The documentary film “Irena Sendler – in the name of their mothers” premieres nationally on PBS on Sunday, May 1, 2011. Check your local PBS station for times.
Join us on Friday, April 15th from 4-7pm for a Lenten fish fry dinner. Your dinner includes an excellent deep fried blue fish main course, and all the fixin’s… Come and eat! Come and pray!
Fish Fry — Every Friday during Lent from 3-6:30 p.m. at Good Shepherd Polish National Catholic Church, 269 E. Main St., Plymouth, PA. Takeouts available. Price of $7.50 includes fried fish, French fries, coleslaw and dessert. For more information call Barbara at 570-690-5411.
Lenten Fish Fry — Friday, March 11th from 4 -7:30 p.m. at Holy Mother of Sorrows Polish National Catholic Church, 212 Wyoming Ave., Dupont, PA. Sponsored by YMS of R on Dinner includes: fish, fries, vegetable, coleslaw, and dinner roll. Donation is $8.00. Tickets can be purchased from any member of the YMS of R or by calling the rectory office. Lenten services at Holy Mother of Sorrows include Stations of the Cross every Wednesday in Lent at 7:00 p.m. and Bitter Lamentations at 7:00 p.m. on Fridays in Lent.
Polish-American buffet — Friday, March 11th from 4-8pm at the Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave Ext, Albany NY. Dinners $13.95 per person. Call 518-456-3995 for more information.
Polka Dance with Tony’s Polka Band — Sunday, March 13th between 2:30pm – 6:30pm at the Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave Ext, Albany NY. Polish-American kitchen will be open! Take-outs available! Cash bar! Call 518-456-3995 for more information.
Elm Park United Methodist Church’s Lenten worship experience, “Soup and Sermon,” which begins on Ash Wednesday, will bring a number of area clergy to the pulpit for the noon downtown services.
The Rev. Rees Warring, a retired United Methodist clergyman, will present the first message on Ash Wednesday. Bishop John F. Swantek, who is a retired Polish National Catholic Church official, is scheduled for Wednesday, March 16; the Rev. Richard Malloy of the University of Scranton, Wednesday, March 23; the Rev. Douglas Postgate, pastor, Carbondale/Jermyn United Methodist Church, Wednesday, March 30; the Rev. Gladys Fortuna-Blake, pastor, Daleville and Maple Lake United Methodist Church, Wednesday, April 6; the Rev. Beth Jones, Scranton District superintendent, Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church, Wednesday, April 13; and the Rev. C. Gerald Blake Jr., pastoral associate, Elm Park United Methodist Church, Wednesday, April 20.
This worship experience in Elm Park’s chapel, at Linden Street and Jefferson Avenue, will run from 12:05 to 12:30 p.m. A light lunch will be served in the church’s dining hall from 12:30 to 1.
“Soup and Sermon” planners have designed the services to allow worshippers to have lunch and still return to other obligations within an hour.
First Reading: Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18
Psalm: Ps 103:1-4,8,10,12-13
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 3:16-23
Gospel: Matthew 5:38-48
Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
Leviticus:
The Book of Leviticus may seem like one of the most boring books in the Bible. It is a book of laws, rules and regulations given to Moses concerning how people should live. If we look at this as just a book of laws we will get bored, we will get frustrated, we will wonder why God bothered with some of this.
What we need to have in our heats as we study this book is the sentence found in the second verse from today’s reading: “Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.” The book is about what it takes to be holy, to approach God in His temple, prepared to meet Him. God asks us to meet Him in a state of personal and communal holiness and perfection.
Let’s remember that, we are going to meet God, and we need to be holy to do it.
Where’s God:
I have a question, Where does God live?
What do we hear: God lives in heaven. God is everywhere. God is with us.
Fr. Stephen Freeman recently wrote a book which will be available starting March 1st, , “Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe.”
