REV. DEACON PAUL LEONARCZYK

Transcription

1 our lady OF THE CEDARS CHURCH A MELKITE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY 140 MITCHELL STREET, MANCHESTER, NH TEL # (603) FAX # (603) oloc.church@comcast.net Website: REV. THOMAS P. STEINMETZ, Pastor RT. REV. ANDRE ST. GERMAIN (retired) REV. ROGER BOUCHER - Weekend Ministry REV. DEACON ROBERT SPENCER REV. DEACON PAUL LEONARCZYK "Enter the Church and repent... for here is the physician, not the judge. Here one is not investigated, one receives remission of sins." (St. John Chrysostom) April 27, 2014 The First Sunday After Great and Holy Pascha THE SUNDAY OF ST. THOMAS Parish Advisory& Finance Council: KEN MONTY (PRESIDENT), RICHARD ASHOOH, ROBERT ANDERSON, ROBIN ANDERSON, MARY CULLEN, MARTHA DAGHER, MARYLOU LAZOS, TERRI LEONARCZYK, MATTHEW LOMANNO, PAUL MANSUR, NAJWA MOUSSOBA, JENNA NEHME, PAUL ST. GERMAIN, AND CHRISTELLE SLAYBE Parish Secretary: ROBIN ANDERSON Cedars Society President: MARYLOU LAZOS Sunday School Coordinator: MARTHA DAGHER N.A.M.Y. Advisor: ROBIN ANDERSON HOLY MYSTERY OF CONFESSION: Sunday 10 AM & 12:45 PM, 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 the church!

2 THE ORDER OF TODAY S LITURGY The Troparion of The Sunday of St. Thomas (7 th Tone) Three Times While the stone was sealed, You shone forth from it, O Christ our Life. And while the doors remained closed, You stood among Your disciples, O Resurrection of all, and through them You restored a new spirit is us, according to Your great mercy. Kondakion of Pascha (2 nd Tone) Though You went down in the tomb O Immortal One, You overthrew the powers of Hades and rose victorious, O Christ God. You greeted the ointment-bearing women saying, Rejoice! You gave peace to Your Apostles, and to those who had fallen, resurrection. THE PROKIMENON: GREAT IS OUR LORD, AND GREAT IS HIS POWER, AND TO HIS WISDOM THERE IS NO LIMIT! Praise the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures forever! Today s Readings: Acts 5: and John 20: Hirmos of St. Thomas Sunday (5 th Tone) O Shinning Light, O Mother of God, honorable without compare, you are higher in dignity than any other creature. We magnify you with hymns. LITURGY INTENTIONS Saturday, 4:30 PM: For the repose of Juliette Bilodeau (12 th Anniversary), by Henry Bilodeau For the repose of Rt. Rev. Lucien Malouf (32 nd ), Saide George (50 th ), Tanous Noufel (48 th ), Ernest Elias (11 th ), Shadan Attalla (32 nd ), Abraham Abood (14 th ), Elias Jadda (69 th ), Frederick Samara (10 th ), Robert Smith (3 rd ), Mercedes Tesaluna (32 nd ), and Sophie Haidar (15 th ) Sunday, 11:00 AM: For the repose of Gerry Ouellette, who fell asleep in the Lord on April 9 Next Saturday, 4:30 PM: For the repose of Barbara Ashooh (56 th ), David Akoury (8 th ), Najeeb Ashooh (56 th ), Zihree Burkush (46 th ), Rose Stephen (46 th ), Habib Nassoura (15 th ), Zakia Kalil (34 th ), Joan Case (12 th ), John Stephen (69 th ), Gaby Stephen (43 rd ), and Robert Baroody (10 th ) Next Sunday, 11:00 AM: For the repose of Gerald Harper, by his wife Lucille

3 TROPARION OF PASCHA Christ is risen from the dead, and by His death He has trampled upon Death, and has given life to those were in the tombs! Christos Anesti ek nekron thanato thanaton bateesas keh tis en dees mnimasi zo-een kharisamenos! Al-Massehu-qama min bayn il-amwat wa wati al-mawta bil- mawt wa wahab al hayat lil lazeena fil qubor! THE SUNDAY OF ST. THOMAS After seeing Jesus and examining the wounds left by crucifixion, Thomas gave up his doubt and professed his faith in Jesus as Lord and God. Jesus responded to this profession of faith with the promise of a blessing that has reached down through the centuries to us today. Jesus said to Thomas, You believe because you have seen me; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. We can be confident that Jesus has extended this blessing for all Christians down through the generations Christians like us, who have not examined the physical wounds of the Risen Lord, yet have entrusted our lives and our salvation to His Divine power. There is a second collection this weekend for the mortgage The Season of Pascha lasts for 40 days! Just as we had a 40-day preparation for this feast (Great Lent), so now we celebrate the Great Feast of the Lord s Resurrection for 40 days (from Easter Sunday to the feast of the Lord s Ascension on May 29). During this Easter season, we continue to celebrate with the hymns of the resurrection, and the doors of the iconostasis remain open to remind us that Jesus has removed the barrier that existed between God and man. Traditionally there is no fasting, even on Fridays, during this holy season when the Lord is with us. Bring the Easter Fire home with you! Candles are available in the back of the church for anyone who would like to bring home the blessed fire of Easter! Attendance: Last Sat. 10:30 PM: 174 Last Sunday 11:00 AM: 77 Last Weekend s Collection: $ 2, The average envelope donation: $ The balance remaining on our mortgage is: $ 340, SERVICES FOR The WEEK Tues., April 9 No Liturgy on Tuesday this week Wed., April 30 No Vespers on Wednesday this week Thurs., May 1 8:30 AM Divine Liturgy: For the health of Nick Haddad Sat., May 3 4:30 PM Divine Liturgy: Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women Sun., May 4 10:00 AM Sunday Orthros Sun., May 4 11:00 AM Divine Liturgy: Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women

