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. Protodeacon Michael Jolly Administrator pro tempore Reader Michael Simon Reader John Fitzgerald Parish Office Web: Webmaster: Sal Zaydon Liturgy Intentions April 21, 2013 Josephine Ferri Boots Zaydon Karen Murray Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Daywood April 28, 2013 Deceased members of the Barron and Shehadi Families Marie Barron April Tone 3 and Orthros Gospel 5 Liturgy Schedule: Saturday Vespers 5 pm Compline Weds 8:30PM Marie Abda Mr and Mrs James Abda Sunday of the Parlytic Sunday Orthros 8:55 am Sunday Divine Liturgy 10:00 am Parish Notes: Welcome back Father Jerome Wolbert who serves at our altar this week The Qurban consecrated at today s liturgy was baked by Giovanni Olsen Saint Joseph breakfast is Today! The Saint Joseph Rummage Sale will be the held on June 8th. You can start collecting for your surplus, priceless treasures. The Parish Council Will Meet Next Sunday April 28th after Divine Liturgy. Today is a feast day for all of us paralytics. Today, brothers and sisters, we to a certain degree are meeting our name-day, our feast day. Who among us can boast that he is strong, courageous, bearing all the misfortunes of this age, fulfilling all of Christ s commandments? Deliver us, O Lord, if such a person stands in our midst one cannot imagine a worse righteous or strong man! The Apostle Paul says: Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong (2 Cor 12:10). But the Apostle did not deprive himself of one thing: strong faith and undoubting hope in the Savior. The power of God is made perfect in weakness!

3 The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom Antiphons: O Christ our God, Who participate with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the dominion over all, You have appeared in the flesh healing infirmities. You have dispelled suffering and restored light to the blind by your divine command. You raised the Paralytic and ordered him to walk at once. Remember us in your compassion. Shine in our hearts your pure light. Open the eyes of our minds. Set in us the fear of your commandments, so that we May live according to the spirit, doing what pleases You. For You are our Light, our Life and our Resurrection, O Christ God, and to You we render glory, thanksgiving and worship, and to your Eternal Father and your All-holy, Good and Life-giving Spirit, now and always and forever and ever. Father and your All-holy, Good and Life-giving Spirit, now and always and forever and ever. First Antiphon 1 Shout joyfully to the Lord all you on earth. R. Through the prayers of the Mother of God, O Savior save us! Tone 2 Pg Sing praise to the glory of His Name; Proclaim His glorious praise. 3. Say to God how tremendous are your deeds! For your great strength your enemies fawn upon You. 4 Glory be... Second Antiphon 1. May God be propitious to us and bless us. May He make His face to shine upon us and have mercy on us. R. O Son of God, Who are risen from the dead Tone 2 Pg, May Your Name be known upon earth; among all nations Your salvation. 3. May the peoples praise You O Lord, may all the peoples praise You. Hymn of incarnation Tone 4 Pg. 13 Third Antiphon 1. Let God arise and His enemies will scatter and those who hate Him will flee before Him. R. Christ is Risen Tone 5 Pg As smoke vanishes let them vanish away and melt as wax before the fire. 3. So do sinners perish before God but let the just exult with joy before God 4. This is the day the Lord Has made. Let us rejoice and be glad therein. Hymns: Troparion of the Resurrection Tone 3 Pg. 16 Troparion of Saint Joseph Kontakion of Pascha Tone 2 Pg. 86 Though You went down in the tomb, O Immortal One, You overthrew the power of hades, and rose victorious, O Christ God, Your greeted the Ointment Bearing Women, saying: Rejoice! You gave peace to your Apostles, and to those who had fallen resurrection. Prokiemenon (Tone 3) Ps. 46: 7, 2 Sing praise to our God, sing praise! Sing praise to our King, sing praise! Stichon All you peoples, clap your hands! Shout to God with cries of gladness! Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, 9:32-42 In those days it came to pass that Peter, while visiting all of them, came to the saints living at Lydda. And he found there a certain man named Aeneas who had been lying in bed for eight years, since he was a paralytic. And Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ is healing you: get up and make your bed. And he

4 got up immediately. And all the inhabitants of Lydda and the plain of Sharon saw him, and they were converted to the Lord. Now in Joppa there was a certain woman disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas, and she devoted herself to good works and almsgiving. But it happened at that time that she fell ill and died: and they washed her and laid her in an upper room. And since Lydda is close to Joppa, the disciples, hearing Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, Come to us without delay. And Peter got up and went with them, and on his arrival, they led him to the upper room, and all the widows stood around him weeping, showing him the gowns and cloaks Dorcas used to make for them. But Peter, putting them all out, knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, get up! And she opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up. Then Peter gave her his hand and raised her up, and calling the saints and the widows, he gave her back to them alive. And it became known all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Alleluia (Tone 3) Ps.30: 2, 3 In you, O Lord, I have hoped: let me never be put to shame. In your justice, save me and deliver me, lend me your ear and hasten my deliverance. Stichon: Be for me a protecting God, a sheltering house to save me. king and listen to us on whatever day we call upon you. The Holy Gospel according to Saint John 5: 1-15 At that time Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem, by the pool of the sheep, a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. In these were lying a great multitude of the sick, blind, lame, and those with shriveled limbs, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel of the Lord used to come down at certain times into the pool and the water was stirred. And the first to go down into the pool after the stirring of the water was cured of whatever infirmity he had. Now a certain man was there who had been thirty-eight years under his infirmity. