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Christian Witness

Reflection for Trinity Sunday 2025

Christian Witness

Reflection for Trinity Sunday 2025

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News and Opportunities from the New York State Alliance for Arts Education

Public Review of the Draft High School Core Arts Standards

Please join the public review of drafts of the High School national core arts standards for Dance, Media Arts, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts beginning September 30 and ending October 21, 2013. Draft high school music standards for secondary ensembles will be included in the September 30th release; standards for additional music course sequences (guitar/keyboard and composition/theory) will be released later. Watch for details and information on their wikispace or Facebook page.

October 1 Deadline: Art Education Grants

The National Art Education Foundation (NAEF) annually invites applications for the Ruth Halvorsen Professional Development Grants, Mary McMullan Grants, NAEF Research Grants, SHIP Grants, and Teacher Incentive Grants. Grants range from $500 to $10,000 depending on the grant category. The Foundation was established as an independent, sister organization to the National Art Education Association (NAEA) to provide support for a variety of art education programs. Foundation grants are made only to NAEA members, including student and retired members, state/province associations, and recognized affiliates. Full info can be found here.

October 11 Deadline: NYSCA’s Musical Instrument Revolving Loan Fund

The loan program is competitive and allows access to eligible non-profit symphonies, ensembles and music organizations to apply for a low interest loan to support the purchase of musical instruments and certain equipment related to presentation and teaching of music. The purpose of the funds is “to stimulate the professional growth of musicians and symphony orchestras which provide a vital educational and cultural service to the citizens of the state. To review the MIRLF guidelines and application visit the dedicated web page.

November 1 Deadline: Award to School Board Providing “Outstanding Support”

Online nominations are now being accepted for the Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network and National School Boards Association Award (KCAAEN and NSBA Award). This award recognizes a local school board for outstanding support of the arts in education. The winning board receives a plaque presented at the NSBA Annual Conference, along with a cash award of $10,000 to use for their arts education programs. Full details and nomination materials can be found online.

November 14 Deadline: Grants for Dutchess, Orange & Ulster Counties

Projects can be in any artistic discipline and may include (but are not limited to) workshops, exhibitions/studio tours, performances, community music festivals, multi-discipline collaborations and public programming whose central focus is the arts. The maximum funding request for an organization is $5,000. Arts Education Grants support residencies by artists and/or cultural organizations in a public school, and focus on sequential, skill-based knowledge. These awards are administered by the Dutchess County Arts Council. Please see their website for the complete 2014 application, guidelines and list of informational seminars.

December 15 Deadline: Inspirational Teacher Award Nominations

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is seeking nominations for the 2014 Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards, a series of annual grants that recognize inspiring teachers in the United States.The awards were created in honor of American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who frequently attributes his success to the teachers in his life. The awards are presented each year on Sondheim’s birthday, March 22, to a handful of teachers, kindergarten through college, who are nominated via the Kennedy Center Web site.

Opportunities for Professionals

CRAVE Creators Conclave & Festival weekend, September 20-21, 2013, Syracuse, NY

Join artists in all disciplines, arts administrators, educators and students, presenters, curators, economic development stakeholders and the public for this statewide gathering. CRAVE is a unique creative gathering to inspire, explore and reward new ideas for audience engagement and empowerment. Sample Syracuse’s Connective Corridor cultural district, learn from national leaders, share best practices from your community, and see global artists like DJ Spooky. For more info and to register, please click here.

NYSTEA Educators Conference, October 4-6, 2013, Queens, NY

Register here for the annual NYSTEA Educators Conference “Making Connections: From School to School.” Enjoy 5 different workshops, welcome reception at the Roundabout Theatre Company with guest speaker writer/composter Joe DiPietro, awards luncheon, vendors and networking with like-minded professionals from across the state.

Municipal Art Society 2013 Summit, October 17-18, 2013, New York, NY

Taking Place at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the fourth annual MAS Summit for New York City will explore the themes of Innovation and Leadership. Participants will discuss the challenges that face New York, and topics will explore new and innovative ways to continue the city’s role as a global urban leader, while also covering issues of resilience and the city’s livability. Please see their website for more information.

National Guild’s annual Conference for Community Arts Education, October 30 – November 2, 2013, Chicago, IL

This gathering will bring together more than 500 arts education leaders from 350+ organizations nationwide. Join this dynamic learning community of staff, faculty, trustees, and teaching artists to forge the future of arts education in America. The conference will feature nationally renowned speakers and dozens of professional development and networking opportunities designed to help you increase participation and impact, raise more money, sustain and grow key programs, and advocate for equitable access to arts education. Register online.

