II Sunday of Lent (C) – February 21, 2016

From the Pastor /

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of a journey. The journey doesn’t end with the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. On that day, we gaze up into the heavens but realize that we still have work to do on earth and places to go.

Only in the Gospel of St. Luke are we told that Jesus climbed the mountain of the transfiguration in order to pray. St. Luke emphasizes the role of prayer in the lives of Jesus and His disciples. He had learned how the Church could not make progress without prayer, and if we ask what is wrong with the Church, and our own lives, the answer is often the same: there is not enough prayer. The story of transfiguration is a story of prayer, and our understanding of it can be deepened if we look back in the Bible. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he found the people worshiping a golden calf, and he was angry but he stayed with them. Elijah, too, ran from the people, but found faith among the Gentiles. Jesus finds confusion among the people He has left behind but, instead of running away, He sets His face for Jerusalem. Prayer gives us peace, but we have to take that peace into the turbulence of people’s lives.

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I Sunday of Lent (C) – February 14, 2016

From the Pastor /

All our readings today are descriptions of people standing up for what they believe and putting their lives on the line as a consequence of that belief. The words of Moses – “My father was a wandering Aramaean”- are a form of foundational creed of the Jewish people. It expresses their origins, their identity, their relationship with God, and their belief in what God has done for them. God turned this group of nomads into a settle people, freeing them from slavery and giving them a blessed and fruitful land in which they could live in peace with each other and with their God. That is a dream. Jesus’ responses to the devil’s three temptations in effect give us Jesus’ own statement of faith. He rejects the lure of materialism, the danger of thinking that all is important to the human person is to feed the body, to look for happiness and fulfillment in the material things of life. Jesus also resists the attractions of power, fame, glory, popularity, wealth. These are idols, false gods that demand our souls but cannot save. God alone is worthy of our worship. And finally, perhaps the greatest temptation, Jesus refuses to doubt God, to put to the test. The devil withdraws to await a more opportune time. And it is in Gethsemane, and on the cross, that Jesus has, in effect, to stand up and be counted for His beliefs. “Not my will, but yours be done.”

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Quinquagesima Sunday (C) – February 7, 2016

From the Pastor /

Today we hear St. Paul being emphatic about what the Gospel really is, about the truth of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection, and about the witnesses who could testify to this truth. Paul’s own part in that witness came as a result of a personal revelation given on the road to Damascus.

Peter is conscious of being such a sinful person. To find himself associated with this holy man, Jesus, not for the first time, telling someone not to be afraid. Follow the Lord and all will be well. And so, leaving their nets behind them, these simple fishermen set off on a journey that has never ended.

We too find ourselves in this company of Jesus, and invited to be preachers of the Gospel. We, too, know only too well how feeble and frail we can be. But we are not asked to rely on our own strength but to follow the Lord. His grace is enough for us. We are only earthen vessels that carry this treasure, but what a treasure it is! This world of ours, this globe, sees the drama of everyday life, and we are part of it. Let us be a Gospel part of it.

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Sexagesima Sunday (C) – January 31, 2016

From the Pastor /

Some could speak in tongues, some had the gift of healing, and others could prophecy. These gifts were good in themselves, but the Corinthians were failing to value the greatest gift of all, the gift of love. For St. Paul love was practical, down to earth, a day-in and a day-out of dealing with each other. “Love is kind.” How could he have put it more simply and more directly? We have to be kind to each other: to say “please” and “thank you” and “pardon me.” “Love is patient.” How hard it is always to be patient with those with whom we live or work, not to let them get on our nerves or annoy us with their concerns when we are not interested. “Love is not jealous. Love is not snobbish. Love is not rude. Love does not put on airs.” Every item in his list is practical. Love never fails.

It has been observed by spiritual writers that St. Paul’s letter the word “love” can be replaced with the name “Christ.” Christ is patient, Christ is kind, Christ never fails. The Eucharist is the means for growing in Christ-like love. When we have received Holy Communion, we must pray: “Lord, transform me and all my affections. Help me to love, as You love.” St. Paul observes that the three great virtues are faith, hope and love. When we get to heaven we will no longer need faith because we will see God face to face. We will no longer need hope because we will achieved our goal. But we will have the greatest of all virtues; we will have love. We can begin eternity now by praying for and by putting into practice a Christ-like love for each other.

