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November is here! Can you believe we only have two months left in 2025!? We look forward to seeing you this week at PWC.
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Attention All Married Couples
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This Friday, October 7,
6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
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A wonderful time of fellowship with other married couples and growth in your relationship with your spouse.
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Dinner will be provided!
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Starting this coming Sunday!
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Sunday Morning Bible Study with
Fr. Dale
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Gratitude & Thanksgiving
November 9, 16, & 23:
8:45 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
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This Sunday, November 9
at 10:00 a.m. in Building 4:12
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Please contact Helen Dipree for more information about the Children’s Ministry at [email protected]
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Operation
Christmas
Child
through
Samaritan’s Purse
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Samaritan’s Purse sends gift-filled Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes to children in need around the world together with the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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You can pick up a box or boxes after the service.
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Deadline date: Monday, November 17
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PWC has been so generous in our past annual drives. Thank you for helping again this year!!!
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Thanksgiving
Worship Service
Wednesday, November 26
at 6:30 p.m.
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Save the date and note the time change!
The Women's Christmas Brunch on
Saturday, December 6 is now going to be a
luncheon from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Our speaker will be Rita Davenport.
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Pastoral Counseling is available at PWC
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Fr. Mike Lessard is available for pastoral counseling on Wednesdays at PWC. Please call the church office to make an appointment at 480-649-0300.
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Our Weekly Online Reflections are back!
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Check out a new reflection for Monday, November 3 on “Letting Go.” Here is the link:
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The church office will be closed on Tuesday, November 11 in honor of Veteran’s Day.
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Blood Pressure Checks take place at PWC on the first and third Sundays of the month from 11:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. Our medical team is providing the blood pressure checks.
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At PWC
your tithing & generosity allow 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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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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A Reflection
by Ronald Rolheiser
Turning the Other Cheek
One of the best-known but most-ignored lines in scripture is Jesus’ challenge to “turn the other cheek”. What did he mean by it?
First off, the text needs careful reading. In Matthew’s version of it, Jesus says: “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also …” (Mt. 5, 39-40) It is significant that he specifies the “right cheek”. Scholars point out that he is referring to a certain practice at the time where a superior would strike a subordinate with the back of his right hand (the left hand was considered unclean and never used in public, even for something as base as slapping another). Moreover, to slap someone in this way was intended for much more than simply inflicting physical pain. It was an act that asserted superiority, power over another, lording it over, arrogance. Masters slapped their slaves in this fashion and occasionally husbands struck their wives like this. To hit someone with the back of your right hand made a statement: “I am your superior! How dare you stand up to me in any way! This is the order of things! Know your place and stay there!”
So picture the scenario: Someone is standing in arrogance, facing the person he is about to hit. He strikes with the back of his right hand and thus the slap falls on the right cheek of the other. Now, if that other person turns her face so as to offer her left cheek, the attacker can no longer hit her in the same way. He can still strike her, but no longer with that same gesture that asserts superiority over her. Just that one shift fundamentally alters things. Moreover, it alters a lot more than mere physical position. At a deeper level, the fundamental, taken-for-granted, chemistry of things is being challenged and redefined. The person who was formerly victimized has, by a simple shift of body, made the clear statement that the old order of things is now over. She has now placed herself in a position within which she cannot be struck again as a subordinate or slave. She can still be struck, but to strike her now, in this new position, is very different than it was previously. To strike her now is to see yourself in a different light, as unjust, as ignoble, as someone whose time has passed.
The key principle contained in all of this – to change your position so that you can no longer be slapped as a subordinate – can best be understood when it illustrated. We see it, first, in Jesus’ own life. During his passion, he is often struck, but never in such a way that it takes away his dignity. On the contrary. Jesus had so positioned himself (in every way) so that anyone who struck him found himself standing in front of a mirror that brutally exposed his own illusion, pettiness, violence, and distance from the truth.
You see this principle too at the very heart of the spirituality and strategy of non-violence. When we look at people such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, and Dorothy Day, we see that they did not fight back when they were slapped, but they did not remain simply passive either so as to let a sanctioned injustice remain. What they did was precisely to turn the other cheek, they positioned themselves in such a way so that, if the aggressor continued the injustice and violence, he was no longer able to do it in the morally sanctioned way that a superior (by divine right) can humiliate an inferior. By re-positioning themselves they became a mirror within which the aggressor was ultimately ashamed to see himself.
From this we see that the re-positioning of oneself so as not to be slapped anymore as a subordinate, ultimately means a lot more than the simple physical gesture of turning one’s head. What Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, and Dorothy Day were able to do was, through the integrity of their own persons, to position themselves morally so that anyone who continued to strike them as before now found himself in front of a mirror that exposed him as cruel, unjust, and ignoble. For example, in the case of Dorothy Day, civil authorities became increasingly reluctant to arrest her. Their fear came not from any possibility of retribution on her part, she was not interested in striking back, but from the painful realization of what they were saying about themselves if they arrested her: “What does it say about us, if we arrest someone like Dorothy Day? What does it make us look like?”
Violence can never be defeated by higher, morally superior violence. It can only be exposed and shown to be what it is, ignoble and belittling to the soul of the person perpetrating it. Nothing highlights this better than “turning the other cheek”, as Jesus prescribed this.
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Please remember those within our community and the greater community who are experiencing food insecurity.
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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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Chris Pfund PhD, MBA, BSN, RN
President Homestead Health
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phone: (602) 755-4508
fax: (602) 691-0283
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Homestead Health is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to helping adults live safely and independently at home. We offer a range of in-home and virtual medical services, including concierge medicine, palliative care, transitional care, and geriatric care management. We believe everyone deserves access to compassionate and affordable healthcare.
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