National Artist Teacher Fellowship Program

The Center for Arts in Education invites arts teachers from public arts high schools to apply for funding for artistic development through its National Artist Teacher Fellowship Program (NATF). The NATF program provides grants of $5,500 to enable selected arts teachers from all disciplines to rejuvenate their own art-making. A complementary grant of $1,500 is awarded to each Fellow’s school to support post-fellowship activities in the classroom. Applications will be available online by September 27.

Opportunities for Students

October 2 Deadline: Student Entries for Rochester Student Showcase

The Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester announces the Student Showcase 2013 call for entries, an opportunity for its student members to submit their original work to a juried exhibition at The Gallery at the Arts & Cultural Council. Students from all visual art disciplines are encouraged to submit their work for consideration. Exhibition dates will be November 1–26. Use this on-line entry form.

October 18 Deadline: Young Arts Award

YoungArts provides emerging artists (ages 15-18 or grades 10-12) with life-changing experiences with renowned mentors, access to significant scholarships, national recognition, and other opportunities throughout their careers to help ensure that the nation’s most outstanding young artists are encouraged to pursue careers in the arts. Support is offered in ten artistic disciplines: cinematic arts, dance, design, jazz, music, photography, theater, visual arts, voice and writing. Students should apply here.

By applying to the YoungArts program, winners are eligible for:

  • Up to $10,000 monetary award (total awarded each year is over $500,000)
  • Exclusive eligibility for recognition as a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts
  • Master classes with world-renowned artists
  • Access to scholarships, career opportunities and professional contacts

Job Opportunities

Access the newest and freshest jobs available to professionals seeking employment through NYSAAE’s JOBlink.

Christian Witness, PNCC, ,

Ordinations

On Saturday, August 17th, my Bishop Ordinary, the Rt Rev. Bernard Nowicki conferred tonsure, minor orders, and the sub- diaconate on Mr. Anthony Prince of Holy Cross Parish in Syracuse, NY; tonsure, minor orders, the sub-diaconate, and the ordination to the diaconate of Rev. Mr. Michel Seward of St. John the Baptist Parish in Hazelton, PA; ordination to the diaconate of Rev. Mr. Donald Wunderlich of Heart of Jesus Parish in Bayonne, NJ. Holy Mass and these ordinations took place at Holy Mother of Sorrows Parish in DuPont, PA. The liturgies, Holy Mass, and music were beautiful and so meaningful. I welcome and congratulate my brother deacons and sub-deacon.

The prayer of our bishop and the laying on of hands – conferring the Holy Spirit is more than words and gestures; it is the power of grace in our lives and Jesus’ continuing ministry among us through His ordained ministers – who baptize, who proclaim the gospel, who fulfill their sacred ministry. Please pray for Don, Michael and Anthony as they go forth to carry out their ministries among us. Also pray for more vocations so God’s Holy Church may have the workers it needs.

Christian Witness, Homilies, , , ,

Reflection for Back to Church Sunday

A place for you

Welcome to
Church

Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.

Welcome! We are happy that you joined us on Back to Church Sunday! Whether you attend church on a regular basis or accepted an invitation from a family member or friend today, we hope that you will feel comfortable and enjoy spending this day with us.

Many of us have perceptions about church that make us wonder, “Is this the place for me? Will I fit in? Why does church make a difference? Who is Jesus?” You may want to learn more about who God is and what He has to say about your life. Others of you may have been involved in a church at one time, but for a variety of reasons stopped attending; now you feel it’s time to reconnect with God and others like you. And still others of you may already be involved in church and want to grow deeper in your relationship with God and as part of this community.

Wherever you are in your spiritual journey and whatever your connection to your local church, we would like you to know we care about you and the things that concern you. Our hope is to come alongside you and share what God says in Scripture—most importantly that He loves and cares for you deeply.

St. Paul gives us a telling example of the greatness and generosity of God’s love. Paul was a sinner struggling to do right – as he perceived it. On the road to Damascus he encountered the overwhelming light of Jesus’ love. He was commissioned to do right as God sees right.

In recalling all that, he hopes that we will see how much we are offered. Church helps to bring us into relationship with Jesus. We experience His patience, kindness, and forgiveness. We find God’s way of living life – a life without end. We find community in which we encourage each other and do good for the wider community – not just because, but because we have a hope that goes beyond the here and now. We live a compelling over-arching story. It is God’s story and we fit into it; it supports our lives.

We pray that you will be encouraged after you hear today’s message and walk away inspired to become part of Church, part of an amazing relationship with God, His Son Jesus, and a beautiful community that lives His life.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC, , ,

Reflection for the Solemnity of Brotherly Love

CommunionInRemembranceofMe-Image1

Where does it all
start?