He asks that we think about our encounter with God, how we perceive Him, how we perceive our world. How we encounter Him, how we encounter our world. If God dwells in heaven, on a spiritual plane, somewhere we cannot see or know, He dwells apart from us. He lives upstairs. We live in a natural world where we try to make sense of how stuff works, why rain falls, why the sky is blue, why the energy of atoms can be configured in so many different ways that they make up all we see. We live downstairs.
In the world we have science, medicine, arts, entertainment. Sure, we acknowledge God, but He is in the spiritual realm in a place we can’t quite touch. When we chance across the holy, and receive communion, or get splashed with holy water, or get the cross we have, on the chain around our necks, blessed, we briefly touch on the spiritual world, but don’t quite go there. We don’t dive into it. God isn’t really encountered in the two storey world because God is upstairs and we are downstairs.
Think how Hollywood loves to use the spiritual realm to scare us, to heighten our senses. We get demons, exorcists, all sorts of spooky stuff, and in the process we recognize a god, who lives apart from us, upstairs in the spiritual realm, who is only there to do magical and spooky stuff, raising the dead, healing the sick, creating these well publicized tourist attractions called apparitions.
God is there, we are here, God and the world are apart, and we’re no more holy and perfect for it. In fact, we are going backwards.
Remember, we are going to meet God, and we need to be holy to do it. How do we get there?
Getting there:
Leviticus tells us that to get there, to become holy and perfect, we are to be like God. We are to be holy like He is holy. We should not hate outwardly or in our hearts, because we are to be like God who bears no hatred. We shouldn’t take revenge or cherish grudges against anyone, Because we are to be like God who doesn’t seek revenge and who doesn’t bear grudges. We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, because if we are like God, we must love like He does.
St. Paul goes on to tell us that we are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in us. Not just lives with us, like a roommate, The Spirit doesn’t stop by every Sunday like an invited guest, He dwells in us, lives in us, in our hearts, in our hands, in our minds, in every aspect of who we are as people. He is there when we wake and when we sleep, when we work, and pray, and eat. He is there when we cry, and laugh, and even when we sin. He is right there in us and with us continuously calling us to be holy and perfect as I am holy and perfect.
Is God crazy?
Now we need to pause, and look at ourselves. My first question would be, Is God crazy? God wants me to become like Him? But He lives upstairs on the spiritual plane, sure He’s everywhere, but that’s just like saying He’s nowhere. I can’t see Him or grasp Him, or be with Him, He’s just too different, too far away, too spooky. And perfect! I’m the farthest thing from perfect. I sin. Maybe I gamble, or eat, or drink, or smoke, or yell at the kids, or get frustrated with co-workers and annoying drivers a little too much, but perfect and holy, no. What does the Man Upstairs expect from me?
“Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.”
Jesus:
The Gospel of St. John begins with a beautiful series of phrases about the coming of Jesus. At verse 14 we find: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” The Word became flesh, the Word is Jesus, the Son of God, His Word sent forth who existed from all eternity. The Word became flesh, became human, and came to dwell with us. Not as a buddy, roommate, friend, traveling companion, doer of spooky miracle things, but as a man to dwell, to share in the world, with us.
God came to dwell with us. Dwelling with us He was tempted, He bore infirmities, He was like His brethren, He stooped and washed feet, He cried over Jerusalem and was moved to sorrow at the death of His friend Lazarus. He suffered and He died. He dwelt with us to raise us to holiness and perfection. He dwelt with us to show us the way to what was possible, here, now, on earth, in the present.
He teaches us:
Jesus teaches us how to live like God lives, how to be holy and perfect like God in today’s Gospel. The Message translation of the bible makes Jesus’ words very plain:
‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ Is that going to get us anywhere? Here’s what I propose: ‘Don’t hit back at all.’ If someone strikes you, stand there and take it.
If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it.
If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.
I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer.
This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty.
“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
Jesus is teaching us that the requirement for meeting God is to be holy and perfect like He is. By doing these everyday, and sometimes difficult things, we will reach the holiness and perfection of God.
Where’s God?
