Saint Joseph Melkite Greek Catholic Church

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2 Saint Joseph Melkite Greek Catholic Church 130 North Saint Francis Cabrini Avenue Scranton, PA Rev. Father Michael Jolly Pastor Reader Michael Simon Reader John Fitzgerald Parish Office Web: Webmaster: Sal Zaydon January 5, 2014 Tone 8 and Orthros Gospel 11 Liturgy Schedule: Saturday Vesper Liturgy 4 pm Compline Weds 8:30PM Sunday Before the Theophany Paramony of the Theophany Sunday Orthros 8:55 am Sunday Divine Liturgy 10:00 am Holy Confession before Saturday Liturgy, after Compline and by appointment Liturgy Intentions January 5, 2014 Frank Milewski Jack Johnson Karen Murray Mary Lou Vandorick January 6, 2014 Karen Cianci Nick and Lois Cianci Nicholas & Mary Cianci / William & Eva Simon / Robert Walsh Charles and Joanna Simon Montyne Davis Fr. Michael and Marie January 12, 2014 Frank Milewski Frank Passo Deceased Members of the Barron and Shehadi Family Today s cover Icon: The Theophany of Our Lord Parish Notes: 2014 Calendars and Envelopes are available in the back of the Church along with copies of the Book of the Hours. One calendar per family and all may have the prayer book an early Christmas present The Qurban consecrated at this weekend s liturgies was baked by Fr. Michael No Compline this week. Great Vespers for the Feast of the Theophany, a Holyday for Melkites will be sung on Sunday evening at 5PM. Liturgy for the feast with the great blessing of the waters will be on Monday at 7PM. House Blessings The period after Theophany until the Presentation in the Temple is traditionally the time for blessing of your home. Contact Fr. Michael to arrange an appointment. Parish Council will meet next Sunday after Divine Liturgy Note that starting NEXT Saturday the Vesper Liturgy will be celebrated at 4PM

3 The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom Antiphons: First Antiphon Through the prayers of the Mother of God Tone 2 Pg. 11 Second Antiphon O Son of God, who are risen from the dead Tone 2 Pg. 11 Hymn of incarnation Tone 4 Pg. 13 Third Antiphon Resurrectional Troparion Tone 8 Pg. 19 Hymns: Resurrectional Troparion Tone 8 Pg. 19 Troparion of the Paramony of Theophany Tone 4 After Elijah had gone up to heaven, Elisha threw his mantle in the Jordan River which separated, opening a way, a dry path between two walls of water where he could pass: a true symbol of our baptism by which we pass through this passing life. Christ has been at the Jordan River to sanctify the waters. Saint Joseph Tone 2 Pg. 20 Kontakion of the Paramony of Theophany Tone 3 Today the Lord has appeared in the Jordan s waters and He has cried out to John: Fear not to baptize Me, for I have indeed come to save Adam, the first created man. Prokiemenon (Tone 6) O Lord, save your people and bless your inheritance. Stichon: To you, O Lord, I have called: O my Rock, be not deaf to me! Reading from the Second Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy 4:5-8 My son Timothy be watchful in all things, bear with tribulation patiently, work as a preacher of the Good News, fulfill your ministry. As for me, I am already being poured out in sacrifice, and the time of my deliverance is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have completed the course, I have kept the faith. For the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the just Judge, will give to me on that day: yet not to me only, but also to those who love his coming. Alleluia (Tone 4) May God have mercy on us and bless us. Stichon: May he let his face shine upon us and have mercy on us. The Holy Gospel According to St Mark 1:1-8 The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before you, who shall prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the desert, Make ready the way of the Lord, make straight his paths, there came John in the desert, baptizing and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea went out to him, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and all were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed in camel s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, One mightier than I is coming after me, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