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been in this state a long time, he asked him, Do you want to get well? The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred; for while I am coming another steps down before me. Jesus said to him, Rise, take up your pallet and walk. And at once the man was cured. And he took up his pallet and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath. The Jews therefore said to him who had been healed, It is the Sabbath; you are not allowed to take up the pallet. He answered them, He who made me well said to me, Take up your pallet and walk They asked him then, Who is the man who said to you, Take up your pallet and walk? But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd in the place. Afterwards Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, Behold, you are cured. Sin no more, lest something worse happen to you. The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.. Hymn to the Theotokos / Hirmos tone 1 Pg. 87 The angel cried out to the one who is full of grace: "Hail, O Immaculate Virgin! Hail, again! For your Son is risen from the tomb on the third day!" Shine, shine, O new Jerusalem, for the glory of the Lord has shone upon you. Rejoice and be glad, O Sion; and you, O Pure One, O Mother of God, exult in the resurrection of your Son! Kinonikon Exalt the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, Zion! Alleluia!, Hymn after communion Christ is risen! (1x)

5 Among Today s Saints Saint Martin the Confessor, Pope of Rome, was a native of the Tuscany region of Italy. He received a fine education and entered into the clergy of the Roman Church. After the death of Pope Theodore I ( ), Martin was chosen to succeed him. At this time the peace of the Church was disturbed by the Monothelite heresy (the false doctrine that in Christ there is only one will. He has a divine, and a human will). The endless disputes of the Monothelites with the Orthodox took place in all levels of the population. Even the emperor Constans ( ) and Patriarch Paul of Constantinople ( ) were adherents of the Monothelite heresy. The emperor Constans II published the heretical Pattern of Faith, obligatory for all the population. It forbade all further disputes. The heretical Pattern of Faith was received at Rome in the year 649. St Martin, a firm supporter of Orthodoxy, convened the Lateran Council at Rome to condemn the Monothelite heresy. At the same time St Martin sent a letter to Patriarch Paul, persuading him to return to the Orthodox confession of faith. The enraged emperor ordered the military commander Olympius to bring St Martin to trial. But Olympius feared the clergy and the people of Rome who had descended upon the Council, and he sent a soldier to murder the holy hierarch. When the assassin approached St Martin, he was blinded. The terrified Olympius fled to Sicily and was soon killed in battle. In 654 the emperor sent another military commander, Theodore, to Rome. He accused St Martin of being in secret correspondence with the enemies of the Empire, the Saracens, and of blaspheming the Most Holy Theotokos, and of uncanonically assuming the papal throne. Despite the proofs offered by the Roman clergy and laity of St Martin s innocence, the military commander Theodore with a detachment of soldiers seized St Martin by night and took him to Naxos, one of the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea. St Martin spent an entire year on this almost unpopulated island, suffering deprivation and abuse from the guards. Then they sent the exhausted confessor to Constantinople for trial. They carried the sick man on a stretcher, but the judges callously ordered him to stand up and answer their questions. The soldiers propped up the saint, who was weakened by illness. False witnesses came forward slandering the saint and accusing him of treasonous relations with the Saracens. The biased judges did not even bother to hear the saint s defense. In sorrow he said, The Lord knows what a great kindness you would show me if you would deliver me quickly over to death. After such a trial they brought the saint out in tattered clothes to a jeering crowd. They shouted, Anathema to Pope Martin! But those who knew the holy Pope was suffering unjustly, withdrew in tears. Finally the sentence was announced: St Martin was to be deposed from his rank and executed. They bound the half-naked saint with chains and dragged him to prison, where they locked him up with thieves. These were more merciful to the saint than the heretics. In the midst of all this the emperor went to the dying Patriarch Paul and told him of the trial of St Martin. He turned away from the emperor and said, Woe is me! This is another reason for my judgment. He asked that St Martin s torments be stopped. The emperor again sent a notary and other persons to the saint in prison to interrogate him. The saint answered, Even if they cripple me, I will not have relations with the Church of Constantinople while it remains in its evil doctrines. The torturers were astonished at the confessor s boldness, and they commuted his death sentence to exile at Cherson in the Crimea. There the saint died, exhausted by sickness, hunger and deprivations on September 16, 655. He was buried outside the city in the Blachernae church of the Most Holy Theotokos, and later the relics of the holy confessor Martin were transferred to Rome. The Monothelite heresy was condemned at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680.