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Septuagesima Sunday (C) – January 24, 2016

From the Pastor /

Today’s Gospel reading takes us to the synagogue at Nazareth. There children would be taught, and adults would gather to pray and sing and discuss the scriptures. It is the sabbath day and Jesus is invited to read. Apparently He deliberately chooses a passage from Isaiah, long regarded as referring to the Messiah. Then, as was the custom, He sat to preach. Jesus uses Isiah’s prophetic words as His own statement of intent: He has come to “bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free.” Jesus is a man with a mission: He has come with good news. The Gospel of St. Luke makes it clear that sharing this good news is an essential part of following Christ. The good news first delivered in the little synagogue at Nazareth spread throughout the then-known world, because people passed it on, passed it on, until it finally reached Rome itself. St. Luke’s Gospel has been specially identified as the Gospel of the compassion of Christ: Jesus reaches out to those in need, sits at table with the outcasts of His day – sick people, criminals, those who were poor. The Jesus of St. Luke did not come to to call those who were righteous and respectable, or who thought they were; He has much more time for those who are sinners and know it. The Jesus of St. Luke keeps strange company; His life begins in a stable with a pose of low-grade shepherds gathered round Him; and it ends with His being nailed to a cross between two criminals.

Each time we come to Mass that episode in the synagogue is being repeated. Today Jesus is here, today He’s bringing us good news, today He’s assuring us that He loves us and wants us to be His friends. Above all today He is proclaiming that the time of “God’s favor” has arrived. As we reflect – we can also take the time to thank God for the precious gift that has been given us in the Gospel of St. Luke.

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II Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – January 17, 2016

From the Pastor /

The vast majority of us live – or have lived – as a part of some kind of family or household. For many of us, too, this daily or household experience is further complicated by the fractures, diverse choices and more complex family relationships that are increasingly a part of our societies. We can often find ourselves called to love the one we really don’t agree with, or the one who seems to have come in and disrupted what we had been used to. Opening our need to Jesus and His mother, and opening our hearts to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, transforms our mistakes, our squabbles, our brokenness and emptiness. The deeper our faith in these “ordinary mysteries,” the more often we can turn first to God in prayer, in all our household difficulties. And the more often, too, we will meet God’s grace and power in our own homes, and understand them as “domestic churches.”

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Lord’s Baptism (C) – January 10, 2016

From the Pastor /

We move the clock forward nearly 2000 years to find a happy couple bringing their newborn infant to the church to be baptized. A crowd of family and friends have come to witness the event and to share in the happiness of the day. As the parents hold the child over the font, the priest pours water over the child’s head, saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He anoints the child with oil on the forehead and says some prayers. Is this the life-changing experience foreshadowed by the baptism of Jesus? It has to be said that for most of those witnessing the baptism described here, will be a fairly bewildering ritual, but for those of us with faith something extraordinary is taking place. In this way we are born again of water and the Holy Spirit and enabled to enter the kingdom of heaven. It took Jesus 30 years to grow in wisdom, in stature and in favor with God and with people before the events of His baptism changed His life. The voice from heaven affirmed that He was truly the beloved Son of God. He knew that He had been sent to bring Good News to those who were poor. Maybe now we should spend some time pondering on what baptism really means for us. We have been exposed to the cleansing water of rebirth and renewed with the Holy Spirit. We have been forged in the furnace of fire of God’s love join Jesus in His mission to bring God’s saving love to our world. So now what are we going to do?

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Holy Family (C) – January 3, 2016

From the Pastor /

What are our values? We may well need them in this Christmas period. Many families have a wonderful time at Christmas. Different generations can get on each others nerves. It is then that Christ’s values can keep a family together. St. John, in our second reading today, reminds us of the love that God our Father has “lavished upon us”, and calls us to put into practice the commandments that Jesus gave us, to “love one another as He told us to.” If we live out that love in our domestic lives, we will truly be happy and holy families. So much depends on what values the family live out. For Christians, family life is holy only when it embodies the values for which Christ lived and died. When we have these values we can happily celebrate at Christmas dinner – and when put them into practice when the mood changes and the party is over.

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Humble Shepherds (C) – December 27, 2015

From the Pastor, PNCC /

Today as we recall how the shepherds and our ancestors in the faith were looked down upon, we should remember to always treat others with love and respect. This solemnity should be an encouragement to the poor, the humble and the lowly today, knowing that God cares for them and may be using them in a special way.

During the Holy Mass on this day we pray for our Prime Bishop, Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Seminarians. We also pray for sacred vocations to the Holy Priesthood, that those men whom God has called may answer His call and serve His people as shepherds. At a General Synod a motion was made and passed that a special offering be taken on the Solemnity of Humble Shepherds for Savonarola Theological Seminary, the seminary of the Polish National Catholic Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

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