SAINT JAMES ORTHODOX CHURCH

Transcription

1 SAINT JAMES ORTHODOX CHURCH 195 N. Main Street Milpitas, Ca Saturdays Vespers 5:00 p.m. Sundays Matins 8:00 a.m. Sundays Liturgy 10:30 a.m. The Very Reverend Fr. Jiris Hanna (408) Fr. Dcn. Joseph Kawar (408) Issue No. 642 Sunday May 15 (5/2), 2016 Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women. Righteous Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus St. Athanasius the Great, archbishop of Alexandria (373) أحد حامالت الطيب والقديسين يوسف ونيقوديموس نقل اعضاء أبينا الجليل في القديسين اثناسيوس الكبير بطريرك األسكندرية Matins (III): Mark 16:9 20 Epistle: Hebrews 7:26 8:2 Gospel: Mark 15:43 16:8 تذكار About the Myrrh-bearing Women Sunday May 15 This Sunday is the third Sunday of Pascha, and the day on which we commemorate the holy myrrh-bearing women. These pious women served our Lord during His public ministry, providing for Him out of their own financial resources and tending to His needs. Amongst the myrrh-bearers were the following women: Our Lady, Mary the Theotokos; Mary Magdalene; Joanna; Salome; Mary the wife of Cleopas; Susanna; Mary of Bethany; and Martha of Bethany sisters of Lazarus. It was these women who came to our Lord s tomb on the morning of that first Holy Pascha in order to anoint His sacred body. To these pious women the announcement of the Resurrection was first made. They witnessed the angelic testimony and saw the Risen Lord Himself. They bore witness to the Apostles of the Resurrection. Having placed our minds upon the Resurrection of Christ, let us keep them there during these holy days by the means the Church has proscribed: frequent attendance at the services, chanting the Paschal troparion every day, greeting one another with Christ Is Risen, replacing our prostrations with metanias, forgoing kneeling, reading the Acts of the Holy Apostles, forgiving everyone, and considering even those who hate us our brothers by virtue of the Resurrection. In so doing we will find ourselves shining, exulting, and being radiant. Thank God for the righteous Nicodemos and Joseph of Arimathea, and for the holy Myrrh-bearing women. Their love for our Sweet Savior did not lapse at His death. Not in one bit. Their love, rather, was launched into greater expression. What boldness and courage did the noble Joseph demonstrate when he approached Pilate for our Lord s body. For that he was severely punished by the Jewish leaders. He was no longer a respected member of the council (St. Mk. 15:43), but an exile from the synagogue. The piety of the righteous Nicodemos and noble Joseph is demonstrated in their sublime love for Christ after His death. What fearlessness to be identified with Christ did these show forth! And that, while Christ was dead. How much more ought we to fearlessly identify ourselves with the Lord Christ, knowing as we do that He Is Risen, ascended, and is ruling the world!