Do any of you live in a two storey house, or an apartment building. If you do, you know what it like to have someone living upstairs. You kind of know they are there. Sometimes you hear them clunking about, maybe a little music or the TV, and once and a while you encounter them in the hallway. You nod and whisper hello.
Isn’t that how we treat God? Isn’t He that upstairs neighbor we never really see? Once and a while we encounter Him, brief miraculous seconds, in communion, when we feel particularly loved, or when we are scared. In those brief encounters a whispered prayer, a little hello and a nod to the upstairs neighbor.
Fr. Freeman’s book and today’s readings talk about a One-Storey Universe. God isn’t up there, He’s here. He dwells with us, in the same apartment, on the same floor, at the same supper table, in the same car on the way to and fro. We have to realize His presence in our lives and in our world. We have to encounter God full on every day as part of and essential to our lives. He isn’t going away. God isn’t hiding in heaven. God doesn’t dwell apart from us on a far away spiritual plane, upstairs, but is here, present and active, dwelling with us in this time and place. We need to immerse ourselves in Him.
When we come to communion today, let’s not nibble at God or quietly let Him dissolve on our tongues, because its not a magical spooky pill. It is God’s body given to us as food – EAT! When we bless ourselves on the way into or out of church, let’s grab a handful of that holy water and pour it over our heads, knowing that Jesus washed His disciples feet with that water, was immersed in that water at baptism, and that water flowed out of His side. Cherish it and bathe in it! When we confess, let us cry over our sins, and know that God loves us so much He has forgotten them. When we hear the sacrament of the Word, let us learn from it, and learn to live the way God lives. Completely feel and know that God is here, downstairs with us.
Then, let us go out, immersed in God, fed by God, dwelling with God, understanding God, and forgiven by God — to forgive others, wash others, baptize others, feed others, teach others. God is here with us and them, not somewhere else. As we do this, as we live with our God who lives with us, we — will — be — changed. We will become more and more holy, more and more perfect, and we will meet God. Amen.
From Bishop Thaddeus Peplowski of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese in Acts: New Hope – New Vision – New Growth
This second decade of the Twenty First Century promises a sturdy and sure foundation for the Polish National Catholic Church. We enter in the 114 Anniversary of the organization of the Church and the 104 Anniversary of the Consecration of the First Bishop, Francis Hodur in valid and licit Apostolic Succession. The fact that we have preserved our Holy Orders in an unbroken line with the first Holy Apostles, has ignited the flame of a New Hope and an enlightened vision for the future growth and expansion of the Polish National Catholic Church. Our battle cry for success continues to inspire people in other nations to follow our lead in preserving the concept of National Catholic Churches in which: “By Truth, Work and Struggle, We Shall Succeed!”
I have just returned from a successful missionary visit to both Germany and Italy where there are both former Anglican and Old Catholic Parishes and Communities that are disillusioned over the questionable validity of some doctrines and sacraments that are being practiced in those Churches. They respect the decision that our bishops took in 2003 at the Bishop’s Conference in Prague in breaking official ties with European Old Catholic Churches. There are many clergy and lay members who feel the same way and want to be in union with our church. They are asking that we listen to their pleas and offer some type of accommodations that will allow them to be in Communion with the Polish National Catholic Church. The purpose of the “Union of Scranton” was proposed so that they might find a haven that will continue to maintain the traditional Old Catholic teachings and practices.
In Germany, I was invited to visit a former Old Catholic Monastic Abbey that follows the Cistercian Rule and they are looking for union with an on-going traditional Old Catholic Church. The Polish National Catholic Church is the only Old Catholic Body that fits that criteria, so through the influence of Father Roald Flemested of the Nordic Catholic Church, they were directed to contact me. We met with Abbot Klaus Schlapps at St. Severn’s Abbey in Kaufberuren, Bavaria. This Abbey also serves about 100 members of a Parish Church St. Lucas in the town of Kaufberuren. There are priests, brothers and nuns who make up this Order and serve five other Old Catholic Congregations in Germany. There are also possibilities of accepting other groups in France, Switzerland and five Parishes in Cameroon, Africa. The talks appear to be very positive for establishing relations that could include them in the Union of Scranton.
