Here is my investment in you, go do something with it.’ He also told us that He is coming back to see what we have done with His investment in us.

Certainly the servants who doubled the investment were welcomed. They received even more because they were profitable (a 100% return isn’t bad). The servant with ten talents came back with twenty (that’s $26 million to us). But, was it enough? Christians are called to measure their return on investment by Jesus’ standards.

Certainty, the servant who receives all of Jesus’ treasure and buries Him in the ground, ignoring Him and who returns nothing, is unprofitable, distanced from Jesus by his or her own choices and decisions.

For the rest of us, who are faithful and profitable, let us consider what we can do to up our return on investment. Can we return 200%, 300%, or more? It isn’t even hard – bringing a friend to church. 1 friend = a 100% return. That is worth eternity for both of you.

Christian Witness, ,

A Prayer for Veteran’s Day

praythankrememberveteransday01

We thank Thee, Lord, for America, our home. We bless Thee for the liberty, the opportunity, and the abundance we share. But above all we praise Thee for the traditions which have made our country great, and for the patriots who have laid the foundations through faith, courage, and self-sacrifice. Teach us in our own day the meaning of citizenship, and help us to be faithful stewards of the responsibility which Thou entrusted to us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. — A Prayer for our Country from A Book of Devotions and Prayers According to the Use of the Polish National Catholic Church

Christian Witness, Homilies, ,

Reflection for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – 2014

10346189_10203247117478112_6448631811686693101_n

Living a life
prepared.

For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, console one another with these words.

As we discussed last week, the Thessalonians accepted the Word and were faithful to it. They modeled what it means to be Jesus’ Church working in such a way as to advance the cause of the gospel in their lives and the lives of others.

They did have one concern. It was common in the early Church to believe that Jesus would return quickly and that all believers would be there to greet Him. They began to worry because, of course, some had died. They wondered whether their loved ones had done something wrong. They thought that those who had fallen asleep would not be there to meet the Lord. Paul set out to clarify that both those who were still alive and those who had fallen asleep would both be there on that wonderful day. Paul told them to hold onto that hope: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

We are like the Thessalonians. Centuries have gone by and we begin to think – when will Jesus come? Will it be soon or in the distant future? Furthermore, Jesus is telling us that we always have to be ready, that we must be prepared: “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

The last few weeks of Ordinary Time focus on the last things, on preparation. What does it mean for us to be prepared? How do we keep our lamps filled with oil and the flame burning?

Make no mistake, Jesus is coming again. When you look at our parish church you see the altar facing liturgical east. Why? Because that is the direction from which Jesus Christ will return in glory with the rising of the eternal Sun. We worship and pray in a way that shows our preparedness, facing the east, waiting for Him.

In our parish life we receive the sacraments that strengthen us and prepare us. We fill up our “oil stocks” with the gifts of grace – forgiveness of sins, the body and blood of our Lord. We encourage each other in reforming our lives, serving others not out of obligation, but out of joy, for we want them to experience the love of Christ. We invite others to come and worship, to be baptized and to believe so that they too may meet the Lord with lit lamps. What more must we do? The key to being prepared is to reject focus on our trials, to live, even when we suffer, with eyes focused on Jesus’ return.

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