Guide to: CHRISTMAS 2018 Darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. J. R. R. Tolkien
MY DEAR PARENTS, Christmas, the feast of the Nativity of our Lord, is a time of the year that every heart is in search of something different, beyond the normal the routine; in search of something extraordinary, not of this world; magic as we often describe it. By this we mean, happiness, peace, warmth and excitement in our heart. The vast majority of us, alas, will find only anxiety and worries. The magic is beyond our grasp only because we try to find it elsewhere, where it is not, while it is in front of us. The magic is not really magic but rather Divine blessing, a gift from God. It is the Traditions that we have from immemorial times as Greek Orthodox people. These Traditions strengthened the faith and enriched the life of generations upon generations of our ancestors. As we approach Christmas I invite you to regenerate within your families this life-giving Traditions; Come to Church on Christmas morning, as a family; don t let the feast bypass you while you are getting ready to celebrate it; this, unconsciously, leaves emptiness in your hearts and emptiness brings anxiety and pain. I look forward to celebrating together with you and your beloved families, these most heartfelt Feasts. In Christ Born, Fr. Nicholas
Christmas Carols: Saturday, Dec. 22 & 23, anytime between 4:30-8:00 p.m. Christmas Eve, Monday, December 24 5:00 PM Christmas Eve Liturgy; an opportunity to receive Christ and celebrate His Birthday for people who are heading out for Christmas Eve parties and may not be able come to Church on Christmas morning. Christmas Day, Tuesday, December 25 7:00 AM Christmas Orthros & around 8:00 a.m. Christmas Liturgy (finishing around 9:30 a.m.). This is the Birth-Day of our Lord. By tradition the service starts very early in the morning and finishes at dawn. It is an amazing experience, to wake up early on Christmas day and from the frostiness and coldness of the day arrive to the sweet warmness of the Christmas Church! Our service is not very early (as tradition has it) but not very late either (to keep as close to our tradition). New Year Carols: Saturday, Dec. 29 & 30, anytime between 4:30-8:00 p.m. New Year, Tueday, January 1 9:30 AM Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, to celebrate his feast and start with the Lord s blessing of the New Year. At the end of the service, around 11:00, we will cut the Vasilopita! Theophany, Sunday, January 6 The Great Feast of Lights, the Day we bless the waters and through them the whole creation, including ourselves. 9:00 AM Divine Liturgy 10:30 AM Great Blessing of the Waters
2018 ΚΑΛΑΝΤΑ/CAROLS Σαββατοκύριακο 22 & 23 Δεκεμβρίου: κάλαντα των ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥΓΕΝΝΩΝ & τo Σαββατοκύριακο 29 & 30 Δεκεμβρίου: κάλαντα της ΠΡΩΤΟΧΡΟΝΙΑΣ. Παρακαλούμε ανοίξτε τα σπίτια σας στα παιδιά και την ωραία παράδοση των καλάντων. Weekend, December 22 nd & 23 rd : Christmas Carols & Weekend, December 29 th & 30 th : New Year Carols Calling all members of St. George Church Adults, Children - Young or Old!!! There is no better way to get into the spirit of the Holidays than sharing the joy of Christmas with our community it truly is something to celebrate! Please join us in spreading Christmas cheer and sign up for a Caroling route on Christmas or New Year s weekend!
Please Join Us For The CHRISTMAS HOLY UNCTION ΕΥΧΕΛΑΙΟ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥΓΕΝΩΝ on Friday, December 21 ST @ 6:00 p.m.
