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We hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend, and were able to remember and pray for those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
Here’s what’s going on at PWC!
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Check out the
PWC Summer 2025
Calendar!
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Bible Study
This Saturday, May 31: 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
All women are welcome to attend.
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Father’s Day Cereal Drive
to aid Matthew’s Crossing
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From now until Father’s Day, June 15, bring boxes of cereal to PWC to care for those families who are struggling economically and find it difficult to provide for their families.
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Summer Events
“Together
in Hope”
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will return in September.
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Please contact Helen Dippre at [email protected] for more information about the Sunday Children’s Ministry, or to volunteer.
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Blood pressure checks
@ PWC
Our medical team will be providing blood pressure checks on the first and third Sundays of the month from
11:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. here at PWC.
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Our weekly online reflections are ministering to our community each week through the written word. Check out the new reflection on the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. Next week there will be a reflection on Pentecost. Be supported in your faith life, you can even check out past reflections!
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Your generosity allows us to minister to so many who come through our doors with their spiritual, emotional, and physical needs. Thank you for your tithing and commitment to PWC! From pastoral counseling to grief support, to bible study and adult education, to providing food through Matthew’s Crossing for families who are economically struggling, to marriage enrichment and our funeral ministry -- your consistent giving makes a difference, a big change in people’s lives!
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Here are the different ways you can tithe to PWC:
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• Mail in your gift to: Praise and Worship Center, 2551 N. Arizona Avenue, Chandler, AZ 85225.
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• Sign up for monthly giving with a credit card or voided check. Just call the office at 480-649-0300 or stop by the office.
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Do you want to be inspired again by Fr. Dale or Pastor Mark? You can listen to Fr. Dale or Pastor Mark’s sermons on our podcast page. Here is the link:
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Fr. Mike Lessard is available for pastoral counseling on Monday and Wednesday mornings. Please call the church office to make an appointment at 480-649-0300.
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Are you homebound? If so, Deacon John Null can bring you communion. The only exception is if you have or are recovering from COVID. The best way to get in touch with Deacon John is by contacting the church office, at 480-649-0300, and leaving a message.
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Our Theme for Easter 2025
Holy! Worthy! Glory!
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It is based on the song
Words We Will Sing Forever
by Seph Schueter
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Check out the music video:
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A Reflection
by Ronald Rolheiser
Giving Our Deaths
to our Loved Ones
In his last works, just before he died, Henri Nouwen began to speak of how the final task in life is to give one’s death to others. We are meant, he says, to give our lives for others, but we are also meant to give our deaths for them. Just as elders are meant to teach the young how to live they are also meant to teach them how to die. That’s the final lesson we are meant to give the young, to die in such a way that our deaths are our final blessing to them.
Nouwen’s words: “Yes, there is such a thing as a good death. We ourselves are responsible for the way we die. We have to choose between clinging to life in such a way that death becomes nothing but a failure or letting go of life in freedom so that we can be given to others as a source of hope. This is a crucial choice, and we have to `work’ on that choice every day of our lives. Death does not have to be our final failure, our final defeat in the struggle of life, our unavoidable fate. If our deepest human desire is, indeed, to give ourselves to others, then we can make our death our final gift.”
What does this really mean? At every funeral we have some sense of it. We feel what we don’t understand. When someone we know dies, we are left with a feeling, a tone, a color, something in the air, of either guilt or blessing. The feeling isn’t based so much upon whether the person died accidently or naturally, was young or old, or whether we were present to him or her at the time of death. It takes root in how that person lived and how he or she related to life in general, more so than how he or she related specifically to us. That’s part of the mystery of death. It releases a spirit.
Before he died, Jesus told his disciples that it was only after he was gone that they would be able to grasp what he really meant for them. That is true for everyone. Only after we have died will our spirits fully reveal themselves. And this works in two ways: If our spirits have been loving, death will reveal our real beauty (which, in this life, is always limited by wounds and shortcomings). Conversely, if our spirits, at the core, have been petty and bitter, our deaths will also reveal that. The death of a generous, gracious soul releases blessing and makes others feel free, just as the death of a bitter, clinging soul pours out accusation and makes others feel guilty.
How can I make my death a gift for others? By the way, I live. If I live in bitterness and non-forgiveness, always full of accusation, then my death will pour those things out among my family and loved ones. That’s what people will feel at my funeral because that’s the air and color that emanates from my soul, now made transparent. Conversely, if I live in graciousness, in admiration, in forgiveness, and am willing when it’s time to decrease so that others can increase then what will be poured out at my death is blessing. My death will mean new freedom and courage for those who knew me. They will be able to go on with their lives with less fear, less guilt, knowing that it is best for them that I go away and that, like Jesus, I am helping to prepare a place for them.
But this isn’t automatic, nor easy. It’s something we have to `work’ at, painfully, every day of our lives. And what do we have to work at? At blessing others, especially the young, at admiring their energy, beauty, and achievement without envy, bitterness, or cynicism. This involves, especially as we grow older, saying what John the Baptist said when Jesus appeared: “He must increase, and I must decrease!” As we age, the real task of life and love is to continually hand over, without bitterness, regret, or envy, all the things that were once so much our own (power, attention, popularity, usefulness, turf of every sort). Part of this, the hardest part of all, is forgiveness. To exit gracefully, we have to first forgive others, God, and ourselves for the fact that our lives didn’t turn out the way they might have. That’s easier said than done.
Our deaths, like our lives, are either a source of blessing or frustration to those around us. Ultimately the choice is ours. The final task of life is to live in such a way that, when we die, our deaths, like our lives, sweeten rather than embitter the air.
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Love,
Fr. Dale & Pastor Mark
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Keep up with all your PWC friends on Facebook
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Please do not reply to this email;
the sending address is not monitored.
Please reply to: [email protected]
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