Saint Joseph Melkite Greek Catholic Church

130 North Saint Francis Cabrini Avenue Scranton, PA 18504

Rev. Protodeacon Michael Jolly
Administrator pro tempore
570-213-9344

Reader Michael Simon Parish Office 570-343-6092 February 19, 2012 Tone 3, Orthros 3 Liturgy Schedule: Saturday Vespers 4pm Compline Weds 8:30PM

E-Mail: Web: Webmaster:

scrantonmelkite@yahoo.com http://melkitescranton.org Sal Zaydon

Cheesefare Sunday Sunday Orthros 8:55 am Sunday Divine Liturgy 10:00 am

Liturgy Intentions:
February 19, 2012 Ann Coury40 day Memorial Peace, health and salvation of Margaret Clark February 26, 2012 Dr. Thomas Zaydon40 day Memorial

Parish Notes:
This Sunday is called Cheesefare Sunday since it is traditionally the last day before Easter for eating dairy products. Today The parish council meeting scheduled for this afternoon will be rescheduled. At 4PM we will have the annual ice cream social followed by forgiveness vespers and the start of Great Lent. Father Michael Skrocki, pastor of Saint Ann Melkite Church in Danbury, will lead Vespers and hear confessions. Qurban today was baked by Betsy Zaydon Welcome back Father Philip Altavilla who serves at our altar today. Welcome to Margaret Clark who became a member of the Church yesterday morning through the mysteries of Christian Initiation Deacon Michael is hospitalized. Thanks to Reader Michael for help with the bulletin and filling in at services in his absence.

Todays Icon:

The expulsion from EdenCheesefare Sunday

The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom

Antiphons:
O Creator of the Universe, You fashioned Adam from the dust of the earth. You infused him with a breath of life. You gave him dominion over the earth. By the enticement of the Serpent he rebelled against Your Commandments and fell. You therefore exiled him from Paradise. But your Only-begotten Son was incarnate, endured Passion and restored us to the Garden of Eden which we had lost. We therefore implore You, at the threshold of Holy and Great Lent, to make us worthy of a sincere repentance, so that we may avoid even the shadow of evil and abstain from carnal pleasure in order to gain You, Divine River of Paradise that quenches the thirst of our souls. Thus, having lived according to your commandments, we may share the glory of the Resurrection of Christ, our God and Savior. For You are long-suffering, most compassionate and You call all people to salvation; and to You we render glory, honor and worship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever.

First Antiphon Through the prayers of the Mother of God... Second Antiphon O Son of God, Who are risen from the dead... Hymn of incarnation Third AntiphonResurrectional Troparion

Tone 2

Tone 4 Tone 3 Tone 3 Tone 3 Tone 3

Hymns:
Resurrectional Troparion Troparion of St. Archippos
O holy Apostle Archippos, intercede with the merciful God that He may grant our souls the forgiveness of sins.

Troparion of St. Archippos

The far-famed city of Athens honors Pilothea, the venerable martyr, whose relics it now reveres with joy. While living in asceticism, she exchanged all earth things for the everlasting life through her great struggles in her martyrdom. And now she entreats the Savior to grant his mercy to us all.

Troparion of Saint Joseph Kontakion of Cheesefare

O You who guide men toward wisdom, and give them intelligence and understanding, instructor of the ignorant and helper of the poor, strengthen and enlighten my heart, O Lord, give me word, O Word of the Father, for behold I will not refrain my lips from crying out to You: O merciful One, have mercy on me who have fallen.

Tone 2 Tone 2

Prokiemenon

(Tone 3) 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 Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans

13:11-14:4

Brethren, now our salvation is nearer than when we came to believe. The night is far advanced: the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us walk becomingly as in daytime, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and as for the flesh, pay no attention to its lusts. But whoever is weak in faith, receive him without arguing about opinion. For one believes he may eat all things but another who is weak, let him eat vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who does not; and let not the one who does not eat judge the one who does, for God has received him. Who are you to judge anothers servant? To his own master he stands or falls but he will stand, for God is able to make him stand.

Alleluia (Tone 3)
In you, O lord, I have hoped: let me never be put to shame. In your Justice, save me and deliver me. Stichon: Be for me a protecting God, a sheltering house to save me.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew

6:14-21

The Lord said, If you forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men there offenses, neither will your Father forgive you your offenses. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, who disfigure their faces in order to appear to men as fasting. Amen I say to you they have had their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not be seen by men to fast, but by your Father, who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where worm and rodent consume, and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither worm nor rodent consumes, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.