We love, because he first loved us. If any one says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.

Today we celebrate two very wonderful and amazing occasions.

The first is Christina and Nick’s reception of communion. The second is our Church’s Solemnity of Brotherly Love.

These two events could not be more perfectly aligned.

Our love for each other in Jesus’ community – the Holy Church – begins in the perfect unity we find in the Holy Eucharist. Christina and Nick are now part of that communion. Together with us, Christina and Nick are intimately joined with Jesus. We are all made one in His body. Along with us, Christina and Nick will play roles that strengthen the community of faith through mutual love. As St. Peter tells us: As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.

God’s grace is received in a most unique and special way in our communion. His body is more than mere food. In receiving Jesus’ body and blood we are pulled into union with Him at each and every moment of His life. We are there at the last supper, receiving His body and blood. We stand at the foot of His cross. We are at the empty tomb. We see Him ascend into heaven – and we are at His second coming. We have total and complete unity with Jesus AND with each other.

Our roles are not to be thought of as something for our own glorification or advancement, but rather for the glorification and advancement of all the people Jesus has called to be His own.

If we are one in His body and blood, if we share in His grace, if we have Jesus with us, then we must exhibit the fruit of this unity. That fruit is brotherly love.

We cannot participate in communion thinking that it is just Jesus and me. We cannot receive thinking that we are just remembering in the sense of recollection.

When we receive Jesus we must do so with the realization that we our bound to God and each other. We have unity with every Christian who receives Jesus anywhere or at any time. We are not alone. We are not just remembering, but are living in the reality of Christ throughout all of eternity.

God loved us first. Living in union with Him, in communion, means we must love each other. His love is the start and our love for each other is full participation in His life.

Christian Witness, Homilies,

Reflection for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Humility

O Lord, it’s so hard
to be humble.

My child, conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God. What is too sublime for you, seek not, into things beyond your strength search not.

The Book or Sirach has been used throughout the history of the Church to present moral teaching to catechumens (those preparing for baptism) and to the faithful.

The Book’s author was a sage, and was filled with love for wisdom, the law, and divine worship. As a wise and experienced observer he spoke to his contemporaries, and speaks to us, about maintaining faith and integrity.

Sirach organized his book by subject matter including: the individual, family, and community in their relations with one another and with God. It discusses friendship, education, poverty and wealth, laws, religious worship, and many other matters that are important to us even today.

Jesus was calling the people he was dining with to recall the wisdom Sirach offered centuries earlier. They had forgotten. He reminds them of the humility they were to exercise.

God calls us to live humbly, to be poor in spirit and meek as so well recorded in the Sermon on the Mount. All of Jesus’ teachings were focused on calling us to recognize where true treasure and greatness lay.

Jesus calls us into a relationship with God who is perfect while we are to acknowledge our imperfection and sin. We must be humble enough to see our shortcomings and rely on God for the forgiveness and redemption we need.

Jesus calls us to live with each other and our wider community as servants, and not just servants, but servants open enough to welcome all as our brothers and sisters.

Jesus calls us to live simply and without reliance on the things or the honors the world offers. We must remember what God offers us is far greater. He is our treasure and greatness. St. Paul reminds us that living in relationship with God, being members of His community, the Holy Church, gives us entry into real greatness – the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the company of angels, the assembly of our brothers and sisters in glory, and God Himself. We come to Him through Jesus, our mediator who covers us in the blood – the blood He shed in humility to the Father’s will.

It is hard to be humble, meek, poor in spirit, and simple. Let us set forth with the humility to recognize that and to know by God’s grace we will work diligently to gain humility.

Christian Witness, Homilies, PNCC, ,

Reflection for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time and Youth Sunday

2903

Lord, what about
me?

Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.

People were asking Jesus a lot of questions as He made His way to Jerusalem. They questioned their future. They wanted assurance about their future as a nation and as individuals. It is a question we have all asked – ‘what about me?’

We all want to be sure. The youth in our midst, in our families and in our community are asking that very question.
Jesus wasn’t giving easy assurances. He is God and God cannot help but be honest. He told them: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.”

Jesus was telling them and is telling us that our future is dependent on our aligning ourselves with God’s will and God’s way. He is saying that it takes work, commitment, dedication, faithfulness, and often treading the rocky narrow path.

Our young people will be returning to school in the weeks ahead, and some are already off to college. As they return they will be facing those tough roads. They either have, or will come to realize that school takes work, commitment, dedication, and faithfulness.

The question before us this Youth Sunday is whether we are equipping our youth with the commitment, dedication, and faithfulness needed to reach eternal life. Are we bringing them to Jesus, training them in God’s will and God’s way, and making them strong enough to enter through the narrow gate?

