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XIX Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – August 12, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

In today’s Gospel, Jesus describes himself as the “living bread.” After He was gone, they would still have God’s word, and they would have His “living bread” for nourishment. As Catholics, we believe that when we receive the Eucharist we receive the body of Christ. The monk and writer Thomas Merton suggested that “while we eat the substance of the true body of Christ under the sacramental species, we ourselves are eaten and absorbed by the mystical body of Christ…we become as it were perfectly part of that body, assimilated by it, one with its spiritual organism.” By loving one another we are incorporated into the body of Christ and enlightened by Christ. We are to bring life to the world, as He did. Courage, gifts and blessings come to us when we remain close to Jesus and deepen our relationship through the Eucharist.

Bread is a staple of our lives, just as Jesus is central part to our lives. Today’s Gospel focuses on what nourishes and sustains us. Today we get the sign in the breaking of bread that the spirit of Jesus is with us always when we are dedicated to the teachings of Christ and to building life-affirming relationships. The celebration of life has everything to so with food. Food is at the centre of human community-making. The challenge is there for us today. Each of us is called to follow Jesus and we will be filled with food that is far more than daily nourishment.

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XVIII Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – August 5, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

How do you make decisions in your life? Do you follow your head, your heart or the crowd? The world in which we live today has been described as liquid. It is constantly moving, changing, adapting, as water adapts its shape and movement to the environment through which it passes. People can choose to be and do what they want.

St. Paul reminds us that having chosen to follow Christ, we have chosen to follow a new way of life. It is not easy to maintain this new way of life.

We have chosen to follow Jesus. We have received the Gospel, His teaching, the example of His life. But we live in the world of the 21st century. It is a secular society, a materialistic society. Many people no longer believe in God. Their interests are focused on themselves here and now, on the things that will make them happy right now. We use things and throw them away: whether they are houses, cars, kitchens; even relationships; or even families. In such a world, it is difficult for any of us to keep our focus and to have solid foundations. Jesus tells us not to be satisfied with food that does not last, but to work for the bread that endures to eternal life. Our challenge today is to listen to Jesus and to believe that in the Eucharist He offers us this bread of life. We are able to do not just what we want to do, but what the Holy Church and the Holy Spirit want us to do.

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XVI Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – July 22, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Today, in the Gospel, Jesus seeks to take His little group away to a quiet place and rest, only to find when their boat puts in to shore that a crowd of people are already there before them and are waiting for them. The planned holiday now give way to the needs of this hungry people, who are hungry for more of what Jesus has to offer them. The sight of these people has a profound effect on Jesus. He is deeply moved by what He sees – people who seem lost and directionless, people who seem vulnerable to every wind that blows. St. Mark, writing this Gospel story, says the people were like sheep without a shepherd. Shepherds, as we know, provide leadership and good guidance for sheep, finding new pastures for them and keeping guard over them in the watches of the night, so that predators may not attack and kill them. Everyone deserves to be loved and cared for, but the world is full of sorrow.

The world needs shepherds. Everyone needs a shepherd. Without the care and love and protection of a shepherd we will all be lost. Sometimes people fall through the cracks in society. No one seems to be responsible, and young people and poor are left to die by the wayside. But we are all involved. Jesus could have turned that boat around and gone off in search of another place for peace and quiet. But to do that is to close your heart to human need. Jesus, the good shepherd, tells us differently.

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XV Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – July 15, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

The first reading from Amos and the Gospel passage from St. Mark have an important message for us, the Christian community today. In Amos we are presented with the prophet being lambasted by a crowd and told that he is never to speak in the way he has been doing. Poor Amos, we may think. However, he does not need our pity; he is a man who utterly believes that what he says and does is just what he was told to say and do by the Lord. In the Gospel we witness how the disciples are given the power to anoint sick people and drive out demons from those who find themselves possessed. This power has come from Jesus and has been gifted to the apostles. These are people who can now minister as they have seen the Lord minister.