THE TRUE NATURE OF FASTING

of fifty days of thanksgiving, concluding with Pentecost.

Each of these seasons has its own liturgical book. For the time of preparation there is the Lenten Triodion or 'Book 'We waited, and at last our expectations were fulfilled', of Three Odes', the most important parts of which are here writes the Serbian Bishop Nikolai of Ochrid, describing the Easter service at Jerusalem. 'When the Patriarch sang presented in English translation. For the time of thanksgiving there is the Pentekostarion, also known in "Christ is risen", a heavy burden fell from our souls. We Slav usage as the Festal Triodion. The point of division felt as if we also had been raised from the dead. All at between the two books is midnight on the evening of Holy once, from all around, the same cry resounded like the Saturday, with Matins for Easter Sunday as the first noise of many waters. "Christ is risen" sang the Greeks, service in the Pentekostarion. This division into two the Russians, the Arabs, the Serbs, the Copts, the distinct volumes, made for reasons of practical Armenians, the Ethiopians one after another, each in his own tongue, in his own melody. . . . Coming out from the convenience, should not cause us to overlook the essential service at dawn, we began to regard everything in the light unity between the Lord's Crucifixion and His Resurrection, which together form a single, indivisible of the glory of Christ's Resurrection, and all appeared action. And just as the Crucifixion and the Resurrection different from what it had yesterday; everything seemed are one action, so also the 'three holy days' (triduum better, more expressive, more glorious. Only in the light sanctum) - Great Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter of the Resurrection does life receive meaning.' Sunday constitute a single liturgical observance. Indeed, This sense of resurrection joy, so vividly described by the division of the Lenten Triodion and the Pentekostarion Bishop Nikolai, forms the foundation of all the worship of into two books did not become standard until after the the Orthodox Church; it is the one and only basis for our eleventh century; in early manuscripts they are both Christian life and hope. Yet, in order for us to experience contained in the same codex. the full power of this Paschal rejoicing, each of us needs What do we find, then, in this book of preparation that we to pass through a time of preparation. 'We waited,' says term the Lenten Triodion? It can most briefly be described Bishop Nikolai, 'and at last our expectations were as the book of the fast. Just as the children of Israel ate the fulfilled.' Without this waiting, without this expectant preparation, the deeper meaning of the Easter celebration 'bread of affliction' (Deut. 16: 3) in preparation for the Passover, so Christians prepare themselves for the will be lost. celebration of the New Passover by observing a fast. But So it is that before the festival of Easter there has what is meant by this word 'fast' (nisteia)? Here the developed a long preparatory season of repentance and utmost care is needed, so as to preserve a proper balance fasting, extending in present Orthodox usage over ten between the outward and the inward. On the outward level weeks. First come twenty-two days (four successive fasting involves physical abstinence from food and drink, Sundays) of preliminary observance; then the six weeks or and without such exterior abstinence a full and true fast forty days of the Great Fast of Lent; and finally Holy cannot be kept; yet the rules about eating and drinking Week, Balancing the seven weeks of Lent and Holy must never be treated as an end in themselves, for ascetic Week, there follows after Easter a corresponding season fasting has always an inward and unseen purpose. Man is