We traveled nine hours by train from Bavaria through Austria and the Swiss Alps to the famous city of Turin, the permanent home of the Shroud of Turin. Our missionary endeavor was successful there for now have three Parishes in Italy: St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in Luca with Fr. Claudio Boca as Pastor; Merciful Jesus Parish in Turin with Fr. Giuseppe Biancotti as its Pastor, and Holy Spirit Parish in Sabaudia with Fr. Luciano Bruno as its Pastor. Another Parish is in the process of being organized near Pizza by Father Gastone Bernacchi, whom I ordained on Saturday, January 15th. Two of these Parishes were formerly Old Catholic Congregations under the Bishop of Switzerland. Inquiries are also coming from other former Anglican and Old Catholic Communities who see in the PNCC the traditional catholic teachings and Apostolic Orders that are vital signs of being a part of the true Church of Jesus Christ.
Too often we America National Catholics take our Church for granted and feel that we belong to a small, little known denomination that no one knows or cares about. The Polish National Catholic Church however, is greatly admired by people throughout the world as being a Church of great faith and conviction, and they seek to be one with us because we maintain the traditional signs of a true Church, for we are: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic in preserving a very orthodox and traditional faith. For these very reasons, we should continue to have Hope and New Vision for the future growth and expansion of the National Catholic Church’s expression of the true faith.
In 2011, let us take the example of our newest mission fields where people are very open and positive about expressing their joy of being a part of the PNCC and because of their new or refound faith, they are not afraid to talk to others about what the Church means in their lives. We need to stop standing along the side lines and criticizing what is happening and get out into the mainstream of life and tell others about the Church. Our words and actions are positive seeds that will cause the PNCC to grow not only in new mission fields, but also blossom and bear fruit right in our own hometown congregations. All it takes is faith, and God will do the rest.
My new diocesan bishop, the Rt. Rev. John E. Mack, took the helm of the Central Diocese of the PNCC, as well as the mother church of the PNCC, St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Cathedral, on February 1, 2011.
Bishop Mack has served for the past four years as the auxiliary bishop of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese and has been longtime pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Washington, Pennsylvania.
Bishop Mack was born and raised in the Polish National Catholic Church in the greater Detroit area and attended Savonarola Theological Seminary in Scranton.
Bishop Mack and his wife Sherry have three children, aged 17, 20 and 23.
May God grant him many years. Welcome and Sto Lat! Bishop Mack.
The New York Folklore Society has a number of professional development opportunities taking place in the upcoming months, including two “Gatherings” for Latino Artists, a Folk Arts in Education workshop in Western New York, and the upcoming Folk Art Roundtable, and an invitation-only professional development opportunity for folklorists working within New York State.
Second Latino Artists’ Gathering: Challenges and Opportunities for Traditional Artists in Rural New York
The New York Folklore Society, in collaboration with Go Art!, will hold its second Latino Artists’ Gathering on March 19, 2011 At the Homestead Event Center, Batavia City Center, Batavia, New York. Supported by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, the gatherings provide an opportunity for Latino artists residing in non-metropolitan New York State to come together to discuss issues and solve common problems. March’s theme will be “Challenges and Opportunities for Traditional Artists in Rural New York”, and we will hear of some of the current initiatives being tried to link artists across distances.
The schedule for the Gathering includes a presentation by Arturo Zavala, who has done extensive research on cultural entrepreneurship and is, himself, a traditional musician; a panel discussion by Western New York community members on the solutions they employ in their own work, and participatory dance and crafts workshops. The day concludes with dance performances from Puerto Rico and Mexico, presented by Borinquen Dance Theater and Alma Latina. For further details or to discuss attending, please contact us at (518) 346-7008 or via E-mail.
