RT. REV. ANDRE ST. GERMAIN (retired) REV. ROGER BOUCHER - Weekend Ministry REV. DEACON PAUL LEONARCZYK

Transcription

1 REV. THOMAS P. STEINMETZ, Pastor REV. ALAM ALAM - Weekend Ministry REV. DEACON ROBERT SPENCER our lady OF THE CEDARS CHURCH A MELKITE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY 140 MITCHELL STREET, MANCHESTER, NH TEL # (603) FAX # (603) oloc.church@comcast.net Website: RT. REV. ANDRE ST. GERMAIN (retired) REV. ROGER BOUCHER - Weekend Ministry REV. DEACON PAUL LEONARCZYK July 22, 2012 The Commemoration of the Holy Myrrh-Bearer and Equal to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene THE EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST Parish Advisory& Finance Council: PAUL ST. GERMAIN, President, ROBERT ANDERSON, ROBIN ANDERSON, BRIAN CULLEN, MARY CULLEN, MARTHA DAGHER, TIM ERMATINGER, PAUL KEARNEY, MARYLOU LAZOS, MATTHEW LOMANNO, KEN MONTY, NAJWA MOUSSOBA, GERALD OUELLETTE, TOM SPENCER N.A.M.Y. Advisor: Sunday School Coordinator: Cedars Society President: ROBIN ANDERSON MARTHA DAGHER MARYLOU LAZOS HOLY MYSTERY OF CONFESSION: Confession is available from any priest before or after any service or by appointment; HOLY MYSTERY OF CHRISTIAN ILLUMINATION: Please contact the clergy in advance to arrange for the required baptismal instructions; HOLY MYSTERY OF CROWNING: At least six months prior to the proposed wedding, please contact the clergy to arrange for the required interview and instructions; HOLY MYSTERY OF THE ANOINTING OF THE SICK: Please contact the pastor at any time when this sacrament is needed; HOLY COMMUNION FOR THE SICK: Anyone too infirm to attend our services may receive Communion in the home. Please advise the clergy whenever this sacrament is needed. Please remember to contact the church if a loved one is in the hospital and would like a visit from the priest. The hospitals do not always notify us!

2 THE ORDER OF TODAY S LITURGY The Troparion of the Resurrection (7 th Tone) Page 57 The Troparion of the Dormition of the Theotokos (1 st Tone): Page 16 Kondakion : O Never Failing Protectress of Christians : Page 17 THE PROKIMENON: THE LORD WILL GIVE STRENGTH TO HIS PEOPLE; THE LORD WILL BLESS HIS PEOPLE WITH PEACE. Give to the Lord, you sons of God, give to the Lord glory and praise. Today s Readings: I Corinthians 3: 9-17 and Matthew 14: LITURGY INTENTIONS Saturday, 4:30 PM: For the repose of George Baroody, Hassibe Elias (6 th ), George Saffy (41 st ), John Steinmetz (27 th ), and Charles Baroody (23 rd ) Sunday, 10:00 AM: For the repose of Therese Azar Dagher (40 Day Memorial), by Saideh Dagher, Abraham Dagher, and Salam & Martha Dagher For the repose of Jack Laliberte (10 Year Anniversary), by his wife Ruthe and Family Next Saturday, 4:30 PM: For the repose of Lucille Holt (27 th ), and William Baroody (32 nd ) Next Sunday, 10:00 AM: For the repose of Theresa Lawrence (9 th Anniversary) There will be a second collection next week for the mortgage. Kitchen Cleaning Party: July 31! You are cordially invited to be part of the fun on Tuesday, July 31, at 6 PM to participate in the Kitchen Cleaning Festivities! Seriously, the parish kitchen needs a good cleaning before our Mahrajan and we need your help. And it s not just ladies work we need to move as much of the kitchen equipment out of the kitchen as possible so that the floor can be properly cleaned and repaired. So don t miss the fun the parish needs you!

