What a great project by Todd Campbell!!!

I absolutely love the rooftop garden at the Broadway Market. Kudos to Amanda Beale for managing the garden and bringing partners like ECC.

The rooftop of the market is one of my favorite spaces in B-F.

ALIVE!

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

The Matt Urban Hope Center is a great organization that provides a wide variety of services for the neighborhood.

Please join them on 06/30/2012 @ 8pm for HOPEfest!!!

Tickets are $5.00 and are available at the door, or pre-sale, by calling call 893-7222 ext. 302.

+ music + food + cash bar + basket and 50/50 raffles + door prize

Visit the center on Facebook—> http://www.facebook.com/pages/HOPE-Center/247572050724

(Janice Stevens – Wilson Street Urban Farm) What an interesting spring we have  had.   Two weeks of 70 -80 degree weather, then a major freeze.  Then warm again, then snow.  I’m placing faith in the idea that this latest warming trend is going to last – at least that we won’t get any more snow or temperatures in the teens!

This week has seen a flurry of activity on the farm.  Tomatoes and peppers were started in the house weeks ago and they were desperately wanting to be transplanted into 4″ blocks outside, so Mark and Jerusha made  380 4 inch blocks and lined them up on boards in the hoop house ready for transplants.  Sad, leggy tomatoes have been placed in their blocks and should be happy again soon.  Alex planted some of her peppers in the hoop house ground as well as putting some in blocks.    Cabbage and Swiss chard were planted in their outside boxes.  Herbs were transplanted into pots and barrels around the yard.

Read full story—>

Urban Agriculture is contagious! Since we have begun working on our piece of (formerly) vacant land in the Broadway – Fillmore area, we have seen at least three other urban farms emerge on the East side. All of us are big on ideas and energy, but short on cash and equipment. One of our common needs is good compost to revitalize our tired and abused soils. Without the soil, there can be no food!

Read full story on the Wilson Street Urban Farm website—>

With that said, here is story from Saint John Kanty’s website about an award two members from troop just received.

On April 1, 2012 two scouts from Troop 107, Colin Augustyn and William Fourby, received the Ad Altare Dei Medal from Bishop Kmiec. The purpose of the Ad Altare Dei (to the altar of God) program is to help Catholic Boy Scouts develop a fully Christian way of life in the faith community. The program is organized in chapters based on the seven Sacraments. The seven Sacraments are a primary means toward spiritual growth. The most important aspect of the program is that the Scout grows in his spiritual experience of his relationship to God and the church. These scouts worked with their Eucharistic Advisor, Mr. Robert Koza, over a period of 6-8 months to meet the requirements of the Ad Altare Dei Scout Manual and to prepare themselves to receive the medal.

Read full story on SJK’s website—>

Alive!

The Matt Urban H.O.P.E. Center is a community-focused agency based on the East side of Buffalo. Its mission is to revitalize neighborhoods, serve families and change lives by offering a full array of services and support to the community.

They are located at 385 Paderewski Drive.

From their Facebook page:

We need you! Looking for a few good volunteers! The Hope Center has a number of volunteer opportunities. We need help with sorting clothes, serving at the diner, answering phones and much more…

Call Joy at 893-7222 x 302 if you can help!

View their Facebook page to find out more about what they do…click here—>

(Maki Becker, Buffalo News) In the spring of 2003, the Massachusetts Avenue Project turned a vacant lot on the West Side into a vegetable garden.

The neighbors didn’t exactly know what to make of it.

“They thought it was weird,” recalled Diane Picard, executive director of the organization. “Or they thought: ‘Oh, this is a nice little gardening project.’”

Ten growing seasons later, urban farming is flourishing in Buffalo, just as it has in cities across the nation.

A small but growing group of people with a taste for local food, a passion for living sustainably and a devotion to ensuring everyone has access to healthy, affordable food has started urban farms in vacant lots on both the West Side and the East Side.

This year, urban farming is approaching a new level in Buffalo.

A group of young people who recently bought up old vacant lots on Michigan Avenue and Peckham Streets has teamed up with other East Side urban farmers to form a farming cooperative. Their goal is to pool their skills and resources so that they can generate enough produce to feed themselves and sell at market stands to the public.

Read full story in the Buffalo News—>

A Saint John Kanty parishioner, Judith Felski, posted this on YouTube earlier today.

Her husband got the bells fixed and ringing at SJK and she recorded them.

From YouTube:

The bells have been quiet for a while…they are now fixed, just in time to proclaim the Resurrection! Thanks to Chris Byrd for posting the bells of Corpus Christi last week. Chris’s creative and never ending enthusiasm for the Broadway Fillmore area, the East side churches, and the Broadway Market, is contagious!

Thank you for posting that Judith…but for me,  it is the people who work tirelessly to keep neighborhood treasures like Saint John Kanty alive that serve as motivation and inspiration to do what I do on here and helping the neighborhood.

Read original—> Businesses team up for Easter tradition: wivb.com

More Butter Lamb coverage!