New York Folklore Society Gallery to feature the work of Bernard Domingo
To recognize the month-long run of The Lion King at Proctors Theatre in downtown Schenectady, The New York Folklore Society is featuring the bead and wire animals of Bernard Domingo. Originally from Zimbabwe but now living in New York State, Bernard uses wire and glass beads to create whimsical animals as well as other items such as motorcycles and flowers. Bernard has specifically crafted a large lion and a water buffalo to tie in to the performance of the musical. These, and many more animals, will be on display through February and March 2011.
The Gallery of New York Folk Art is located at 133 Jay St., Schenectady, NY. Gallery hours are Monday – Saturday 10:00 – 3:30.
New York Cultural Heritage Tourism Conference
The conference: Bridges to the Future, Empowerment through Collaboration in Cultural Heritage Tourism, A Cultural Heritage Tourism Symposium will take place at Colgate University, Friday, March 18th from 9 am to 3:30 pm at the Ho Science Center, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York.
Did you know that Cultural Heritage Travelers:
- Consistently spend more money and linger longer than other travelers
- In 2009 there were 118.3 million U.S. cultural heritage travelers
- Cultural heritage travelers are dedicated shoppers at museum stores
This conference is for curators and staff of Cultural Heritage attractions, historical societies, and anyone who needs to drive more tourism business to their own front door. A conference fee of $30 per person includes the day’s events, luncheon, take home materials, refreshments, excellent presentations and time to network. Additional persons from the same business are only $25. Space restrictions
require that reservations be limited to the first 75 persons.
More information about the symposium will be forthcoming soon. Contact the New York Cultural Heritage Tourism Alliance by E-mail or at 315-521-3985.
The Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Albany Polish American Community Center is sponsoring Movie Night at the PCC with a screening of the film, In Dessert and Wilderness (W Pustyni i w Puszczy).
The movie is based on a story by Henryk Sienkiewicz. It tells the story of 15 year old Stas Tarkowski and 9 year old Nel Rawlinson, kidnapped by rebels fighting for the great Arab leader – the Mahdi. Their fathers desperately organize a search party, but the Mahdi uprising is spreading rapidly across North Africa and the chances of finding the children seem remote. Forced to rely on themselves, Stas and Nel, together with two young African slaves, Mea and Kali, escape their captors and head south across desolate country. In their search for a way home, they must battle wild animals, thunderstorms, hunger and malaria. Their journey to freedom brings them into contact with some colorful characters: Kaliopoli, a displaced Greek, guides Stas through a critical encounter with the great Mahdi, and Linde, an eccentric Polish cartographer, himself lost in the jungle, offers hope when Nel comes down with malaria and all hope for her survival seems lost.
The movie is in Polish with English subtitles. The movie will begin at 7:30 pm. Pizza, popcorn, and soda will be provided. A donation of $2 to support the Ladies’ Auxiliary is kindly requested from PCC members, $5 from non-members. Children are FREE!
The Arizona State University Art Museum presents It’s Not Just Black And White by Gregory Sale – Social Studies Project 6, February 1 – May 14, 2011. The Season Opening Reception will be held Friday, February 18th from 7-9pm. Social Studies Project 6 will be installed in the Turk Gallery of the ASU Art Museum’s Nelson Fine Arts Center location.
With a population of roughly 6.5 million, (Arizona has) over 40,000 inmates. The state of Washington, with a population slightly larger than Arizona, has roughly 18,000. — The Arizona Republic, January 28, 2011
A recent Pew Center report indicates that in 2008, one in 33 adults in Arizona was under correctional control, which includes jail, prison, parole and probation. Twenty-five years ago, this number was one in 79. What has changed so much is not human nature, but the offenses for which we incarcerate and the imposition of mandatory sentences. — Rep. Cecil Ash, R-Mesa (Ariz.) quoted in the Arizona Capitol Times, December 11, 2009
It’s not just black and white is a three-month-long residency exhibition with Gregory Sale, a Phoenix-based artist who will work through artistic gestures to initiate and host dialogue, aspiring to give voice to the multiple constituencies of the corrections, incarceration and criminal justice systems. The ASU Art Museum gallery space will operate as a site for developing and displaying visual and mediated exhibitions, dance and other staged events, discussions and readings.