2 While Christ was still alive they followed Him, but secretly for fear of the Jews. Once Christ was dead they threw off this concern, and with great boldness identified with their Master. This is sublime love. It is one thing to love a living person. Often this love brings with it a return of love. But it is another and deeper thing altogether to love someone deceased. This is selfless love, and love offered with no expectation of return. This is the love demonstrated by Ss. Joseph, Nicodemos, and the Myrrh-bearing women. This is the love demonstrated by their bold request for the Lord s body, by their tender care in bringing Him down from the Cross, washing His wounds, cleaning Him, anointing Him with spices, wrapping Him in pure linen, and burying Him. We have liturgical practices in the Church which call to mind the devotion of the Myrrh-bearers. Every Lord s Day we commemorate the Resurrection of our Savior. Each Sunday being a mini-pascha itself, and during Sunday Orthros we always read one of eleven texts from the Holy Gospels, all of which describe Resurrection appearances. Let us complete our thoughts about love for the dead by remembering that no one loves the dead more, or cares for them more intensely than our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. We love because He first loved us. We love the dead, because He first loved the dead. Our Savior died and was buried so that He Himself could go to His dead children in Hades and raise them up! By His death He visited the dead. His grave was a passage to the graves of all His children, and a message for all of His children yet to be born. There is no place where our Savior has not gone before us. There is no place that death can take us that our Savior has not already invaded with His presence, and filled with His never-waning light. When we kneel before an open grave and commit our loved ones to the ground we do so knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ has already been below the earth and has killed death. He has turned death and the grave into paradisaical doors. It is in this knowledge that we Christians can calmly prepare for our deaths and think often upon them. If the righteous Joseph could have the spiritual care and forethought to have prepared his own tomb (which he offered to Christ) even before the Resurrection of our Savior, how much more ought we, living in the light of the Resurrection, not calmly and studiously think of our own deaths often, and have our graves prepared. May we be numbered amongst the righteous Nicodemos and Joseph and with the Myrrh-bearing women, and all obtain to the reward of the Resurrection of the just in the eternal kingdom of our great God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. األسبوع الثالث للفصح - أحد حامالت الطيب - ١٥ ايار في األحد الثالث للفصح. ن عي د للنسوة القديسات اللواتي أتين القبر س ح ر القيامة. يدفعهن الحب ليحنطن بالطيوب جسد ربنا وإلهنا ومخل صنا يسوع المسيح. فاستنرن عوض ذلك بالقيامة المجيدة. ونقلن بشائرالفرح للتالميذ كما أوصاه ن المالك. حامالت الطيب هن مثال رسالة المرأة في الكنيسة. ومثال المحبة المتدف قة بسخاء وقوة وحنان في خدمة الرب. كثير من الجمعيات النسائية التي تهتم بالكنائس والفقراء والمرضى. تعتبر هذا العيد خاص ا بها. كما نعيد أيض ا للقديس الوجيه يوسف الرامي الذي كان في الخفاء تلميذ ا للرب. وللقديس نيقوديموس التلميذ الليلي وعضو المحفل. فهذان أنزال الجسد الكريم عن الصليب وجهزاه ووضعاه في قبر جديد. فبشفاعة النسوة حامالت الطيب والقديسين يوسف ونيقوديموس. ألل هم ارحمنا. آمين. You did command the myrrh-bearers to rejoice, O Christ! / By Your Resurrection, You did stop the lamentation of Eve, O God! / You did command Your apostles to preach: The Savior is Risen! أيها المسيح االله لما كلمت النسوة حامالت الطيب بالفرح. كففت بقيامتك نوح حواء األم االولى. وأمرت رسلك أن يكرزوا بأن المخلص قد قام من القبر.

3 Services This Week Friday 5/13 at 10am Holy Apostle James, the brother of St. John the Theologian Every Saturday at 5pm The Pascha Great Homily Vespers of and St. Confessions John Chrysostom THE PATH OF LIFE All of life is a wonderful mystery known only to God. In life, there is not just an accidental chain of events everything is providential. We do not understand the meaning of this or that event; before us is a multitude of boxes, but no keys. There were once such people who could open them... - St. Barsanuphius Altar Servers This Sunday 5/15 Sunday School Summer Break Sunday June 5 is the last day Antonio Khoury Lutfi Theodossy Laith Theodossy Sunday School classes will be on break June September Attention Parents and Friends of 2016 Graduates! *** 6 Weeks Until Deadline *** You can post a FREE personal congratulation message to your graduates in the bulletin. Just your greetings to sjoc@earthlink.net Graduates: Please your graduation picture or regular pictures to sjoc@earthlink.net to be posted in the bulletin. Graduates pictures and greetings will be posted during the week of June 22. Mark Your Calendar St. James 11 th Annual Food Festival September 16, 17, 18 sjoc@earthlink.net for your bulletin personal announcements, comments, or feedback.

4 ROOTS by Fr. Allan Boyd An old farmer and his beloved grandson were talking about their family s crop of corn one day. The boy was excitedly chattering about this year s crop and how quickly it had come to tower over everything else on the farm with the constant rains they d been having. But the grandfather warned the boy saying: "That glut of rain we ve had makes our crops especially vulnerable. Now, even the smallest drought just a little hot, dry spell could kill off our entire crop" But Grandpa the boy countered, look how tall and strong and green it all looks. It looks healthy enough to survive any drought now! The old grandfather explained that while very frequent and abundant rains may look like a benefit the overwatered plants don t have to push their roots very deep into the soil searching for water. Since the roots remain shallow, a drought would find the plants unprepared and quickly kill them. Some of us receive frequent and abundant rains of what we consider to be life s blessings. Everything is doing fine. We find no reason sink our roots more deeply into God, because life seems to be going good for us on our own. We feel like we ve got things all under control. Yet when a period of drought of stresses and great difficulties enter our lives, we often wither further away from God imagining Him as being unfaithful in His care for us. We don t have the depth to deal with the difficulties that life can throw at us. The problem is that our roots have never pushed much below a superficial relationship with God. Remember this: Only those roots that have grown deep into our Lord Jesus Christ will help us endure times of drought in our lives. So how do we prepare for those times of drought? Be sure to attend regularly and sink your roots deeply into all of the worship services of the Church purposefully engaging the words of the hymns and prayers. Make the Jesus Prayer or, The Prayer of the Heart Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a part of your every breath. Put some daily effort into memorizing and meditating upon a bit of the scriptures. As God has rained down much of His blessings on you allow yourself not to be overwatered with them realize that they re not all meant for you alone choose the asceticism of fasting, and stretching your budget to give a good portion of those blessings to the poor, and give generously to the Church without expecting a personal agenda to be fulfilled learning to live selflessly. In these ways you begin growing into His likeness becoming one with Him in His ministry here on earth. Then when those scorching stresses and great struggles arrive (and we all get them at one point or another), our deep roots will keep us from withering away into hopelessness so that someday we may bear forth a bumper crop of Christ s love into the world.