4 Among Today s Saints The Holy Martyrs Theopemptus and Theonas suffered in Nicomedia in the year 303. St Theopemptus was bishop in Nicomedia in the time of Diocletian. Speaking out against idolatry, he defended the faith in Christ. Because of this, he became one of the first victims of the Diocletian persecution. The saint refused to obey the emperor s order to worship an idol of Apollo. St Theopemptus was thrown into a red-hot furnace, but by the power of God he remained alive. The emperor came to the furnace by night with a detachment of soldiers, and there he saw the saint alive and praying to God. Ascribing the miracle to magic, Diocletian thought to exhaust St Theopemptus by depriving him of food and drink for twenty-two days, but the martyr was preserved by the will of God. The emperor brought the famous sorcerer Theonas to overcome Bishop Theopemptus supposed magical power. Theonas prepared a poison for St Theopemptus, put it into a little cake, and offered it to him to eat. The poison did no harm at all to St Theopemptus. Then Theonas tried an even stronger poison on the martyr. Seeing that St Theopemptus remained unharmed, he came to believe in Christ. They threw him into prison together with the holy bishop, who taught and baptized him, giving him the name Synesios (which means full of understanding ). At dawn Diocletian summoned St Theopemptus, and again tried to turn him to pagan impiety. Seeing that the bishop remained firm in his faith, he subjected him to many grievous tortures, after which the saint was beheaded. The holy martyr Theonas refused to offer sacrifice to idols, so he was buried alive in a deep ditch. This occurred at Nicomedia in the year 303 Saint Syncletica was a native of Alexandria, the daughter of rich parents. She was very beautiful, but from a young age she thought only about things pleasing to God. Loving the purity of virginity, she refused to marry anyone, and spent all her time in fasting and prayer. After the death of her parents, she distributed her inheritance to the poor. She left the city together with her younger sister, and lived in a crypt for the rest of her life. News of her ascetic deeds quickly spread throughout the vicinity, and many devout women and girls came to live under her guidance. During the course of her ascetic life the saint zealously instructed the sisters by word and by deed. In her eightieth year she was struck by an intense and grievous illness. The nun bore her ordeal with true Christian endurance, and the time of her death was revealed to her in a vision. After giving final instructions to her nuns, she surrendered her soul to God around the year 350

5 Hymns from the Pre-feast of Theophany On January 6 we Melkites celebrate the Feast of Theophany, which focuses on the Baptism of Christ (Matthew 3:13-17). However, early on in Christian history, the Christians celebrated the birth and baptism of Christ as one Feast on January 6. Eventually Christmas became its own Feast on December 25. Some of the hymns of the Nativity do point ahead to the baptism of Christ, showing the connection between the two Feasts. Let s look at a few hymns taken from the Pre-feast of Theophany (celebrated on January 5) to get a picture of some of the themes on which the liturgical tradition of the Church focus in the hymnology. First, Byzantine theological reflection tends to view Christ s life as a whole and does not treat each event celebrated in a Feast as a separate act. Rather every single thing Christ does in His life time is done for us and for our salvation. Each event is united in Christ, the incarnate Son of God. Each event is recognized for the role it plays in salvation, but no one single event in the life of Christ is more important than any other event the entire life of Christ from His conception in Mary s womb to His miracles and teachings and to His death and resurrection are essential for salvation. Each of these events finds its meaning in Christ and so all are united by and in Christ. When we put on Christ in our own baptisms or receive Him in Holy Communion, we are entering into every saving experience of Christ. Thus, in the description of the events of Christ s own baptism, the hymns already present to us that our sins are being forgiven. The hymns use the imagery that already at Christ s baptism He is drowning and burying our sins in the watery grave of the River Jordan. Each of the events in the life of Christ are treated as salvific this is a Christocentric way of reading the Gospel. We do not read the Gospel purely linearly as exact history, rather we treat each event as showing in its unique way a facet of our salvation. Christ comes to baptism; Christ approaches Jordan! Christ now buries our sins in the waters. Let us sing His praises with exceeding joy: He is the good One For He has been glorified! Let the clouds rejoice! Let them drop down eternal gladness. Jesus Christ comes forth To drown the rivers of sin in the streams of Jordan, Granting enlightenment to all. Christ accomplishes the destruction of sin because He is God in the flesh. Salvation is the restoration of God s relationship with humanity. Christ s baptism is working out this renewed relationship of God with our created nature and physical bodies. He who was enthroned before the ages with the Father and the Spirit, Christ, who now in these last times Was made flesh of a Virgin in ways that He alone understands, Comes to baptism, And through the divine washing grants immortality to all. Wishing to bury our sins with water in the streams of Jordan, Christ our God comes forth in His compassionate mercy, And us who had grown corrupt He forms anew through baptism. Christ who as the Divine Word created humans at the beginning of creation (Genesis 1) now restores, refashions, renews and recreates humanity. Once again we humans are in communion with God as Christ remakes everything new.once You clothed the shameful nakedness of our forefather Adam Now You are stripped naked of Your own will! You covered the roof of heaven with waters; Now You wrap Yourself in the streams of Jordan, only merciful Christ. Christ the Word of God is always our Savior, redeemer and benefactor not just on the cross but in the Jordan, in the Virgin s womb, in the tomb and in Hades itself.