6 Among Today s Saints Hieromartyr Januarius Bishop of Beneventum, and the deacons Proculus, Sossius and Faustus, Desiderius the Reader, Eutychius and Acution suffered martyrdom for Christ about the year 305 during the persecution ordered by the emperor Diocletian ( ). They arrested St Januarius and led him to trial before Menignus, the governor of Campagna (central Italy). Because of his firm confession of Christianity, they threw the saint into a red-hot furnace. But like the Babylonian youths, he came out unharmed. Then at Menignus s command, they stretched him out on a bench and beat him with iron rods until his bones were exposed. In the crowd were Deacon Faustus and the Reader Desiderius, who wept at the sight of their bishop s suffering. The pagans surmised that they were Christians, and threw them into prison with the hieromartyr Januarius, in the city of Puteolum. At this prison were two deacons who had been jailed for confessing Christ: Sts Sossius and Proculus, and also two laymen, Sts Eutychius and Acution. On the following morning they led out all the martyrs into the circus to be torn to pieces by wild beasts, but the beasts would not touch them. Menignus claimed that all the miracles were due to sorcery on the part of the Christians, and immediately he became blinded and cried out for help. The gentle hieromartyr Januarius prayed for his healing, and Menignus recovered his sight. The torturer s blindness of soul, however, was not healed. He accused the Christians of sorcery, and ordered the martyrs beheaded before the walls of the city (+ 305). Christians from surrounding cities took up the bodies of the holy martyrs for burial, and those of each city took one, in order to have an intercessor before God. The inhabitants of Neapolis (Naples) took the body of the hieromartyr Januarius. With the body, they also collected his dried blood. Since the fifteenth century, the blood liquifies when the container is placed near another relic, believed to be the martyr s head. Many miracles proceeded from the relics of the hieromartyr Januarius. During an eruption of Vesuvius around 431, the inhabitants of the city prayed to St Januarius to help them. The lava stopped, and did not reach the city. Mid Pentecost The fifty days following Pascha until the Feast of Pentecost are known as the period of the Pentecostarion in the Melkite Church. At the mid-point between these great feasts of Pascha and Pentecost, on the twenty-fifth day which is always a Wedneday, is one of the most beloved feasts for the most devout Christians known quite simply as Mid- Pentecost. Mid-Pentecost is to the Pentecostarion what the Third Sunday of Great Lent which honors the Holy Cross is to the period of Great Lent. It is a day which helps us focus on the central theme of the entire period. Whereas the midpoint of Great Lent reminds us to bear up the Cross of Christ bravely so that we may daily die with Christ in order to experience the Resurrection of our Lord, so also the midpoint of the Pentecostarion enlightens us regarding the theme of the fifty days following Pascha - which is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit poured out as a gift upon all the faithful who partake of the living water which is Christ Himself. The Feast of Mid-Pentecost is celebrated for an entire week until the following Wednesday, making it an eight day feast. During this entire time the hymns of Mid-Pentecost are joined with that of Pascha. Because of the theme of water, traditionally the Church celebrates the Lesser Blessing of the Waters on this day, preferably with a procession with the Holy Cross to a water spring. The theme of the feast not only invokes water, but even more central to the Gospel chronology it honors Christ as Teacher and Wisdom as He reveals Himself between the stories of the Paralytic and that of the Blind Man. During this time we are told: "Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught...jesus answered them, and said, 'My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself'" (John 7:14-30). The icon for this feast depicts the young Jesus teaching the elders in the Temple (Luke 2:46, 47) at which time Jesus first revealed Himself as a teacher or rabbi. Traditional Orthodox icons will depict Jesus as larger than the elders, showing his superior spiritual status. Since the hymns of the Church invoke and praise our Lord as the Wisdom of God spoken of in the Book of Proverbs, it is traditional that all churches named after Holy Wisdom or Hagia Sophia celebrate their feast on this day. In fact, Greek scholar Constantine Kalokyre has written a study titled "The Churches of the Wisdom of God and the Date of their Celebration", which appeared in the periodical Saint Gregory Palamas, no. 71 (723) (1988), pp In this study he comes to the conclusion that the Great Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople celebrated its feast day on Mid-Pentecost.

