St. Clare’s Parish (193 Elk St near Smith St.) will be having a Theme Basket Bash on June 9 (Saturday) 4-7 PM and June 10 (Sunday) 9:30 AM-1:30 PM.  You do not need to be present to win!

Free Admission!

Coffee and baked goods after the Saturday 4 PM and Sunday 8:30 AM Mass, Roast Beef sandwiches available Sunday afternoon!

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Corpus Christi Church – 11:30am & 6:30pm

Saint John Kanty Church – 6:00pm (Vigil Wednesday, 05/16) & 12:00pm

Saint Stanislaus Church – 7:45am & 7:pm

Support our neighborhood churches!!!

This is a re-post from 2007. It is of a homily Father Anzlem Chalupka gave at Corpus Christi Church’s Dozynki Harvest Mass. Still holds true today.

I have a lot of people ask me why I joined Corpus Christi Church…there are many reasons…after you read Father Anzelm’s Homily from the Dozynki Mass, I think you will get a better understanding why.

Father did the Homily in Polish…though I understand some of the language, it wasn’t until Corpus Corpus Parish Council President Andy Golebiowski explained to me what the Homily was about that I understood what Father was talking about.  I really didn’t understand the gravity of it all until Andy graciously translated the Homily into English.

So here it is…please comment if you would like…it is an important and powerful message.

Lord, will only a few be saved ? This was the question of today’s Gospel, which is a question for each one of us: will only a few of us or will all of us be saved ? Jesus does not, in fact, answer us directly. He does not tell us the number of how many will be saved, playing some mathematical game, but as always, speaks of something different, using a parable to tell us who can be saved.

Lord, will only a few be saved ? Let us look for example at the tens of thousands of people in the stadiums, at the movie theaters packed with people, at the malls and shopping plazas, how crowded they are, and then let’s look at the churches on the East Side, in the city. How many people attend daily Mass or Sunday Mass in the beautiful and enormous church like St. Adalbert’s, St. Stan’s, St. John Kanty’s or Corpus Christi. Some of these churches have 20 or 30 people at the main Mass. Is not the question aimed at all of us ? Where will my family be, where will I be ? In today’s Gospel Jesus says that we should enter through the narrow gate, rather than through the wide gates that lead the masses of people, through which all enter without thinking. What does it mean to enter through the narrow gate for us here and now ?

For me, for example, to walk through the narrow gate would mean to drive to St. Stan’s, drive to St. Adalbert’s or St. John Kanty’s, or to drive to Corpus Christi rather than to an English church that’s two minutes from my house, one that’s so close that I can even walk to it. I, a Polish man or Polish woman can walk through the wide gate, take the easier path, or I can drive 20 minutes to my ethnic church and support my traditions, my homeland and my language.

Could taking the narrow gate mean that I won’t complain that the Bishop is closing churches, because it’s easier to find someone who is responsible for all the bad that happens, when something is being done not according to our wishes ? Or perhaps should it be as Jesus tells us, that before we want to remove the splinter from someone else’s eye, we should first remove the wooden beams from our own eyes, that instead of complaining about the Bishop for closing our Polish churches, that we ourselves become concerned about those same churches; instead of walking to English ones, we drive to a Polish one, and create an atmosphere in the church, our own climate, the one that we would want to be present, not just to wait for a theater performance to take place before me, but to participate in the performance and to become a performer myself as a member of that parish.

I won’t name names, but for me a great example of hope for our parish is a person who comes to our church every Sunday. This person is not Polish, but of German background. After attending Mass here, he goes to another church that has the same problem, and he goes to different such churches every Sunday in order to support them. He has said to himself: “ I cannot sit in my easy chair and complain that everything is falling apart, that the cities are crumbling. I have to do something, I myself have to do something.” And so for the last four years he has been supporting Corpus Christi and other churches. This is heroic, it means walking through the narrow gate which is more difficult, which demands much more of me than just complaining that someone else is doing something wrong.

Would we be able to find such an ignorant Bishop anywhere in the world who would close churches overflowing with people ? No, and our Bishop would like to build more churches, if only the people would be there. That’s why we need to beat our own chest, we need to first remove the wooden beams from our own eyes if we want to remove a splinter from someone else’s eye. We have to examine our own faithfulness to Christ.