ΠΡΟΓΡΑΜΜΑ ΔΩΔΕΚΑΗΜΕΡΟΥ 2018-2019 Παρασκευή 21 Δεκεμβρίου 6:00 μ.μ.: Ιερό Ευχέλαιο Χριστουγέννων Σάββατο 22 Δεκεμβρίου: 10:30 π.μ. Riverside & 12:00 μ.μ. στο St. John s. Επίσκεψη στα Κοιμητήρια για Τρισάγια Κυριακή 23 Δεκεμβρίου - 8:45-11:15 π.μ.: Όρθρος και Θ. Λειτουργία Κυριακής προ της Χριστού Γεννήσεως Δευτέρα 24 Δεκεμβρίου 9:00 π.μ.: Μεγάλες Ώρες Χριστουγέννων 5:00-6:15 μ.μ.: Μέγας Εσπερινός Χριστουγέννων μετά Θ. Λειτουργίας του Μ. Βασιλείου Τρίτη 25 Δεκεμβρίου - 7:00-9:30 π.μ.: Όρθρος & Θεία Λειτουργία των Χριστουγέννων
Δευτέρα 31 Δεκεμβρίου - 6:00 μ.μ.: Εσπερινός Εορτής Μεγάλου Βασιλείου Τρίτη 1 Ιανουαρίου - 8:30-11:00 π.μ. : Όρθρος, Θεία Λειτουργία Μ. Βασιλείου, Δοξολογία Νέου Έτους & κοπή Βασιλόπιτας Παρασκευή 4 Ιανουαρίου- 9:00-10:30 π.μ. : Μεγάλες Ώρες Θεοφανίων Σάββατο 5 Ιανουαρίου- 8:00-11:00 π.μ. : Όρθρος, Θ. Λειτουργία προ των Φώτων & Αγιασμός των Υδάτων 6:00 μ.μ. :Μέγας Εσπερινός των Θεοφανίων Κυριακή 6 Ιανουαρίου- 8:45-11:30 π.μ. : Όρθρος, Θ. Λειτουργία των Φώτων & Μέγας Αγιασμός των Υδάτων 6:00 μ.μ.: Εσπερινός Εορτής Τιμίου Προδρόμου Δευτέρα 7 Ιανουαρίου- 8:00 π.μ. : Όρθρος, Θ. Λειτουργία Συνάξεως Τιμίου Προδρόμου
CHRISTMAS PROGRAM 2018-2019 Friday, December 21 st - 6:00 p.m.: Christmas Holy Unction Saturday, December 22 nd : At Riverside at 10:30 a.m. & at St. John s at 12:00 p.m. Cemetery visits for prayers for the departed Sunday, December 23 rd - 8:45-11:15 a.m.: Orthros & Divine Liturgy of Sunday before Christmas Monday, December 24 th 9:00 a.m.: Great Hours of Christmas 5:00-6:15 p.m.: Great Vespers of Christmas & D. Liturgy of St. Basil the Great Tuesday, December 25 th - 7:00-9:30 a.m.: Orthros & Divine Liturgy of Christmas
Monday, December 31 st - 6:00 p.m.: Vespers of the Feast of Saint Basil Tuesday, January 1 st 8:30--11:00 a.m.: Orthros & D. Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, New Year Doxology & Vasilopita Cutting Friday, January 4 th 9:00-10:30 a.m.: Great Hours of Theophany Saturday, January 5 th 8:00-11:00 a.m.: Orthros, Divine Liturgy of Theophany & Blessing of the Waters 6:00 p.m.: Great Vespers of Theophany Sunday, January 6 th 8:45-11:30 a.m.: Orthros & D. Liturgy of Theophany & Great Blessing of Waters 6:00 p.m.: Vespers for the Feast of St. John the Baptist Monday, January 7 th 8:00 a.m.: Orthros & D. Liturgy for St. John the Baptist
On Christmas For many, Christianity is just a beautiful dream. It s a world in which everyday reality goes a bit blurred. It s nostalgic, cozy, and comforting. But real Christianity isn t like that at all. Take Christmas, for instance: a season of nostalgia, of carols and candles and firelight and happy children. But that misses the point completely. Christmas is not a reminder that the world is really quite a nice old place. It reminds us that the world is a shockingly bad old place, where wickedness flourishes unchecked, where children are murdered, where civilized countries make a lot of money by selling weapons to uncivilized ones so they can blow each other apart. Christmas is God lighting a candle; and you don t
light a candle that s already full of sunlight. You light a candle in a room that s so murky that the candle, when lit, reveals just how bad things really are. The light shines in the darkness, says St John, and the darkness has not overcome it. (2) When we realize once again that our God is the one who loves us into new life, then we will really know how to celebrate. True celebration, in turn, sustains true humanness. As we glimpse the living God, we are transformed into his likeness. So, it isn t surprising that those who are grasped by this gospel have built cathedrals. People who have forgotten who God is produce concrete jungles and cardboard cities. People who remember or rediscover who God is build cathedrals to his glory, and homes where the poor are cared for; we have both in our city, and they belong together, in celebration and healing. People in our contemporary society are cramped and stifled, fed on a diet of ugliness and noise. They are hungry for beauty, for light, for music. In celebrating and maintaining a wonderful cathedral, we are not a sub-branch of the heritage industry. We are telling real people about a real God: we are saying that there is a different way to be human, a way in which worship and mystery and silence and light and space all play their proper part. By N. T Wright
ABOUT CHRISTMAS The Gospel stories about the birth of Jesus are not a simple retelling of the events that took place then, at the stable in Bethlehem. In his commentaries on the birth of Jesus, the renowned scripture scholar, Raymond Brown, highlights that these narratives were written long after Jesus had already been crucified and had risen from the dead and that they are colored by what his death and resurrection mean. At one level, they are as much stories about Jesus passion and death as they are about his birth. When the Gospel writers looked back at the birth of Jesus through the prism of the resurrection they saw in his birth already the pattern for both his active ministry and his death and resurrection: God comes into the world and some believe and accept him and others hate and reject him. For some, his person gives meaning, for others it causes confusion and anger. There is an adult message about Christ in Christmas and the meaning of Christmas is to be understood as much by looking at the cross as by looking at the crib. Hardly the stuff of our Christmas lights, carols, cribs, and Santa.