7 St Michael Icon Retreat: May 2-5, Iconographer Peter Pearson returns to Holy Dormition Friary to teach the icon of St Michael the Archangel. Participants will complete an icon of St Michael with group and individualized instruction. No experience necessary. Thursday & Friday 6:30-9:30pm, Saturday all day (lunch included), Sunday afternoon. Cost: $200 plus optional room & board includes all materials. For more information: or call ext 402. St. Michael s Byzantine Catholic Church, 205 North Main St., Pittston will be having a SPRING CRAFT SHOW on May 5, 2013 from 9-4pm in our Church Hall. There will be a variety of craft vendors and excellent luncheon foods available along with music. There is plenty of parking and free admission so come and join us for the day. Call Michael at or Jerry at for more details. Annual Saint Joseph Breakfast Sunday April 21 nd 8am-1pm ADULTS: $7.50 Kids Under 10: $4 Devotions and Readings for this week Mon 4/22 Holy Father Theodore Sykeotes, Bishop of Anastasiopolis Acts 10:1-6 Jn 6:56-69 Tues 4/23 Weds 4/24 Thurs 4/25 Fri 4/26 Holy Great Martyr George Gal 3:23-4:5 JN 15:17-6:2 Venerable Mother Elizabeth the Wonderworker & the Holy Martyr Sabas the Goth Acts 14:6-18 Jn 7:14-30 Holy Apostle Mark the Evangelist 1 PT 5:6-14 Lk 10:16-21 Holy Hieromartyr Basil, Bishop of Amasia Acts 10:44-11:10 Jn 8:21-30 Sat 4/27 Holy Hieromartyr Simeon, cousin of the Lord & Holy Father Stephen, Bishop of Vladimir Acts 12:1-11 Jn 8:31-42

8 Sunday of the Paralytic ALL THE WIDOWS STOOD AROUND HIM, crying (Acts 9:39). The description of the recently deceased Dorcas or Tabitha does not mention that she was a widow. It does note, however, that those who mourned her were not her relatives but widows. It is likely, then, that Dorcas herself was a widow. As we know from the institution of deacons, care for widows was one of the first functions that the earliest Christians undertook. It was not long before these women were organized into formal groups with specific responsibilities in the Church. St Paul s First Epistle to Timothy, written 20 to 25 years later, includes a chapter devoted to overseeing the formal group of widows in the Church at Ephesus. The epistle indicates that this group should include: Widows Who Had No One to Care for Them Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. Give the people these instructions, so that no one may be open to blame. Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (verses 3-8). That families care for their elderly members is a hallmark of most traditional societies. There are always exceptions, however, due to inability, greed or other circumstances such as upheavals in societies. In 2012 China enacted a law requiring adult children to visit their parents regularly. As Chinese traditional society changes into a modern urban nation, the elderly are often left to their own devices. The new law threatens court action against those who abandon or neglect their parents. If any woman who is a believer has widows in her care, she should continue to help them and not let the church be burdened with them, so that the church can help those widows who are really in need (verse 16). Widows 60 Years of Age and Older No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she is over sixty, has been faithful to her husband As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to. So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan (verses 9, 11-15). By the time this epistle was written widows in Ephesus has a recognized status in the Church. Like the bishops and deacons, enrolled widows had to show a certain stability of life before they could be enrolled. They had to be content with their station in life, to be psychologically free to pledge themselves to the service of God and the Church. This is the same principle behind the later regulation that married men could be ordained deacons, but once ordained could not marry. Widows Known for Doing Good and is well known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the Lord s people, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds (verse 10). Dorcas is described in the Scripture as always doing good and helping the poor (Acts 9:36). We do not know what else she did but we do know that she made robes and other clothing (Acts 9:36) because the mourners displayed them to Peter. Handiwork was a preferred occupation for women in the Church for centuries, lay and monastic. In nineteenth-century Britain a Dorcas Society was founded to provide clothing and other necessities to the poor. Chapters that continued to exist since then diversified to include other forms of community service.