6 Holy Water Thus, for example, to bless water, making it holy water, may have two entirely different meanings. It may mean, on the one hand, the transformation of something profane, and thus religiously void or neutral, into something sacred, in which case the main religious meaning of holy water is precisely that it is no longer mere water, and is in fact opposed to it as the sacred is to the profane. Here the act of blessing reveals nothing about water, and thus about matter or world, but on the contrary makes them irrelevant to the new function of water as holy water. The sacred posits the profane as precisely profane, i.e. religiously meaningless. On the other hand, the same act of blessing may mean the revelation of the true nature and destiny of water, and thus of the world it may be the epiphany and the fulfillment of their sacramentality. By being restored through the blessing to its proper function, the holy water is revealed as the true, full, adequate water, and matter becomes again means of communion with and knowledge of God. Now anyone who is acquainted with the content and the text of the great prayer of blessing of water at Baptism and Epiphany knows without any doubt that they belong to the second of two meanings mentioned above. (Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy, pg. 132) Devotions and Readings for this week Jan. 6 Theophany of our Lord Ti 2:11-14, 3:4-7 Mt 3:13-19 Jan. 7 2nd Day of Theophany; Synaxis of John the Baptist Acts 19:1-8 JN 1:29-34 Jan. 8 3rd Day of Theophany; Venerable Mother Dominica; our Father George the Chosebite 2 Cor 4:6-15 JN 3:22-33 Jan. 9 4th Day of Theophany; Holy Martyr Polyeuctus 2 Tim 2:1-10 Mk 1:0-15 Jan. 10 Jan. 11 5th Day of Theophany; Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa; Marcian, Priest and Procurator of the Great Church; Dometian, Bishop of Melitene 6th Day of Theophany; Holy Father Theodosios, Founder of Monasteries Eph 4:7-13 LK 3:19-22 Heb 13:7-16 Mt 11:27-30

7 I Believe In God But I Don't Go To Church By Archimandrite Paul Papadopoulos "I believe in God but I don't go to church." We often hear the above phrase from acquaintances, friends and relatives, so our discussion will focus a little more on spiritual matters. The basic argument of people who say that they believe in God yet do not go to church to participate in the Mysteries of our Church, is that they are bothered by certain things, such as the luxuriousness of churches, obnoxious priests and chanters, the language is ancient (they don't understand it), the microphones, the lights, the candle offering (where they give money for a candle), the time the Divine Liturgy is celebrated, etc. The excuses are certainly a lot when someone DOES NOT WANT to live according to how the Church says. Unfortunately these people consider themselves outside the Church since they do not accept the basic components of the life in Christ, which is the participation of a Christian in the Mysteries of the Church. These people are not Christians, at least not Orthodox, because while they (supposedly) believe, they do not follow any word of Christ. The issue of course is that most baptized Christians do not know who Christ is or what the Church is, and what Christ and the Church offer to people. Thus they do not attend church, because essentially they do not know what they are missing, and they do not know what the sacramental life can offer. The Church, with all Her Mysteries, transforms us, sanctifies us, and brings us into communion with God. Our participation in the Mysteries of the Church is the key to this personal resurrection of ours. The Church does not exist merely to take the position of medicine and exhaust all its capabilities, as some wrongly treat it. The Church exists to lead people, the faithful, to the Love, the Light and the Life in Christ through the Mysteries. To say you believe in God is easy, but to believe in God in an orthodox manner and to do corresponding works is difficult, though not impossible. If a person really wants to know Christ, they can do this through the sacramental life offered by the Church. If you want to fool yourself you can claim to achieve this on your own. However, I do not know anyone that has been sanctified outside the Church. All this happens for just one reason: Egoism. When each person believes themselves to be a better interpreter of the Scriptures, and they believe the Godbearing Fathers of the Church are beneath them, and they believe they are smarter, more worthy and holier than the old "religionists" as they call them, and when they believe they have no need to repent of any of their sins (!), and they could be saved by themselves (whatever that means to them), then this text will probably not trouble them at all, rather it has been a long time since they fell into the abyss of self-love and delusion. The biggest obstacle that prevents contemporary man from reaching communion with God is precisely this: they are trying to know Him the wrong way, using the wrong means, outside the Church. They dismiss the mystery of love and remain willfully grounded in a sterile faith which in a best case scenario simply means "acknowledging the existence of God" and not trusting and surrendering to Divine Providence.