It can often seem today that there is a rising intolerance towards Christianity and its message. In our society we are unlikely to meet the kind of persecution that is faced by people of faith in some other countries of the world. We are people who have been given a call, a vocation by the Lord. We know our identity as sons and daughters of God. We have been chosen and made holy bur our God. The more we recognize these truths, the more we should not care what the “crowd” thinks about us. Being Christians today, as it always has been, is about being people of love, people of truth, people of justice, people of integrity, people of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us never give up living the life that we have been called to live.

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XIV Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – July 8, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Jesus encountered opposition and unpopularity in His own country. We see in today’s Gospel that the people in His home town of Nazareth would not accept Him, and that their lack of faith prevented Him from performing any great miracle there. He remarked, “A prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house.” People of His home town were so enraged with Him and His teaching that they tried to throw Him over a cliff, but He faced them down and escaped. On the other hand, Jesus sometimes found great faith among people who were not of His own country or race or religion, such as the Samaritan leper whom He cured, or the Roman centurion of whom He said, “I tell you solemnly, nowhere in Israel have I found faith like this”; or again, the Canaanite woman whose daughter healed, telling her, “Woman, you have great faith.”

We might do well to keep some examples in mind in our attempts to proclaim the Gospel today. Many of us are glad to support the missions in faraway countries, but closer to home, if we attempt to spread the Gospel outside the doors of our churches at all, we tend to address our message to what we might call the fringes of our own church community: those who come to Mass at Christmas and Easter, those who send their children to our schools, those who have fallen away from the regular practice of the faith.

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XIII Sunday in Ordinary Time, “B” – June 24, 2018

From the Pastor /

Does God care about us? It seems like a question that is unanswerable. But God has already answered it. God answered it by coming into our in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus came not only into our world, to rub shoulders with us, but also int the lives of individual human beings, to show His loving concern for them. There’s the unhappy woman who for 12 long years has suffered from a haemorrhage. Perhaps it’s nature of her condition that leads her to approach Jesus unobtrusively from behind. She stretches out and touches His cloak. Immediately she feels power coursing through her body and knows that her complaint is no more. It is her faith, He explains, that has won the cure and now she can go forth “in peace”. Then there’s the little girl. She’s just 12 years old when she become grievously sick. Her distraught father seeks Jesus’ help. He casts himself down before Jesus and begs for His help. Jesus promises to come to the child. But He delays, diverted by the healing of the woman; then it’s reported to him that the child is already dead. The official patiently waits for Jesus. And he is wonderfully rewarded. Taking the child by the hand, Jesus says – the very words He speaks in His native tongue are recorded – “Talitha, kum!”, “Little girl, get up.” He restores the youngster alive to her rejoicing parents. In each case Jesus knows that His actions – His touching of an outcast woman, His touching of a corpse, even that of a child make Him ritually unclean in other people’s eyes, yet it does not deter Hims from His mission of mercy. Jesus in conqueror not only of sickness but even of death itself.

There are times when we all feel that God is far away, hardly interested in the likes of us. Today’s Gospel shows how mistaken we are. The Lord touches, and is touched by, a woman who is regarded as untouchable. The Lord approaches a little girl when people are saying, “She’s already dead, don’t trouble Jesus any further” and, by implication, “there’s nothing he can do now”. Each time He works a miracle, it’s a sign of His mighty power. It is a demonstration of His deep love for ordinary people, little people like ourselves. Miracles are of their nature rare events, but what they reveal is something permanent and unconditional – God’s loving concern for each of us. So important that we are deeply loved and cared for by our great heavenly Father. His care is not merely for a day or a year, not even for a lifetime. It’s forever.

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Bishop Bernard’s Pastoral Letter on Vocations

PNCC /

To the Very Reverend, Reverend Fathers and the Reverend Messrs., and my dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus our Lord:

¡Viva el mes de junio! That’s Spanish for “Long live June,” “Hurray for June.” Hurray, indeed! And welcome to the month of vocations in the Polish National Catholic Church: June is Sacred Vocations month for us. June is the month we focus on our great need for priests, and on the need for significant donations throughout the PNCC to be made to the Clergy Pension Plan.