9 Widows in Later Centuries Widows institutes continued to be a feature of Church life in the second and third centuries. We find references to them in the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, in The Shepherd of Hermas and in the works of Clement of Alexandria and Origen. The late second-century Didascalia or Instructions of the Apostles describes the principles governing enrolled widows in Antioch. Bishops are enjoined to only enroll widows over 50 who are mild and even-tempered. They were to be at the service of the bishop and have one particular occupation. Didascalia 15 lays down this precept: A widow should have no other care save to be praying for those who give, and for the whole Church. In 1899 the Syriac Catholic Patriarch, Mar Ignatius Ephrem II Rahmani published a fifth-century Syrian work called The Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Syrian Church at the time widows seem to have served as eldresses. They are charged with instructing other women, supervising the deaconesses, and visiting sick women, but in the church let her be silent (Testament 40). A prayer for instituting widows is given in which the bishop prays that the widow be instituted for edification and good example. In this prayer the widows are called those who sit in front in recognition of their special status within the Church. In The Testament s order for the Oblation (Liturgy), however, the widows are positioned within the veil on the left side of the sanctuary, behind the presbyters. The widows are directed to receive the Eucharist after the deacons, but before the readers and subdeacons. This is the last reference to an order of widows that survives from the early Church. It is assumed that this order, like those of virgins and deaconesses, was absorbed in the newer institution of monasticism. Women monastics would exercise many of the same functions as these earlier women both in their monasteries and in the churches of the people. Widows Today Up to our own day widows and other older women continued to contribute their handiwork and other forms of service to the Church. Many of our churches dating from the nineteenth century were supported by the older women in the community who baked or cooked various foods every week to raise money for their church. More recently the Church has focused on providing senior citizens (men as well as women) with opportunities to socialize (bingos, trips etc.). Would not some of these seniors find new life devoting themselves to prayer and/or service? The Church might best serve them by reminding them of the words of St. Paul: The widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. Peter Raises Tabitha

10 Today is called the Sunday of the Paralytic in the Melkite liturgical calendar. It is so called because of the Gospel appointed to be read today, John 5:1, which recounts the healing by our Lord Jesus Christ of a paralytic at the Sheep Pool, called Bethesda. (You have probably heard of a very famous hospital in Maryland, near Washington D.C., called Bethesda and, if you didn t know before, now you know that it s called that because of the Gospel association of Bethesda with healing.) Todday you can stand at the side of the ruins of the Pool of Bethesda. It is located in a Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, just behind the beautiful crusader church of St. Anna, which stands next to the site of the house in which the parents of the Theotokos lived, and where the Virgin Mary was also born. There is a back story here. As you know, in the first century the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and so, until the 19th century, there was no visible, above-ground evidence for this pool. As a result, skeptical biblical scholars decided that both the place and the and the story in the Gospel were fiction; this Gospel, they maintained was actually written long after St. John s death and by someone who wasn t familiar with the layout and geography of Jerusalem in the time of Christ. But then, archaeologists discovered the ruins under much rubble of a holding tank that exactly corresponds to the Pool of Bethesda in St. John s account! Further digging confirmed this. Of course this didn t stop the skeptics, who have continued to maintain their impious and even unscientific views of Scripture in general. But the ruins of the pool are there: and it has been verified by scientists to be the real McCoy; you can go there and pray and read the account of the healing of the paralytic on the spot where it happened! It s also called the Sheep Pool, by the way, because this was the place where sheep that were to be sacrificed in the nearby Temple were washed and inspected to be sure that they were without blemish. There were also five porches or porticos around the pool, and in the shelter of these marble porches great numbers of the sick and diseased gathered, waiting for what was called the troubling of the water. What was this about, this troubling of the water? According to Jewish belief, once a year an angel would descend and stir up the waters, and the first person to get into the water when the angel did this, would be healed. According to the patristic tradition, there is more to this story. Our Holy Fathers teach us that when Adam was expelled from Eden he took with him two seeds from the Tree of Life. One of these seeds he planted in what was much later to become a suburb of Jerusalem. This seed grew into the tree that became the wood of the Cross, and this spot is marked today by an Orthodox monastery dedicated to the Holy Cross. The other seed, however, was dropped accidentally by Adam, and the waters of a spring immediately came to the surface and hid it; in time this became what we call the Pool of Bethesda, or the Sheep Pool. And thus, each year, on the anniversary of Adam s having dropped this seed there, an angel from heaven descended and stirred the water into a whirlpool, seeking the seed. But of course the action of a holy angel is filled with grace grace so strong that it could heal someone of even a dire or terminal illness. This is the back story to this Gospel account. (Of course modern bible scholars discount all of this because they discount anything that is miraculous.) And this back story has taken up most of my sermon this morning. But there is one other thing I need to point out before concluding, and that is this: The lord s healing of the paralytic reminds us most forcefully that all of us, to one degree or another, and in one way or another, are also paralyzed not necessarily physically, but spiritually, and sometimes also intellectually and mentally.