And yet, these too have their place. Karl Rahner, not naïve to what Raymond Brown asserts, argues that, even so, Christmas is still about happiness and the simple joy of children captures the meaning of Christmas more accurately than any adult cynicism. At Christmas, Rahner contends, God gives us a special permission to be happy: Do not be afraid to be happy, for ever since I [God] wept, joy is the standard of living that is really more suitable than the anxiety and grief of those who think they have no hope. I no longer go away from the world, even if you do not see me now. I am there. It is Christmas. Light the candles. They have more right to exist than all the darkness. It is Christmas. Christmas that last forever. At Christmas, the crib trumps the cross, even as the cross does not fully disappear. How do the cross and the crib fit together? Does Calvary cast a permanent shadow on Bethlehem? Should Christmas disturb us more than console us? Is our simple joy at Christmas somehow missing the real point? No. Joy is the meaning of Christmas. Our carols have it right. At Christmas, God gives us a special permission to be happy, though that must be carefully understood. There is no innate contradiction between joy and suffering, between being happy and undergoing all the pain that life hands us. Joy is not to be identified with pleasure and with the absence of suffering in our lives. Genuine joy is a constant that remains with us throughout all of our experiences in life, including our pain and suffering. Jesus promised us a joy that no one can take away from you. Clearly that means something that doesn t disappear because we get sick, have a loved one die, are betrayed by a spouse, lose our job, are rejected by a friend, are subject to physical pain, or are enduring emotional
distress. None of us will escape pain and suffering. Joy must be able to co-exist with these. Indeed, it is meant to grow deeper through the experiences of pain and suffering. We are meant to be women and men of joy, even as we live in pain. That s a coloring, taken from their understanding of Jesus death and resurrection, which the Gospel writers insert into their narratives about his birth. But, of course, that is not what children see when they get caught up in the excitement of Christmas and when they look at the Christ-child in the crib. Their joy is still innocent, healthily protected by their naiveté, still awaiting disillusion, but real nonetheless. The naïve joy of a child is real and the temptation to rewrite and recolor it in light of the disillusionment of later years is wrong. What was real was real. The fond memories we have of anticipating and celebrating Christmas as children are not invalidated when Santa has been deconstructed. Christmas invites us still, as John Shea poetically puts it, to plunge headlong into the pudding. And despite all the disillusionment within our adult lives, Christmas still offers us, depressed adults, that wonderful invitation. Even when we no longer believe in Santa, and all the cribs, lights, carols, cards, colorful wrapping-paper, and gifts of Christmas no longer bring the same thrill, the same invitation still remains: Christmas invites us to be happy, and that demands of us an elemental asceticism, a fasting from adult cynicism, a discipline of joy that can hold the cross and the crib together so as to be able to live in a joy that no one, and no tragedy, can take from us. This will allow us, at Christmas, like children, to plunge headlong into the pudding. Christmas gives, both children and adults, permission to be happy. By Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
THE TRADITION OF THE HOUSE BLESSING It is part of our traditions, as Greek Orthodox, to invite the priest to bless our home with holy water within a few weeks following the feast of Theophany. All who reside in the household should make every effort to be present for the Blessing. In anticipation of the arrival of the Priest to the house, a candle, hand-censer and incense in the family s icon corner should be prepared. Upon the arrival of the Priest, he is to be greeted by all family members, each of whom asks the Priest s blessing and reverences his right hand and the Cross. In order to schedule a house blessing, please call the office of the church or fill the House Blessing form that you can find at the pagari (Candle-counter).
SAINT GEORGE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH Office/Mailing Address: 238 West Rocks Road, Norwalk, CT 06851 Phone: (203)849-0611 Email: Fr.Nick@stgeorgect.org www.stgeorgect.org