3 August 1 to 14: the Fast of the Dormition In preparation for the great feast of the Dormition on August 15, the Church urges us to set aside the two weeks beginning August 1 as a time to draw near to God through prayer, fasting, and good works. How? Try spending ten minutes with the Lord in prayer every day. Fast. Call on the Holy Spirit to empower you to live a renewed life in Christ. Read a little from the Bible each day. Make an effort to extend love and forgiveness to someone. Let us resolve as a parish to seek God together during these coming days, and to ask His blessing upon our community. Mahrajan 2012 Update This big event is less than a month away. Here are some ways that you can help: We need help with food preparation. Monday evening at 6:30 PM we will be preparing and skewering chicken. If you want to place a memorial or other message in our souvenir book, please turn it in soon. The deadline for these messages is July 30!. Consider making a cash donation so that we can buy foodstuffs that we need for this event. There are sign-up sheets for this in the church hall. Please purchase the raffle tickets you will receive in the mail. First prize in the raffle is $1,000! Word of mouth is great advertising. Remember to invite your friends, neighbors, and family to the Mahrajan. They will have fun, you will be proud of your church, and you will be helping your parish! Attendance: Last Sat. 4:30 PM: 16 Last Sunday 11:00 AM: 131 Last Weekend s Collection: $1, The average envelope offering last week was $ The balance remaining on our mortgage is: $ 407, SERVICES FOR THE WEEK (Weekday services will be held in the basement chapel) Tues., July 24 7:00 PM Divine Liturgy: Feast of the Dormition of St. Anne Wed., July 25 7:00 PM Vespers Thurs., July 26 9:00 AM Office of the First and Third Hours Fri. July 27 12:00 PM Office of the Sixth and Ninth Hours Sat. July 28 4:30 PM Divine Liturgy: The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost Sun. July 29 9:15 AM Orthros Sun. July 29 10:00 AM Divine Liturgy: The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost

4 The Holy Myrrh-Bearer and Equal to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene On the banks of Lake Genesareth (Galilee), between the cities of Caparnum and Tiberius, was the small city of Magdala, the remains of which have survived to our day. Now only the small village of Mejhdel stands on the site. From her came the women known to us in the Gospels as Mary Magdalene. The Gospel tells us nothing of Mary's younger years, but Tradition informs us that Mary of Magdala was young and pretty, and led a sinful life. It says in the Gospels that the Lord expelled seven devils from Mary (Luke. 8:2). From the moment of her healing Mary led a new life, and became a true disciple of the Savior. The Gospels tell us that Mary followed after the Lord when He went with the Apostles preaching in the cities and villages of Judea and Galilee. Together with the pious women Joanna, wife of Choza (steward of Herod), Susanna and others, she served Him from her own possessions (Luke 8:1-3) and shared with the Apostles the evangelic tasks in common with the other women. At the time of the Lord s crucifixion she remained fearlessly at the Cross together with the Mother of God and the Apostle John, was a witness to his burial and according to the Gospel of St. John was the first to witness the Risen Christ, and the first to be sent to tell the Good News. When the Apostles departed from Jerusalem to preach to all the ends of the earth, then Mary Magdalene also went with them. A daring woman, whose heart was full of reminiscence of the Resurrection, she went beyond her native borders and went to preach in pagan Rome. Everywhere she proclaimed to people about Christ and His teaching. When many did not believe that Christ is risen, she repeated to them what she had said to the Apostles on the radiant morning of the Resurrection: "I have seen the Lord!" With this message she went all over Italy. It is said that in Italy, Mary Magdalene visited Emperor Tiberias (14-37 A.D.) and proclaimed to him Christ's Resurrection. She brought him a red egg as a symbol of the Resurrection, a symbol of new life with the words: "Christ is Risen!" beginning the custom of giving paschal eggs on the day of the Radiant Resurrection of Christ. Then she told the emperor that in his Province of Judea the unjustly condemned Jesus the Galilean, a holy man, a miracle worker, powerful before God and all mankind, had been executed at the instigation of the Jewish High Priests, and the sentence confirmed by the procurator appointed by Tiberias, Pontius Pilate. Mary repeated the words of the Apostles, that we are redeemed from the vanity of life not with perishable silver or gold, but rather by the precious Blood of Christ. According to Church Tradition, she remained in Rome until in Rome for a number of years, then, bent with age, moved to Ephesus where she finished her earthly life and was buried. Her holy relics were transferred in the ninth century to Constantinople, and placed in the monastery Church of St Lazarus. In the era of the Crusader campaigns they were transferred to Italy and placed at Rome under the altar of the Lateran Cathedral. Part of the relics of Mary Magdalene are said to be in Provage, France near Marseilles, where over them at the foot of a steep mountain a splendid church is built in her honor. -edited from an article found at