5 1 Pascha Christ Is Risen! May 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat :00 am Divine Liturgy Great Martyr St. George 7 5:00 pm Great Vespers 6:30 pm- Mother s Day Party 8 2 nd Sunday of Pascha (Thomas Sunday) Celebration and special lunch for St. George :30 pm Board of Trustees 10:00 am Divine Liturgy Meeting Holy Apostle James the borther of St. John the Theologian 14 5:00 pm Great Vespers 15 3 rd Sunday of Pascha (Sunday of the Myrrh=bearing Women) 3:00 pm- Benihana Lunch :30 pm Parish Bible Study :00 pm Great Vespers 7:00 pm Divine Liturgy Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian 22 4 th Sunday of Pascha (Sunday of the Paralytic) :00 am Divine Liturgy Mid-Pentecost :00 pm Great Vespers 29 5 th Sunday of Pascha (Sunday of the Samaritan Woman) Notes:

6 Scrip Scrip Scrip For Grads Graduations are just around the corner. Please consider buying Scrip gift cards for your graduates. Big variety of restaurants and department stores. Complete list of retailers at Please allow one week for delivery. See or call Lilian (408) to place your order early. Happy Birthdays Samer Barance 5/10 Maureen Elsousou 5/10 George Anagnastopoulos 5/11 Samer Zeidan 5/12 George Swaiss 5/12 Issa Saydawi 5/12 Sophie Khadder 5/12 Constantine Menesez 5/12 Joachim Perry 5/14 عقبال المئة سنة!!! Mark Your Calendar St. James Annual Christmas Party Saturday November 19, 2016 Check out our St. James Orthodox Church Facebook page for inspirational thoughts and news. Please visit the page and be sure to like us. Click on the following link to find us: Orthodox-Church /?fref=ts "A Christian without church attendance, without prayer, without confession, without Holy Communion is an unfenced vineyard, where at any moment the door is open for thieves to come in, namely the demons, to thrash it. - Elder Haralambos Dionysiatis