a unity of body and soul, a living creature fashioned from natures visible and invisible' , in the words of the Triodion; 3 and our ascetic fasting should therefore involve both these natures at once. The tendency to over-emphasize external rules about food in a legalistic way, and the opposite tendency to scorn these rules as outdated and unnecessary, are both alike to be deplored as a betrayal of true Orthodoxy. In both cases the proper balance between the outward and the inward has been impaired. The second tendency is doubtless the more prevalent in our own day, especially in the West. Until the fourteenth century, most Western Christians, in common with their brethren in the Orthodox East, abstained during Lent not only from meat but from animal products, such as , eggs, milk, butter and cheese. In East and West alike, the Lenten fast involved a severe physical effort. But in Western Christendom over the past five hundred years, the physical requirements of fasting have been steadily reduced, until by now they are little more than symbolic. How many, one wonders, of those who eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday are aware of the original reason for this custom to use up any remaining eggs and butter before the Lenten fast begins? Exposed as it is to Western secularism, the Orthodox world in our own time is also beginning to follow the same path of laxity. One reason for this decline in fasting is surely a heretical attitude towards human nature, a false 'spiritualism' which rejects or ignores the body, viewing man solely in terms of his reasoning brain. As a result, many contemporary Christians have lost a true vision of man as an integral unity of the visible and the invisible; they neglect the positive role played by the body in the spiritual life, forgetting St. Paul's affirmation: 'Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. . . . glorify God with your body' (I Cor. 6: 19-20). Another reason for the decline in fasting among Orthodox is the argument, commonly advanced in our times, that the traditional rules are no longer possible today. These rules presuppose, so it is urged, a closely organized, nonpluralistic Christian society, following an agricultural way of life that is now increasingly a thing of the past. There is a measure of truth in this. But it needs also to be said that fasting, as traditionally practiced in the Church, has always been difficult and has always involved hardship. Many of our contemporaries are willing to fast for reasons of health or beauty, in order to lose weight; cannot we Christians do as much for the sake of the heavenly Kingdom? Why should the self-denial gladly accepted by previous generations of Orthodox prove such an intolerable burden to their successors today? Once St. Seraphim of Sarov was asked why the miracles of grace, so abundantly manifest in the past, were no longer apparent in his own day, and to this he replied: 'Only one thing is lacking - a firm resolve'.

The primary aim of fasting is to make us conscious of our dependence upon God. If practiced seriously, the Lenten abstinence from food - particularly in the opening days involves a considerable measure of real hunger, and also a feeling of tiredness and physical exhaustion. The purpose of this is to lead us in turn to a sense of inward brokenness and contrition; to bring us, that is, to the point where we appreciate the full force of Christ's statement, 'Without Me you can do nothing' (John 15: 5). If we always take our fill of food and drink, we easily grow over-confident in our own abilities, acquiring a false sense of autonomy and selfsufficiency. The observance of a physical fast undermines this sinful complacency. Stripping from us the specious assurance of the Pharisee - who fasted, it is true, but not in the right spirit - Lenten abstinence gives us the saving self dissatisfaction of the Publican (Luke I 8: 10-1 3). Such is the function of the hunger and the tiredness: to make us 'poor in spirit', aware of our helplessness and of our dependence on God's aid. Yet it would be misleading to speak only of this element of weariness and hunger. Abstinence leads, not merely-to this, but also to a sense of lightness, wakefulness, freedom and joy. Even if the fast proves debilitating at first, afterwards we find that it enables us to sleep less, to think more clearly, and to work more decisively. As many doctors acknowledge, periodical fasts contribute to bodily hygiene. While involving genuine self-denial, fasting does not seek to do violence to our body but rather to restore it to health and equilibrium. Most of us in the Western world habitually eat more than we need. Fasting liberates our body from the burden of excessive weight and makes it a willing partner in the task of prayer, alert and responsive to the voice of the Spirit. It will be noted that in common Orthodox usage the words 'fasting' and 'abstinence' are employed interchangeably. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church made a clear distinction between the two terms: abstinence concerned the types of food eaten, irrespective of quantity, whereas fasting signified a limitation on the number of meals or on the amount of food that could be taken. Thus on certain days both abstinence and fasting were required; alternatively, the one might be prescribed but not the other. In the Orthodox Church a clear-cut distinction is not made between the two words. During Lent there is frequently a limitation on the number of meals eaten each day, but when a meal is permitted there is no restriction on the amount of food allowed. The Fathers simply state, as a guiding principle, that we should never eat to satiety but always rise from the table feeling that we could have taken more and that we are now ready for prayer. To Be Continued...

FASTING FROM MYSELF

THE LAST SUNDAY BEFORE THE GREAT FAST has several descriptive names. It is called the Sunday of the Expulsion, remembering the sin of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden. It is also Cheesefare Sunday, the last day for eating dairy products. Finally it is the Sunday of Forgiveness. On this day we are expected to ask forgiveness from anyone we have offended. Perhaps it is a good idea to give this day yet another name, one which includes the meaning of the others. Lets call it Ego -fare Sunday. The Expulsion from Paradise The story of Adam and Eve really the story of any sin is about ego. In Genesis we read that God said, if you eat of it [the tree] you will surely die. But Eve said, Gee, it looks good. Id like to see for myself. And we know the rest. Sin is about ego: someone (Eve or me) decides that they will ignore someone else (God or my spouse) and do what I want. I prefer my will to the will of another, to Gods word in the Scriptures or to the Tradition of the Church. And so the remembrance of the original sin on this Sunday is a call for us to see that our ego is at the heart of our own sins and to resolve to hold it in check. This struggle is at the heart of any profitable Fast. Farewell to Dairy Products While we strive to control our greed, lust or pride, ego does not take a break. Fasting (and actually any Church practice) can become focused on my will. One example is what we fast from. Before children are old enough to actually fast, they are often encouraged to give something up for Lent, to decide what they want to do in observance of this season. Unfortunately many people dont progress beyond this age spiritually. They still try to decide what they want to do. Ego again!