4 Bishop Peter Libasci invites you to a Mass that will be offered for those suffering from violence in Syria and the Middle East On Thursday, May 1, 2014, at 6:30 p.m., at St. Joseph Cathedral in Manchester, Most Reverend Peter A. Libasci, D.D., Bishop of Manchester, will celebrate a Mass to pray for those suffering from violence in Syria and the Middle East. Fr. Tom and Fr. Joseph I. Khoueiry, Pastor of St. George Maronite Catholic Church in Dover, will be concelebrating with Bishop Libasci. A special collection will be taken up at this Mass, which, through the goodness of Catholic Relief Services, will provide humanitarian assistance in Syria and Lebanon. Saturday Kitchen: Next Saturday! Meat & spinach pies will be available from the Saturday Kitchen next Saturday morning. Please call in your order in advance at Any help you can offer that morning will be greatly appreciated! EDEN TO EDEN A Byzantine Biblical Conference on Salvation History Saturday May 17, 9:00 AM-3:30 PM Annunciation Melkite Cathedral 7 VFW Parkway, West Roxbury, MA This conference will be presented by Bishop Nicholas Samra and Deacon Sabatino Carnazzo, and it is a unique opportunity to renew our faith through an intensive study of Sacred Scripture. This one-day conference will offer participants the opportunity to study the bible as one book, revealing the mystery of God s love for mankind. All are welcome to attend this free one-day conference sponsored by the Melkite Eparchy of Newton. No reservation is required. ~Bring your Bible~ The 49 th National Melkite Convention will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago, IL, July 3-6, For more information visit melkitechicado.org/wp/ or call (708)

5 Risen as Lord OH, MY GOD! is an exclamation that we hear from all kinds of people, including atheists. In ordinary casual speech it doesn t connote belief, prayer or hope. Traditionally the Apostle Thomas words to the risen Christ, My Lord and My God (John 20:28) have been understood as a confession of the Lord s divinity. Muslims have customarily seen these words as simply an exclamation of surprise like Oh, my God! when Thomas saw that Jesus was alive. Who s right? Reverence for God s Holy Name We know from the Old Testament that Jews have a particular reverence for the name of God. The Torah enjoined using God s name respectfully in the Ten Commandments. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain (Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11). To this day Orthodox Jews will not even say the Hebrew name of God, YHWH, when reading the Scriptures, replacing it with the word LORD wherever it occurs. Many Orthodox Jews will not even write the word God in English, as a sign of respect. They will only write G_d instead. A God-fearing Jew like Thomas would scarcely have used God s name as an exclamation. The Lord Jesus in the Gospel of John Even more to the point is the style and structure of the Gospel of John. The Gospel begins with an allusion to the first words of the Torah In the beginning but the evangelist is not talking about the material creation. He is writing about the eternal Word of God and proclaiming that God s Word took flesh in Jesus (see Jn 1:1-19). And so the Gospel begins with a statement of faith in the Incarnation of the divine Word of God. Throughout the Gospel Jesus enemies charge that He makes himself equal to God (5:18) and makes himself God (10:34). John records Jesus own words, I and My Father are one and the reaction they prompted, Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him (Jn 10:30-31). The evangelist concludes the Gospel with the same teaching, expressed in Thomas confession of Christ as Lord and God. And if the reader still doesn t get it, he adds these are