Our need of priests is dire and critical, but I am nonetheless hopeful and optimistic. Even though no Polish National Catholic families have sacrificed even one of their men, young or old, to our altars in the past twelve years, (and it doesn’t look like any family will in the near future), I remain optimistic. Even though our seminary has been empty for that period of time, except for the occasional priest from another Church orienting himself there to work as a priest in the PNCC, I have good reason to hope because I have experienced God’s providence. Our parish in Denver was declining but was pulled back from the brink of closure by an Hispanic priest from Mexico and 90 people of Mexican heritage who now comprise the great majority of that parish. St Francis, Denver, is growing, and is enthusiastically PNCC, and is flying 18 young people and 6 adults to Convo 2018 here next month.

Because Father Alfonso Castillo needs pastoral help there, I enthusiastically agreed to review applications from priest friends of his in Mexico to provide assistance to him, and subsequently serve our American parishes desperate for priests. In our Diocese, two priests, in fine parishes, are retiring next year. I have no one to fill them. A priest in our Diocese is on three parishes in Jersey. Three priests are on two parishes each. And there are ailing and aging priests all over the place! And yet I am hopeful. So I say, ¡Viva México!

With the increase in aging clergy comes the need for our Clergy Pension Plan to support them all. We collect for this vital entitlement throughout the year and especially in the month of June. We need more capital to invest, the interest from which the pension payments are made. From age 70, a PNCC priest can look forward to a monthly check in the amount of $600; and his widow, a check in the amount of $300. Please be generous in this drive. And so I say, in my optimism, ¡Viva el Plan de Pensión del Clero! (Hurray for our Clergy Pension plan!)

I believe God is showing us a potential direction for the future of our Church; and that pathway seems to be presenting itself from south of the border. For the Methodist Church, that pathway is from South Korea, and for the Roman Catholic Church, from India among other sources. In light of all of this, Bishop Hodur has indeed blessed us with a most optimistic motto for our Church when he penned: A través de la Verdad, el Trabajo y las Dificultades ¡Venceremos!

Yours in Christ,

Bishop Bernard

To read the original version as a PDF file.

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Pentecost – May 20, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Pentecost was and is a major feast for Jewish people. It marked the end of Passover, just as for Christians it marks the end of Easter. The feast of Pentecost came about because of the belief that God gave the Law to Moses 50 days after the Israelites left Egypt. Since the events of the death and resurrection of Jesus were related to the Jewish Passover, it was perfectly logical for Luke in the Acts to connect the sending of the Holy Spirit to the final act of Passover – Pentecost. Luke fully recognizes that the Holy Spirit came on different groups of people in different places and at different times, and gives examples of these in Acts. John’s Gospel speaks of Jesus giving the Holy Spirit to the disciples in the upper room on the day of resurrection, so it would be wrong to think of Pentecost as in any way of a one-off occasion. Rather Luke presents Pentecost in the upper room as the fulfillment of the giving of the Law: hence what seemed life fire descended on the disciples – as there was when God descended on Sinai. The result of this is dramatic scene is a powerful witness to the risen Christ by those who had just received the Holy Spirit. Now neither limited by their own fear, nor impended by the barrier of different languages, the arrival of the Holy Spirit creates confident disciples, and they achieve what Jesus promised they would through the Holy Spirit.