8 Sunday before the Theophany The Forerunner and His Message WHO IS THE GREATEST SAINT after the Theotokos? Recent sentiment in the West looks to her spouse, St. Joseph, as its foremost representative of holiness. For the Eastern Churches, however, the Lord s witness is enough (troparion of St John). The liturgy here refers to the words of Christ concerning John, Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist (Mt 11:11) Thus John the Baptist is regularly depicted in the Deisis icons flanking Christ, opposite the Theotokos. This same grouping is found as the basic component of icon screens along with the icon of the church s patron. A moving testimony to St John comes from the fourthcentury Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose. John, he writes, did not enlarge the boundaries of an empire. He did not prefer triumphs of military conquest to honors. Rather, what is more, he disparaged human pleasures and lewdness of body, preaching in the desert with great spiritual power. He was a child in worldliness, but great in spirit. He was not captivated by the allurements of life, nor did he change his steadfastness of purpose through a desire to live (Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, 1.31). John in the Scriptures John s unique holiness is displayed in the story of the Theotokos visit to his mother Elizabeth. There the Gospel tells us that, at Mary s greeting, the child in Elizabeth s womb leapt for joy, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit (see Lk 1:39-45). The Gospel thus shows John as aware even in the womb of the greatness of Christ who had been conceived in the womb of Mary. Thus he fulfills the prophecy made by the angel Gabriel to John s father, Zachariah: He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother s womb (Lk 1:45). Reflecting on this event, St Ambrose connects the experience of John in the womb with that of another prophet, Jeremiah. This prophet, who lived during the fall of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, describes God s call to him: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:5). While Jeremiah describes himself as consecrated before his birth, Luke describes John as nothing less than filled with the Holy Spirit. John reappears in the Gospels as an adult, living in the Judean desert and baptizing at the Jordan. This desert was not what we consider desert; it was actually grazing land, useless for agriculture but able to sustain the sheep and goats and the occasional solitary who lived there. Nothing is said in the Gospels about the intervening years of John s life, nor how he came to be in the desert. Some modern scholars have speculated that John was a member of the Essenes, a Jewish sect at the time which had retired to the desert and established a community there. Earlier lore, recorded in the fourth-century Life of John by Serapion of Thmuis, held that John was spirited away to the desert by his mother to escape slaughter when Herod s servants killed the Holy Innocents. In Serapion s Life, Elizabeth died when her son was seven years old; thereafter the boy was cared for by an ascetic in the desert. The Ministry of John St Mark s Gospel presents us with a thumbnail description of John as a Forerunner, preparing the way for One greater than he by calling people to a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins (Mk 1:4). In Matthew John is depicted preaching Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mt 3:2). God s action in Christ was immanent; those in need of repentance had best make up their minds to do so. Matthew singles out the Pharisees and Sadducees the religious establishment calling them a brood of vipers (Mt 3:7) most in need of repentance. He depicts the coming Messiah as One who will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor (we would say clean house ) burning up the unrepentant with unquenchable fire (Mt 3:11-12). One image from the Gospels has found its way into many icons of John baptizing. John is described as

9 warning, Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees (Mt 3:10; Lk 3:9), meaning that the house cleaning is about to begin. In many icons an axe is shown imbedded in a tree or tree stump to suggest this image. In Luke specific examples for repentance are given in response to the question What shall we do? John tells the tax collectors not to extort more money than the tax law allows. He tells soldiers not to intimidate or accuse others falsely and to be content with their pay. And he tells everyone to give alms from what they have (see Lk 3:10-14). In St John s Gospel, another note is added to the Baptist s message. He identified Jesus as the One who is coming and depicts his own work as a testimony to Jesus. Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world I came baptizing with water that He should be revealed to Israel (Jn 1:29, 31).. The Baptism of Repentance Immersion into a stream, river or bathing pool (Mikveh) was practiced for ritual purposes in first century Judaism. Orthodox and many Conservative Jews continue the practice to this day. Ritual baths were necessary for Jewish men in preparation for Yom Kippur or the Sabbath, for entering the temple or ascending the Temple Mount. Women were required to bathe for ritual purity after childbirth or menstruation. Gentiles submitted to a ritual bath upon converting to Judaism. Some differences between these ritual baths and John s baptism are obvious. Jewish ritual baths are self-administered; John baptized people into the water. Jewish baptism was a physical cleansing to achieve ritual purity; John s baptism was to signify repentance, a moral act. In John s time, Jewish people expressed repentance by offering sacrifices in the temple. Since the destruction of the temple, Jews express repentance by prayer, almsgiving or doing righteous deeds. Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Eleazar both explain that as long as the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel, but now, one s table atones (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berachot, 55a.). Hospitality to the poor had become the Jewish way of atoning for sins. John s Baptism and Baptism into Christ In the Acts of the Apostles, we read how St. Paul, finding some disciples in Ephesus, learned that they had never heard of the Holy Spirit. Hearing that they had been baptized with the baptism of John, St Paul explained: John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe in Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus (Acts 19:4). Christian baptism is neither a kind or ritual purification or a symbol of repentance. It is the incorporation into the death and resurrection of Christ. Through faith we are buried with Him in baptism and then rise from the water with Him in the likeness of His resurrection. This effects an organic union with Christ in His Body the Church, a result never imagined by John. As we say at every baptism in the words of St. Paul (Gal 3:27), As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