Young people have a deep-seated desire to know God. They wonder what He is all about. They hear His call faintly, and they thirst for Him. They want the water that will quench their thirst, water the world cannot offer. They instinctively know that there is a way that leads to inner peace and a contentment that lasts forever. They wish to align themselves with the One who offers that way – but who is it? Where is it? Where can they find the assurance that will secure their future?

We cannot spend Youth Sunday simply praising our youth. We have to resolve to do our very best to help them enter through the narrow gate, and be strong enough. They are asking the question – maybe unspoken, maybe without even consciously knowing it – but yearning. Their hearts and souls seek Jesus. They ask – ‘what about me?’ We must take action and show them the way, not just by pointing, but by taking them by the hand as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends. Showing them – This is the way to go.

Christian Witness, Homilies,

Reflection for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

set me afire

That’s one tough
prophet!

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”

Jeremiah was one tough prophet. He made everyone angry – but not for the purpose of inducing anger.

Jeremiah was a priest born in Israel around 650 BC. The Lord spoke to him and told him that he would be His prophet. Jeremiah was afraid, but the Lord promised to make him strong. God gave Jeremiah the words he was to use.

Jeremiah did as God asked. Afraid as he was, and knowing God’s message wouldn’t be well received, he went and told the people what the Lord was asking of them. He did this for 40 years among great difficulty. Jeremiah was attacked by his brothers, beaten and put into the stocks by a priest and false prophet, imprisoned by the king, threatened with death, as we saw today – thrown into a cistern by Judah’s officials, and was opposed by a false prophet. The people mocked him.

God’s words to the people called them back to faithfulness – they needed to worship God, and only God. God asked them to express sorrow for their unfaithfulness. If they would do this God would bless them once again.

We wish there might have been a happy ending, but there wasn’t. The people continued to worship false gods. They world not listen to Jeremiah or God’s other prophets, choosing instead to listen to false prophets because they gave the people what they wanted. Because of this continuing unfaithfulness, Jerusalem fell.

Jeremiah’s experiences made him lament. The key to understanding how Jeremiah felt is in understanding how much he loved God. He suffered primarily because of this love. He not only said what God wanted said, but felt God’s anguish at the people’s unfaithfulness. Jeremiah knew that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t stop speaking out. He said: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”

Jesus asks us to have that kind of closeness to Him, that deep and passionate love. God indeed is a burning fire – and Jesus wants us to be filled with His fire. This isn’t just perseverance in faith, it isn’t even a life dedicated to God – it is more. It is a life that is so in tune with God that we cannot hold it in. It is a life that has to bring God’s fire into other’s lives. It is a fire that burns away the words of today’s false prophets. Faithfulness to God can be tough. We have to be that kind of tough.

Christian Witness, Homilies, ,

Reflection for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

hope_bird

Is it ok,
to be different?

All these died in faith. They did not receive what had been promised but saw it and greeted it from afar and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth, for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better homeland, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

St. Paul speaks of Abraham and the Prophets. They lived lives of faith – holding onto the promise of what was to come, the fulfillment of God’s promises in the coming of the Christ, the Messiah. Paul refers to these men and women as aliens and strangers on earth.

Alien, stranger, and foreigner all carry the same connotation: being outside of or distinct from a group; one who does not belong to the group; a person with an emphasized difference in allegiance or citizenship.

All those who held unto faith in the coming of the Christ were that: aliens, strangers, and foreigners. They did not long for the place they had come from – looking back with regret and loss – but rather they looked forward to what was to come. They desired a better homeland, a heavenly one.

Of course God blessed them for their faith. It may not even have been a blessing they saw – for some certainly suffered. Rather He blessed them with the promise of what was to come and how their names would be held in earthly and heavenly esteem for their part in bringing it all about. God promised to prepare a place for them in the kingdom where they would sit around Him in everlasting glory and joy. We saw this last week in celebrating the Transfiguration – Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus resplendent in glory.
How does this apply to us? It applies in that it is more than ok to be different. We can and should live as aliens, strangers, and foreigners even among those who are closest to us. We are to set ourselves apart in the carrying out of God’s will, in living the life Jesus asks us to live.

We have God’s promise like the prophets and patriarchs did, plus something even greater – knowledge of the promise fulfilled in Jesus’ coming. We have the Christ with us. He lives in our bodies – from hearts that love and welcome to hands that serve, minds that ponder, voices that sing, pray, and praise. Fitting in with the world is for those who place their faith and citizenship here. Be different – only in being different do we show our faith and allegiance to God and gain His promise.

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