The gift of the Spirit is not limited to the 1st generation of disciples, or even subsequent disciples in the Acts of the Apostles. It is often pointed out that the book of the Acts doesn’t come to an end; it merely stops at particular point. The reason is that the story is still being constructed, and by us who are the present-day disciples in the tale of Jesus’ witnesses, because we too are empowered by the Spirit. We use the word “Paraclete” to describe the Holy Spirit. This is a word that was known to Jews and Gentile alike. For the Gentiles – Roman and Greek – a Paraclete was a legal representative; for the Jews, a Paraclete meant a comforter, a counsellor. The presence of the Spirit keeps us in the knowledge of God and enables us to experience the presence of God. The Spirit is never found in anger, jealousy, self-indulgence, immorality. Rather the Spirit is found where there is peace, joy, love, kindness, truthfulness, self-control. Where we see this, says Paul, we see the Spirit of God. When we do these, we are witnesses.

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VI Sunday of Easter – May 6, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Disciples’ expectations as followers of Jesus kept changing. Through the early days of basking in the glory of Jesus, the popular preacher and miracle worker, through the despair of the passion and death of their Lord, they found themselves driven by the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Good News to the whole of creation. But they had no plan, no instruction manual. They discovered that they were sent not just to announce the coming of the Messiah to the Jews. The message of the Gospel was for everyone. The Holy Spirit made it clear that faith in Jesus was possible for anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what it right. They came to understand that what Jesus wanted was a community of people who loved one another. This was the way they would experience God, rather than in the rituals of the Jewish law. They knew that the risen Lord was living among them as they reached out in love to one another, but especially to those most in need. The beloved disciple, John, reflected for years on the life and teaching of Jesus and summed it up in His Gospel and letters: God is love and what God wants is for us to live in love just as Jesus has shown us, by loving one another. The whole message of scripture is to be found here: love one another as I have loved you. This is the mission Jesus gives to His disciples: as His chosen friends, they are to go out and bear fruit that will last.

In these weeks after Easter, we discover with disciples that Jesus calls us in our turn to be His friends and to know His love for us. He wants us to continue His mission by bringing His love and peace to the people of our own day. We recall what an unlikely bunch of characters Jesus chose to carry on His work. They were transformed by the Holy Spirit. Their old ideas had to change. They had to let go of their prejudices and fears and allow God to use them to build the Church, a community of love and service for all people, especially the poor. So it is with us. We are ordinary people, struggling with our own lives, our fears, our weaknesses, but we believe. We believe that Jesus is risen from the dead. We believe that He continues to be present in the world is us. We believe that He uses us to bring His mercy and love to the world. If the Holy Spirit could transform Peter and the rest into an effective tool for evangelisation, and continue this work of transformation through the saints of every generation, then we can believe that the same Holy Spirit can transform us and empower us to go out in joy and hope to bear fruit.

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V Sunday of Easter – April 29, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

The traditional grapevine is one of the world’s most important agricultural crops. At the time of Jesus vineyards were everywhere, and practices relating to their cultivation would be familiar. In today’s Gospel Jesus emphasizes that a vine needs to be carefully tended, and that is has a living and connected structure. The vine produces fruit through the branches and the branches are dependent on the central vine. Jesus describes himself as the “true vine”. The motif of the grapevine is present in a great deal of Christian art as a metaphor of the ongoing presence of Jesus. On the mosaic floors of churches of the Byzantine period in the Holy Land and its vicinity, the grape is often seen and it is a symbol of Jesus. The love and connection between God, Jesus and our community is described in John’s Gospel using the image of the vine and the branches. The organic unity suggests a community of many people who are sharers in a single life. Union with Christ is the condition of fruitfulness. Being followers of Jesus gives our lives meaning and direction. Fruit is possible only if we are in union with Him, for He is the productive source of it all.

Our opportunity of bearing any fruit worthy of our natures and of God’s purpose concerning us is by vital union with Jesus Christ. If we don’t have that, there may be plenty of activity and mountains of work in our lives, but there will be no lasting fruit. The next time you eat a grape, reflect upon the fruits that we share in our lives because of our relationship with God. The Christian faith is an experience of being in relationship to God, to each other, and to all our family and friends. Caring and love bind us all together. And remember in this Easter season that resurrection fuels and nurtures growth, hope and love.

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