10 Theophany Theophany is the Feast which reveals the Most Holy Trinity to the world through the Baptism of the Lord (Mt.3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). God the Father spoke from Heaven about the Son, the Son was baptized by the St John the Forerunner, and the Holy Spirit descended upon the Son in the form of a dove. From ancient times this Feast was called the Day of Illumination and the Feast of Lights, since God is Light and has appeared to illumine those who sat in darkness, and in the region of the shadow of death (Mt.4:16), and to save the fallen race of mankind by grace. In the ancient Church it was the custom to baptize catechumens at the Vespers of Theophany, so that Baptism also is revealed as the spiritual illumination of mankind. The origin of the Feast of Theophany goes back to Apostolic times, and it is mentioned in The Apostolic Constitutions (Book V:13). From the second century we have the testimony of St Clement of Alexandria concerning the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, and the night vigil before this Feast. There is a third century dialogue about the services for Theophany between the holy martyr Hippolytus and St Gregory the Wonderworker. In the following centuries, from the fourth to ninth century, all the great Fathers of the Church: Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan, John of Damascus, commented on the Feast of Theophany. The monks Joseph the Studite, Theophanes and Byzantios composed much liturgical music for this Feast, which is sung at Melkite services even today. St John of Damascus said that the Lord was baptized, not because He Himself had need for cleansing, but to bury human sin by water, to fulfill the Law, to reveal the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and finally, to sanctify the nature of water and to offer us the form and example of Baptism. On the Feast of the Baptism of Christ, the Holy Church proclaims our faith in the most sublime mystery, incomprehensible to human intellect, of one God in three Persons. It teaches us to confess and glorify the Holy Trinity, one in Essence and Indivisible. It exposes and overthrows the errors of ancient teachings which attempted to explain the Creator of the world by reason, and in human terms. The Church shows the necessity of Baptism for believers in Christ, and it inspires us with a sense of deep gratitude for the illumination and purification of our sinful nature. The Church teaches that our salvation and cleansing from sin is possible only by the power of the grace of the Holy Spirit, therefore it is necessary to preserve worthily these gifts of the grace of holy Baptism, keeping clean this priceless garb, for As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ (Gal 3:27).

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12 Prayer Requests Michael Abda Marie Barron Nikki Boudreaux Lucille Bsales Chris Carey Betty Clark Dr. Frances Colie John Colie Mark Dillman Margaret Dillenburg Carol Downer Karen Haddad Rev. Deacon John Karam Rev. Basil Samra Rev. Michael Skrocki Rev. Father David White Rev. Deacon Richard Downer Rev. Deacon Gregory Haddad Yolande Haddad Thomas Lambert Niko Mayashairo Mary McNeilly Mary Lou Mooty Pat Morley Marie Patchoski Ruth Sirgany Kennedy Stevenson Jane Warn Boots Zaydon Parish Calendar January 5 Vespers for the Theophany 5PM 6 Divine Liturgy for the Theophany 7PM 12 Parish Council Meeting following Sunday Divine Sacrificial Giving Christmas Dec Weekly $ $ Candles $ 2.00 $ 2.00 Monthly $ Holyday $ $ All those Serving in our Armed Forces The Christian Community in the Middle East The Weekly Quiz Who asked Herod for the head of John the Baptist? Herodias The daughter of Herodias Sapphira Candace Last week s answer: Q. The children of this town were killed mercilessly by a paranoid ruler A. Bethlehem