6 written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing you may have life in His name (Jn 20:31). From its beginning and throughout to its end, the Gospel of John proclaims again and again that Jesus is the Son of God. And Yet Truly One of Us In the first centuries after Christ there was a great deal of controversy concerning the nature of Christ. Was He God? Was He Man? How could He be both? One group in that period, the Docetists, stressed the divinity of Christ to such a degree that they minimized His humanity. How could the Son of God really die on the cross, they wondered. Their answer was that it would be improper for Him to actually suffer in this way; and so, they reasoned, He only seemed to die. St Athanasius the Great examined the question more closely. He saw Christ s humanity as real but transformed by the presence of the Word of God. The body of the Word, he wrote, being a real human body, in spite of its having been uniquely formed from a virgin, was of itself mortal and, like other bodies, liable to death. But the indwelling of the Word loosed it from this natural liability, so that corruption could not touch it. Thus it happened that two opposite marvels took place at once: the death of all mankind was consummated in the Lord s body; yet, because the Word was in it, death and corruption were by the same act utterly abolished. Not only did the Lord, being mortal, have to die as mortals do, Athanasius continued; He could only die at the hands of others. The death of men under ordinary circumstances is the result of their natural weakness. They are essentially impermanent, so after a time they fall ill and, when worn out, they die. But the Lord is not like that. He is not weak. He is the Power of God, the Word of God and very Life Itself. If He had died quietly in His bed like other men, it would have looked as though He was indeed no more than other men. He accepted and bore upon the Cross a death inflicted by others and those others His special enemies a death which was to them supremely unbearable and terrible to face. He did this in order that, by destroying even this death, He might Himself be believed to be the Life, and the power of death be recognized as finally annulled. A marvelous and mighty paradox has thus occurred, for the death they thought to inflict on Him as dishonor and disgrace has become the glorious monument to death s defeat (On the Incarnation 21, 24). Truly slain as true Man and truly risen as Lord and God to Jesus the Word of God incarnate be glory forever and ever! What a wondrous mystery: that grass can touch fire and not be consumed; for Thomas put his hand into the side of Jesus Christ our God, and was not consumed in touching Him. He changed his doubt into the fervor of faith, and he shouted from the depth of his heart, O Master, who are risen from the dead, You are my God! Glory to You! -From the Aposticha of Vespers for the Sunday of St. Thomas

7 The Sunday of St. Thomas The Holy and Glorious Apostle Thomas was born in the Galileian city of Pansada and was a fisherman. Hearing the good tidings of Jesus Christ, he left all and followed after Him. The Apostle Thomas is included in the number of the holy Twelve Apostles of the Savior. According to Holy Scripture, the holy Apostle Thomas did not believe the reports of the other disciples about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe (John 20:25). On the eighth day after the Resurrection, the Lord appeared to the Apostle Thomas and showed him His wounds. My Lord and my God, the Apostle cried out (John 20:28). Christ told Thomas that He was glad that Thomas no longer doubted, but also lamented: "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believed!" Christ uses Thomas' doubt to teach both the Disciples and us that we don't need to physically touch Him to have faith. But upon hearing of Christ, we can be spiritually moved by His presence to follow Him, and trust in His promise that all men will be raised on the day He appoints for judgment. St. Peter heard and understood, as he writes to his flock (I Peter 1:8): "You did not see Him, yet you loved Him; and still without seeing Him you are filled with a joy so glorious that it cannot be described, because you believe; and you are sure of the end to which your faith looks forward, that is, the salvation of your souls." Some icons depicting this event are inscribed The Doubting Thomas. This is incorrect. In Greek, the inscription reads, The Touching of Thomas. In Slavonic, it says, The Belief of Thomas. When St Thomas touched the Life-giving side of the Lord, he no longer had any doubts. Thomas, being once weaker in faith than the other apostles, says St John Chrysostom, toiled through the grace of God more bravely, more zealously and tirelessly than them all, so that he went preaching over nearly all the earth, not fearing to proclaim the Word of God to savage nations. According to Church Tradition, the holy Apostle Thomas founded Christian churches in Palestine, Mesopotamia, Parthia, Ethiopia and India. Preaching the Gospel earned him a martyr s death. For having converted the wife and son of the prefect of the Indian city of Meliapur [Melipur], the holy apostle was locked up in prison, suffered torture, and finally, pierced with five spears, he departed to the Lord. Part of the relics of the holy Apostle Thomas are in India, in Hungary and on Mt. Athos. It is the custom among some Orthodox Christians to travel to the cemetery on this day to pray, light candles, and to sing "Christ is Risen!" to deceased family members.

8 Please remember to pray for the health and protection of Genevieve Allen, Elizabeth Ashooh, Elsie Ashooh, Louise Ashooh, Al Auclair, Alice Auclair, Erin Baroody, Michael Baroody, Ted Baroody, Gertrude Beadle, Anthony Blando, Helena Burkush, Josep Busquets, Danielle Caron, Meghan Connors, Lucy Corriveau, Julie Cullen, Theresa Cullen, Jamileh Dagher, Nicholas Daniak, Lynn Dargie, Marie Dargie, Sher Farrow, Declan Finn, Julie Fregeau, Mary Fregeau, Peter Fregeau, Christine Freitas, Nick Haddad, Jean Hannoush, Lucille Harper, Howard Jabaley, Virginia Kearney, Shirley Lanoue, Roger Lawrence, Sadie Grace McCallum, Miriam McCallum, James McCloskey, Susan Merrill, Margaret Mitchell, Lynn Moquin, Alfred Nasr, Afef Nasr, Blaise Notter, Steven O Leary, Denis O Keefe, Helen Baroody Payne, Josephine Paquette, Virginia Pichette, Jean Poleatewich, Sheila Quinn, Eugene Randlett, Deborah Roberts, 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: Your ad here: $300 per year