11 People who are not open to knowledge and learning and new ideas are intellectually paralyzed and this describes the majority of people in our society and culture today, including many of those who attend our very left-leaning and agnostic colleges and universities and are considered educated. These are people who have turned their backs on Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and they have closed their minds to the miraculous and the Church which was established upon the faith of St. Peter and the other Apostles. And then there are those who are mental paralyzed those suffering from mental illnesses and from advanced forms of dementia. And finally, there are those who are us, we are spiritually paralyzed and that describes the majority of us, we who make little or no effort to appeal to the Lord for healing of our spiritual illnesses and ailments. We who make little or no attempt to cooperate with the powerful grace and energy that God sends to us every day and which we turn away from; we who confess our sins and then turn right around and do them all over again, demonstrating our complete lack of repentance and determination to change. increases all through our lives, becoming stronger and stronger, greater and greater in their size and ability to corrupt us unless, that is, we finally humble down and seek the Lord s healing. Of course, we can receive healing and grace and strength through the traditional channels of grace, which are the sacraments or Holy Mysteries of the Church in particular worthily-received Holy Communion and sincere and frequent Confession. But we must never overlook the fact that our Lord can and often acts directly on the human soul. This direct contact between the Lord Jesus Christ and a troubled soul is often overlooked, underestimated, or ignored. But this contact, this healing, comes specifically through an active and mature prayer life and through a broken heart, a heart that realizes, finally, that it can do nothing for itself without Christ, as the Psalm says, a broken and a contrite heart, God will not despise. We seem to have forgotten, or don t believe, that the lord is sovereign over any and all difficulties and illnesses. And this gospel account shows that he is also sovereign over sins. Remember, in this particular healing, Christ says that the man s paralysis is the result of his sins and that if he continues to sin, an even worse malady will come upon him. Now, not all physical illness is the result of sin, but this Gospel lets us know that some illness is! However, we know for sure that all spiritual illness is the result of sin. Sins that we repeatedly commit; sins with which we do even struggle; sins that we do not seek the Lord s strength to deal with; sins that we justify to ourselves and others all of these plant a seed of spiritual disease that grows and

12 Prayer Requests Rev. Deacon John Karam Rev. Basil Samra Rev. Father David White Michael Abda Yolande Haddad Marie Barron Marylou Iandoli Joseph Barron Niko Mayashairo Mary Sue Betress Mary McNeilly Chris Carey Marie Patchoski Nikki Boudreaux Theodore Petrouchko Jr. Parish Calendar April 21 Saint Joseph Breakfast adults 7.50 Children Parish Council after Divine Liturgy May 8 Vespers for Ascension 9 Divine Liturgy for Ascension 19 Pentecost 27 Memorial Day June 8 Parish Rummage Sale Dr. Frances Colie John Colie Mark Dillman Margaret Dillenburg Carol Downer Charles Simon Charlene Simpson Ruth Sirgany James Shehadi Kennedy Stevenson Sacrificial Giving 4/14/2013 Weekly (includes Pascha) $ 1, Candles $ Karen Haddad Jemille Zaydon All those Serving in our Armed Forces The Christian Community in the Middle East The Weekly Quiz Who prophesied that Jesus would be crucified with others saying, "he was numbered with the transgressors?" Hosea Joel Zechariah Isaiah Last week s answer: Q. What were the disciples doing the third time Jesus appeared to them after His resurrection? A. Fishing