Wednesdays and Fridays, not Tuesdays and Thursdays. We may need to lessen the amount of fasting because of our health or the rigors of our work, but we should be wary of letting what we want to do turn our fasting into an ego trip. We may feel the need of more protein than some fasting foods provide while conveniently forgetting that some pulses (e.g. lentils) contain more protein that meats. This is why making any changes in the traditional practice should be done with the blessing of ones spiritual father who can help us distinguish a real need from the promptings of our ego. Another way fasting can become an ego trip for the unwary is the way we take pride in it, be it our personal fasting or that of our Church. We dont fast just one day our 40 days is 40 days! As Christ indicated in Mt 6:16-18, there are always people who fast with fanfare another manifestation of the ego. This is something we must be on our guard against as it is so easy to fall into this trap. If you are having lunch with friends or colleagues avoid saying things like, I cant eat that, IM FASTING! It would be more in the spirit of a true Fast to say something like, Ill just have a salad, Ive been watching my diet lately. This is a verbal way of anointing ones head and washing ones face, to use Christs imagery, lest we appear to be broadcasting our fast to one and all. As we prepare to intensify our fasting during this season, let us examine the spirit in which we fast. Let us begin the Fast with this understanding: not measuring our fasting by what we eat and how much, but of the effect it has on us, whether our fasting makes us free or whether we become slaves of fasting itself. Forgiveness and Our Spiritual Health

A great way to deal with our ego is to ask forgiveness of others before we presume to begin the Fast. In the rite of forgiveness at the first service of the Great Fast, Sunday evening vespers, When we fast we are called to follow the Churchs everyone in the church asks forgiveness of way of fasting, not to decide for ourselves how or everyone else. The lesson is clear: even if Im not when to fast. We fast, for example on most conscious of having offended you, I want to clear

up any thing I may have done, even in ignorance. Some people balk at this rite, feeling that they really havent done anything that needs to be forgiven (that ego again). After all, no one is mad at me. Father Alexander Schmemann often pointed out that the rite of forgiveness is so important precisely because it makes us acknowledge be it only for one minute that our entire relationship to others is inadequate. As Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden, so we hide from one another, routinely erecting a wall around ourselves, avoiding any real concern for other people. We make sure that we are polite and friendly to others, while we are actually indifferent to them, unconcerned with their real needs. Another secret way by which we offend others is by judging them in our hearts. In words that seem particularly modern, St Macarios the Great writes, Christians ought not to pass judgment of any kind on anyone, not on the prostitute nor on sinners nor on disorderly persons. But they should look on all persons with a single mind and a pure eye so that it may be for such a person almost a natural and fixed attitude never to despise or judge or abhor anyone or to divide people and place them into boxes (Homilies 5.8). We know that, as we look around the church, we constantly pigeonhole people. Shes always talking about her ailments hes always bragging about his latest acquisition. We need to confess our judgmental attitudes to acquire the pure eye of the true Christian. So it does not matter whether we have publicly failed that person directly when asking for forgiveness, because whenever we fail to follow the Gospel, we become less than we can be and inevitably affect each other. This is why we need to ask forgiveness of all people on this day. The Fast and Almsgiving The Great Fast is a time to struggle with our ego, our self-centered self-love. Our fasting is truly

effective in this regard when we pay less attention to ourselves, to our wants, to our needs and increase our love for others. Find someone who is hungry for food and feed them or someone who is spiritually hungry and help nourish them. To do that, we must be able to see and pay attention to the needs of another. And we cant do that if we are constantly focused on ourselves. It is easier to observe the Churchs fasting rules, attend its additional services, and contribute to its charitable programs in a formal way without struggling against our ego. To do so empties our Fast of any worthwhile result as the following hymn from the Triodion indicates: In vain do you rejoice in not eating, O my soul! For you abstain from food, but from passions you are not purified. If you persevere in sin, you will perform a useless fast.