7 St. Athanasius the Great, archbishop of Alexandria Friday 5/15 (5/2) Saint Athanasius the Great, Archbishop of Alexandria, was a great Father of the Church and a pillar of Orthodoxy. He was born around the year 297 in the city of Alexandria into a family of pious Christians. He received a fine secular education, but he acquired more knowledge by diligent study of the Holy Scripture. In his childhood, the future hierarch Athanasius became known to St Alexander the Patriarch of Alexandria. A group of children, which included Athanasius, was playing at the seashore. The Christian children decided to baptize their pagan playmates. The young Athanasius, whom the children designated as "bishop", performed the Baptism, precisely repeating the words he heard in church during this sacrament. Patriarch Alexander observed all this from a window. He then commanded that the children and their parents be brought to him. He conversed with them for a long while, and determined that the Baptism performed by the children was done according to the Church order. He acknowledged the Baptism as real and sealed it with the sacrament of Chrismation. From this moment, the Patriarch looked after the spiritual upbringing of Athanasius and in time brought him into the clergy, at first as a reader, and then he ordained him as a deacon. It was as a deacon that St Athanasius accompanied Patriarch Alexander to the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea in the year 325. At the Council, St Athanasius refuted of the heresy of Arius. His speech met with the approval of the Orthodox Fathers of the Council, but the Arians, those openly and those secretly so, came to hate Athanasius and persecuted him for the rest of his life. After the death of holy Patriarch Alexander, St Athanasius was unanimously chosen as his successor in the See of Alexandria. He refused, accounting himself unworthy, but at the insistence of all the Orthodox populace that it was in agreement, he was consecrated bishop when he was twenty-eight, and installed as the archpastor of the Alexandrian Church. St Athanasius guided the Church for forty-seven years, and during this time he endured persecution and grief from his antagonists. Several times he was expelled from Alexandria and hid himself from the Arians in desolate places, since they repeatedly tried to kill him. St Athanasius spent more than twenty years in exile, returned to his flock, and then was banished again. There was a time when he remained as the only Orthodox bishop in the area, a moment when all the other bishops had fallen into heresy. At the false councils of Arian bishops he was deposed as bishop. Despite being persecuted for many years, the saint continued to defend the purity of the Orthodox Faith, and he wrote countless letters and tracts against the Arian heresy. When Julian the Apostate ( ) began a persecution against Christians, his wrath first fell upon St Athanasius, whom he considered a great pillar of Orthodoxy. Julian intended to kill the saint in order to strike Christianity a grievous blow, but he soon perished himself. Mortally wounded by an arrow during a battle, he cried out with despair: "You have conquered, O Galilean." After Julian's death, St Athanasius guided the Alexandrian Church for seven years and died in 373, at the age of seventy-six. Numerous works of St Athanasius have been preserved; four Orations against the Arian heresy; also an Epistle to Epictetus, bishop of the Church of Corinth, on the divine and human natures in Jesus Christ; four Epistles to Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis, about the Holy Spirit and His Equality with the Father and the Son, directed against the heresy of Macedonius. Other apologetic works in defense of Orthodoxy have been preserved, among which is the Letter to the emperor Constantius. St Athanasius wrote commentaries on Holy Scripture, and books of a moral and didactic character, as well as a biography of St Anthony the Great, with whom St Athanasius was very close. St John Chrysostom advised every Orthodox Christian to read this Life. The memory of St Athanasius is celebrated also on January 18 with St Cyril of Alexandria.

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9 How much do you know about our Scrip Program? Our church has been participating in Scrip Program from at least 6 years or more. It could become a major income to our church with active on-going participation. What Is It?: The Scrip Program is a national program that many schools, churches, and other non-profit organizations rely on as one of the major incomes to the organization. It has generated tens of thousands of dollars annually for many organizations. Many retail stores participate in it by giving donations to the church. We can definitely use such as donation! How Does It Work?: The church buys Scrip cards at a discounted price. When we sell the Scrip cards at their face value, the church make a profit. The Scrip cards are just like a store credit. You can use it any time you shop at your favorite store. For example: you go to Safeway to shop as normal. You don t pay cash or credit card. Instead, you pay the cashier using your Safeway Scrip card that you purchased from the church. You keep the card until its balance runs out. Done! Easy! How Much Does It Cost Me? NOTHING! You pay $20, you get $20. You pay $100, you get $100. You will not pay an extra penny from your pocket. For example: you buy Toy-R-Us Scrip card for $20 from the church, you get a store credit for $20 that you can use anytime at Toys-R-Us. You would spend this money any way when you go to Toys-R-Us, so why not pay by Scrip Card instead of paying cash or check or credit card? What Is the Possible Profit To My Church?: Look at this example below (These are average amounts that could be higher or lower with different families): If we have only 40 families use Scrip program actively all the time: Don t you spend $300 on Groceries every month? Don t you spend $200 on Gas for your cars? Don t you spend $100 on Dining out every month? Don t you spend $100 on Clothing every month? Don t you spend $40 on Entertainment every month? Don t you spend $200 on Home Improvement or Repairs every month? If the 40 families use Scrip Cards for all the above, our church would make a net profit of $19,488 every year!!! We definitely need this money. What Stores Participate In This Program? Almost all stores that you shop at normally, participate in this program. From Safeway, CVS Pharmacy, Rite Aid, Home Depot, Macy s, Red Lobster, Arco, Shell, Subway, Pizza Hut, fast food, airlines, hotels,, and the list is very very long. For a complete list, please visit and you are guaranteed to find most of your favorite stores listed. More Questions: Please contact Scrip Coordinator Lilian Kawar at (408) and you will have your questions answered. Or simply visit the Scrip table in the church hall every Sunday and talk to Lilian and place your order or see what we have already in stock. An easy and very simple program to raise much needed money for our church without spending an extra penny and without any effort! Please help us generate this income to our church.

10 Thank You! Many thanks to every one who supported or showed up to our Mother s Day dinner on Saturday May 7. We pray to our Holy Mother the Theotokos to bless all the mothers and protect them and their families with Her blessings and good health for many years.

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