As the title It’s not just black and white implies, the intent of the project is to expose and examine the many often conflicting viewpoints, perspectives and values that are generated from serious considerations of justice and public safety. The project will provide the opportunity for the public to explore the impact of modern criminal justice through fact-based tours, dialogues and programs – offering more first-hand experience of the many strands that make up this complicated narrative.
ASU Art Museum Social Studies Initiative
The Museum’s Social Studies initiative is a series of residency exhibitions, begun in 2007, that explore this dialogue-based, process-oriented context by literally bringing the studio into the museum, and by engaging the public directly in the creative process of exhibition-making in the space where “the art object” is usually found.
The ASU Art Museum continues to transform museum traditions by returning to the original sociological function of the institution – to encourage the circulation of ideas embedded in the archive, to provide a safe place for curiosity and to create an exchange point for the flow of conversation between and among artists, curators, collectors, students, social and governmental institutions, and the public.
It’s not just black and white is supported by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Friends of the ASU Art Museum.
Other events:
Collecting Contemporary Art: The FUNd at ASU Art Museum
Curator: Heather Lineberry
Dec 18, 2010 – May 14, 2011
Location: ASU Art Museum
Cost: Free
Collecting Contemporary Art features a selection of works acquired in part or in whole by the FUNd at ASU Art Museum, an endowment established by the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. From monumental found-object installations to print portfolios of etchings and lithographs, the international pieces share a current of experimentation and an exploration of social and political concerns. The exhibition charts the Museum’s collecting goals and exhibition history over the past 15 years, with significant representation of Latin American and Latino artists, artists from Arizona and artists in residence at the Museum. Artists represented include Kim Abeles (Los Angeles), John Ahearn (New York), Abel Barroso (Cuba), Sandow Birk (Los Angeles), Xu Bing (China), Deborah Butterfield (Montana/Hawaii), Enrique Chagoya (born in Mexico, active in the U.S.), Colin Chillag (Phoenix), Sue Coe (born in England, active in the U.S.), Jon Haddock (Tempe), Kcho (Cuba), Los Carpinteros (Cuba), Aimee Garcia Marrero (Cuba), Paulo Nenflidio (Brazil), Adriana Varejao (Brazil) and Kurt Weiser (Tempe).
Citadel: An Installation by Patricia Sannit
Curator: Peter Held
Feb 5, 2011 – Apr 9, 2011
Location: Ceramics Research Center
Cost: Free
Opening Reception: Feb. 18, 2011, 7-9 p.m.
Patricia Sannit, a Phoenix-based artist whose vessels are influenced by cultures worldwide, is literally breaking new ground for her installation Citadel — with the assistance of scores of community volunteers. Citadel is a 10-foot diameter structure inspired by an Iraqi archeological site called the Citadel at Erbil, in the Kurdish region. Sannit’s new direction explores the layering of time and history through the medium of clay.
Re-Thinking the Faculty Exhibition 2011
Feb 19, 2011 – Apr 30, 2011
Location: ASU Art Museum
Cost: free
Opening Reception: Feb. 18, 2011, 7-9 p.m.
This year, the faculty show takes a new direction. It represents the beginning of an exciting set of possible partnerships, exchanges and experiments between the School of Art and the ASU Art Museum. It’s also the first instance of the museum’s rethinking and revitalizing the way we do things, as part of our Re-Thinking the Museum initiative.
Art historian and writer Robert Atkins was selected to open Re-Thinking the Museum as juror/curator of the ASU School of Art Faculty Biennial Exhibition. During the month of November, Atkins reviewed submissions, visited artists’ studios and discussed opportunities for site-specific installations as he selected work for the 2011 exhibition.
Arizona State University Art Museum
Mill Avenue at 10th Street
Tempe, AZ 85287-2911
Telephone 480-965-2787