What then, are our Dozynki ? The word “dozynac” means to cut, to cut wheat, to cut grain; I cut something down. But one could also cut down a person who is barely alive, someone who is barely breathing, finish him off and kill him. One can also do that to these churches. I finish off that which barely breathes. Or I can be a Samaritan who will take an interest, who will come and help.

http://corpuschristibuffalo.org

Links to photos:

Click here for Polish Easter Buffalo’s
Click here for Saint John Kanty’s

Corpus Christi
May 06 (Bulletin)

(Click on image to view)

Saint Stan’s
May 06 (Bulletin)

(Click on image to view)

BUFFALO ALLIANCE FOR SACRED PLACES LAUNCHES TOURISM INITIATIVE

First Presbyterian, Blessed Trinity, Corpus Christi & Buffalo Religious Arts Center Join Statewide Open House

Buffalo, New York – The National Trust Conference, hosted in Buffalo this past October, put our city’s architectural treasury of civic, sacred and residential landmarks “front and center” for a national audience. In the aftermath of this high profile event, a new collaborative, titled the Buffalo Alliance for Sacred Places, has been formed “to promote the preservation and appreciation of the art, architecture and history of Buffalo’s houses of worship.” The member organizations, which began meeting in January, are First Presbyterian Church, Blessed Trinity Church, Corpus Christi Church and the Buffalo Religious Arts Center.

The group has chosen to participate in The New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Sacred Sites Open House Weekend on May 19-20 as their first collaborative initiative. These sacred sites join dozens of religious institutions throughout New York State in welcoming the public to special programming during this unique event, as follows:

Blessed Trinity Church – 317 Leroy Ave., Buffalo
Church Tours Link Preservation of Faith and Art
Saturday, May 19, from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 20, from 12:00 noon – 2:00p.m.
http://www.blessedtrinitybuffalo.org/events.html

Members of the local arts community are particularly welcome, and invitations have been sent to neighboring art and photography studios.

Blessed Trinity is recognized as the purest replication of Lombard-Romanesque architecture in the United States and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The extensive use of terra cotta in its construction (1923-1928) provided for one of its most unique features: an elaborate display of medieval iconography created by Rev. Thomas Plassman, then President of St. Bonaventure University. The church contains more than two thousand symbols which depict this “summa” or summary of Christian beliefs in ceramic tiles, paintings and sculpture, and docents will be available to help interpret them.

Buffalo Religious Arts Center – 157 East St., Buffalo
Open House
Saturday May 19 & Sunday May 20 – noon – 3:00p.m.
www.buffaloreligiousarts.org

The Buffalo Religious Arts Center is located in the former St. Francis Xavier Church, in the heart of historic Black Rock. This unique gallery is dedicated to the preservation of Buffalo’s rich religious heritage through the collection and display of art and artifacts from many of the area’s closed houses of worship. The artifacts on display include stained glass, statuary and paintings, all of which reveal the story of the many immigrants who settled in Buffalo. As an added attraction the Center’s Herman Schlicker organ, cited by Organ Historical Society, will be featured in concert the two days.

Corpus Christi Church – 199 Clark St., Buffalo
“Meet the Authors” reception & booksigning
Saturday, May 19 – 1:00p.m. – 3:00p.m.
www.corpuschristibuffalo.org

Sophie Knab – Polish Customs, Traditions & Folklore
Deacon Michael P. McKeating – O Timothy!
Gregory L. Witul – Adorned In Light: The Stained Glass of Corpus Christi Church, Buffalo, NY
Edward Zawadzki – The Poles in the New World

Corpus Christi Church is located on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, and was honored in 2010 with a Preservation Buffalo Niagara Preservation Award. The iconic mural above the church altar, considered one of the most significant pieces of ecclesiastical artwork in the United States, was recently restored to its original splendor. This exquisite artwork is a rendering of a Vatican masterpiece by celebrated, Renaissance painter Raphael Santi. The mural was originally painted in the 1920’s by Marion Rzeznik and Gonippo Raggi, both of whom are considered premier, 20th century artists of ecclesiastical paintings. Read More →

Last night when I was watching a video of the bells of Saint Ann’s, inspiration struck and I decided to mix available audio on the bells from Saint John Kanty, Corpus Christi, Saint Stan’s and Saint Ann’s.

For those of us who grew up in the neighborhood, the density of churches located in Broadway-Fillmore brought the sounds of church bells ringing a lot.

Don’t know if the video captures that, but it was something cool that stuck with me about growing up B-F.

These are photos I shot the same day shot the video posted a couple of days ago.

Corpus Christi
Apr 29 (Bulletin)

(Click on image to view)

Saint Stan’s
Apr 29 (Bulletin)

(Click on image to view)