5 July 25: The Dormition of St. Anne, the mother of the Theotokos St. Joachim was of the tribe of Judah, and a descendant of King David. St. Anne was the daughter of Matthan the priest, of the tribe of Levi as was Aaron the High Priest. Sts. Joachim and Anne had been married for fifty years, and were barren. They longed for a child but remained childless into their old age. When they were in Jerusalem to offer sacrifice to God, the High Priest, Issachar, upbraided Joachim, "You are not worthy to offer sacrifice with those childless hands." Others who had children jostled Joachim, thrusting him back as unworthy. This caused the aged saint great grief, and he and his wife left with heavy hearts. Then the two of them gave themselves to prayer to God that He would give them a child to comfort their old age. God sent the Archangel Gabriel to each of them, who gave them tidings of the birth of "a daughter most blessed, by whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and through whom will come the salvation of the world." Each promised to have their child raised in the Temple as a holy vessel of God. St. Anne conceived shortly thereafter, and gave birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Sts. Joachim and Anne took Mary, at the age of three, to the temple to be dedicated to the service of the Lord, and presented her to the priest Zechariahs. The parents then, after offering up her sacrifice (according to the custom of the time), left the Virgin with other maidens in the apartments of the temple to be brought up therein. During the next seven years, Righteous Anne and Joachim visited Mary often at the temple until they died, leaving her an orphan at age ten. St Anne, having been left a widow, moved from Nazareth to Jerusalem, and lived near the Temple. At Jerusalem she bought two pieces of property: the first at the gates of Gethsemane, and the second in the valley of Josaphat. At the second locale she built a tomb for the members of her family, and where also she herself was buried with Joachim. It was there in the Garden of Gethsemane that the Savior often prayed with His disciples. The most-pure body of the Mother of God was buried in the family tomb. Christians honored the sepulcher of the Mother of God, and they built a church on this spot. Within the church was preserved the precious funeral cloth, which covered Her all-pure and fragrant body. The holy Patriarch Juvenal of Jerusalem ( ) testified before the emperor Marcian ( ) as to the authenticity of the tradition about the miraculous ascent of the Mother of God to Heaven, and he sent to the empress, St Pulcheria, the grave wrappings of the Mother of God from Her tomb. St Pulcheria then placed these grave-wrappings within the Blachernae church. During the reign of St Justinian the Emperor ( ), a church was built in honor of St Anne at Deutera. And since St Anne had appeared to his pregnant wife, Emperor Justinian II ( ; ) restored her church. It was at this time that her body and maphorion (veil) were transferred to Constantinople. -edited from an article at

6 A Table in the Wilderness THE MIRACULOUS FEEDING OF 5000 with five loaves and two fish is reported in each of the four Gospels. In both the earliest and latest Gospels there is an unusual unanimity in the details they relate: more than most other Gospel narratives including the Resurrection. This reflects the great importance which the first Christians attached to this narrative. In it they see the Lord Jesus connected to the great movements of God in the past, the present and the future. The Past: the Exodus from Egypt As is well known, the Gospel of Matthew was written for Jewish believers who were convinced that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. They also saw many Old Testament events as types, pointing to New Testament events which surpass the Old in God s plan for our salvation. The early Church Fathers in the Greek and Latin worlds had the same vision. Thus St. Cyril of Alexandria would write, All that is written about the blessed Moses we affirm to be an icon and a type of that salvation which comes in Christ (Glaphyra on Exodus, 1.3). The feeding of the 5000 was one such event, in which Christ s actions reflect that He is the New Moses and more: the One who worked through Moses on behalf of the children of Israel. Just as the exodus from Egypt begins with Pharaoh oppressing the Israelites, the Gospel story begins with Herod s murder of John the Baptist. While Pharaoh oppresses the Israelites because they were so numerous, Herod kills John because of his moral stance. Hearing about John s death, Jesus goes apart, to a deserted place (Mt 14:13). Jesus, His disciples and the people who came to Him from the cities were in a desert just as Moses, his soldiers, and the crowd were in Sinai. When the Israelites were in the desert with Moses God fed them with manna and quail, which Psalm 78:24 calls the bread of heaven. While the Galileans were in the wilderness with Jesus, He himself fed them with bread and fish. The feeding of the Israelites in Sinai was connected to their passage through the Red Sea on dry ground (Ex 14:23 et al.). The feeding of the 5000 is connected to the miracle of Jesus walking on the sea (Mt 14:25) which follows immediately. While the Israelites walked on the ground exposed by the parting of the sea, Jesus walks on the sea itself. The Present: Jesus Nourishes the Church This event marks the first time in the Gospel that the whole crowd will be invited to eat together with Christ, showing His desire to gather all His followers around a common table with Him. St Hilary of Poitiers noted that the first Church those who responded to the preaching of Peter numbered about 5000 men (Acts 4:4). The 5000 fed in the wilderness point to those 5000 who were the first to be nourished by the presence of Christ in His Church.

7 On that table in the wilderness was bread and fish. We recall that, for Christians during the Roman persecutions, the fish was a code-sign for Christ. The letters of the Greek word for fish icthys were an anagram for the profession of faith, Jesus Christ Son of God, Savior. The bread which Jesus took blessed and broke (Mt 14: 19) was an icon for the early Christians of the Eucharist in which we receive the Son of God our Savior, the Bread of life. Thus the feeding of the 5000 points to the Church and its communal meal, the Eucharist. The Future: the Messianic Banquet Earlier in Matthew s Gospel we see Jesus pointing to the future: I say to you that many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Mt 8:11). He was alluding to the idea of the Messianic Banquet, the great feast that represented for Jews that communion with God, which the coming of the Messiah would bring about. This feast is described in Isaiah 25:6-9 in terms which make us think of the feeding of the 5000: And in this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces, a feast of well-refined wines.... He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; for the LORD has spoken. And it will be said in that day: Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. The Messiah would come and restore Israel. The scattered Jews of the world would be drawn back to their homeland and they would all sit down to a great meal of celebration. How could the first Jewish believers in Christ not have thought of this banquet when reflecting on the feeding of the 5000? When Jesus spoke of many coming from east and west He was adding a new note to the concept of this banquet: it would be open to Gentiles and many sons of the kingdom would be excluded. The kingdom of God and this, the great feast of the kingdom would feature Jews and Gentiles eating together (an act forbidden in Jewish tradition). And so in Mt 15:30-38 we find Jesus miracle repeated, after He heals the Canaanite woman in the area of Tyre and Sidon. But this time it is 4000 Gentiles who were fed. The feeding of these multitudes Jews and Gentiles would proclaim to believing Jews that the time of the Messiah had arrived. In Our Worship Byzantine worship includes several allusions to the feeding of the multitudes. In the Divine Liturgy it is prescribed that five loaves be used to prepare the oblation. The Lamb is cut from one of them; the others are used to provide the particles representing the Theotokos and the saints, and the living and the dead for whom we pray. Once again the Church is fed from five loaves. Five loaves are also used in the rite of artoklasia (breaking of the bread) celebrated on major feasts. The priest prays, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, who blessed the five loaves in the wilderness and thus sustained five thousand men, bless these loaves, along with this wheat, wine and oil, and multiply them in this holy city and for Your whole world, and sanctify the faithful who partake of them Traditionally in some Churches many other loaves would be provided to feed the needy while the people sing, Rich men have turned poor and gone hungry, but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good thing. Thus the Messianic banquet and the soup kitchen have something in common: both point to the Lord as the ultimate and unfailing nourisher of all mankind.

8 Please remember to pray for the health and protection of Genevieve Allen, Elizabeth Ashooh, Elsie Ashooh, Louise Ashooh, Alice Auclair, Erin Baroody, Michael Baroody, Sarah Baroody, Ted Baroody, Gertrude Beadle, Anthony Blando, Diane Burroughs, Josep Busquets, Danielle Caron, Meghan Connors, Lucy Corriveau, Theresa Cullen, Jamileh Dagher, Nicholas Daniak, Lynn Dargie, Marie Dargie, Sher Farrow, Declan Finn, Julie Fregeau, Mary Fregeau, Christine Freitas, Anne Gallagher, Stan Gillis, Jean Hannoush, Lucille Harper, Robert Hughes, Howard Jabaley, Shirley Lanoue, Sadie Grace McCallum, Miriam McCallum, James McCloskey, Susan Merrill, Margaret Mitchell, Blaise Notter, Steven O Leary, Josephine Paquette, Virginia Pichette, Jean Poleatewich, Sheila Quinn, Eugene Randlett, Adam Rubin, David Scott, Robert Siwik, Nassim Sleiman, Salwa Sleiman, Tarrant Smith, Sam Solomon, Sheila Swiderek, Catherine Waldron, and Iris Angelina Velasquez. If you are visiting our church, our parish family is delighted to welcome you here! Please give us the chance to get to know you by joining us for some coffee, pastry, and conversation in the church hall following the Divine Liturgy. If you would like to know more about the Melkite Catholic Church, check out the brochure entitled Welcome to this Holy House, located on the table in the back of the church NORTH HILLS REALTY GROUP, LLC Residential Real Estate Brokers Abraham Dagher, Realtor 814 Elm St., Suite # 302 Manchester, NH (603) STEPHEN LAW GROUP ROBERT S. STEPHEN, MANAGING ATTORNEY SERVING ALL OF YOUR LEGAL NEEDS! (603) Elm St., Suite 303, Manchester NH Your Ad Here $300 per Year GLENWOOD INVESTMENT GROUP CHARLES L. STEPHEN 814 ELM ST., SUITE 503 MANCHESTER, NH TEL # (603) TOLL FREE 1 (866) chuck@glenwoodinvestment.com GEORGE AZZO R&G Construction, LLC NEW CONSTRUCTION, REMODELING, REPAIRS, ALL JOBS BIG AND SMALL! Free Estimates (603) Check out the Mahrajan Website: SUSAN ASHOOH LAZOS, REALTOR NH Association of Realtors HONOR SOCIETY susanashoohlazos.com Cell: SERVING SOUTHERN NH AND THE SEACOAST Prudential Verani Realty