Great Lent, in order to recreate good habits once again. Let us observe a Fast acceptable and pleasing to the Lord. True fasting is to put away all evil, to control the tongue, to forbear from anger, to abstain Enter the Fast with Joy! from lust, slander, falsehood and perjury. If we The Great Fast or Great Lent is the time of preparation renounce these things, then our fasting is true and for the feast of Christs resurrection, the Feast of pleasing to God (Vespers on First Monday of the Pascha. Historically Great Lent was the time of the Fast). final stage of catechesis for incorporation into the Church through the Mysteries of Illumination The Great Fast is a time then for us to change our style Baptism, Chrismation and Eucharist. Those intending of life, bringing it more in conformity to Christs life. to be members of the Church were instructed for a Conversion (the Greek word is metanoia or even period of time, sometimes even up to three years. The metany) is an act of turning, retracing our steps and last forty days of this catechesis led up to the Sunday coming back to godly ways. We recognize our of Pascha when they were fully received into and shortcomings and we repent with every metany or made members of the Body of Christ, through bow that we make; we stand upright and the Lords Baptism. embrace is open wide. Pastoral Letter for Great Lent 2012 Since the resurrection of Christ, the Feast of feasts, was an explosion of joy and life, its preparation time was also considered a time of true joy in anticipation of the new life brought about by our Lenten discipline. Sometimes Christians may think of Lent as a gloomy time to beat ourselves or to suffer for sufferings sake. Rather, the Great Fast is the Lenten springtime the Church gives us when we are asked to come to terms with our baptismal commitment to live the joyful new life of a follower of Jesus Christ. Of course, turning our life over to Christ may involve suffering and pain, especially if we are used to living for ourselves alone. But Christs good news is joyful, and so, even the temporary painthe bright sadnessthat our spiritual combat may cause ultimately gives way to a new life of true and profound joy! Take hold of the many opportunities offered by the Church during Great Lent. First and foremost are prayer, fasting and good works the tripod of Great Lent. Many services are offered on the weekdays of Lent in your parish, so check your church bulletins and clear some time in your life to participate in them. Special themes are given on each Sunday of the Fast for our edification, calling us to change. We are called to be icons of Christ and imitators of the saints. The Lords cross is our call to duty. We reflect upon the virtues needed to make a drastic change in our lives. Dont be passive, but make your Great Lent an active time of doing and recommitting yourselves to Christ.

Enter the Lords passion during Holy Week, walk with Him to His death and die with Him to your old self. The opening prayers at Sunday Forgiveness Vespers When the first proclamation of Christ is risen is on the eve of Great Lent tell us clearly enter the shouted out, His joy will be your joy and you can say season of the radiant Fast with joy, giving ourselves to and I am risen too, a new person recommitted to spiritual combat, as we fast from food, let us abstain being another Christ in the world. also from every passion. Rejoicing in the virtues of the Spirit, may we persevere with love, so as to be worthy I recommend to you the attached explanation of to see the solemn passion of Christ our God, and with fasting according to the ancient discipline of the great spiritual gladness to behold His holy Byzantine Churches and the rule for fasting in the resurrection. Eparchy of Newton. Through your observance of the Lenten springtime, may Christ our God bless you with Prayer, fasting and alms-giving are normal actions of a new life. good Christian. But many get lazy; so the Church asks us to focus on these in a more intense way during

Yours in Christ God, X Most Reverend Nicholas J. Samra Bishop of Newton Rule of fasting in the Eparchy of Newton So as not to burden anyones conscience, the Holy Synod of the Melkite Church permits each eparchial bishop to ease the canonical obligations of fasting, while, at the same time, exhorts all the faithful to fast according to the ancient tradition. The minimum rule that Melkites in the Eparchy of Newton must observe: Fasting from all food and drink from midnight until noon must be observed on the first day of Great Lent (Monday, 20 February), and on the last three days of Holy Week (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday). Abstinence, at least from meat, must be observed on every Friday of Great Lent. These requirements are the minimum. The faithful are encouraged to do more, such as also abstaining from meat every Wednesday or throughout the whole of Great Lent. Cheesefare Sunday As we begin the Great Fast, the Church reminds us of Adam's expulsion from Paradise. God commanded Adam to fast (Gen. 2:16), but he did not obey. Because of their disobedience, Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden and lost the life of blessedness, knowledge of God, and communion with Him, for which they were created. Both they and their descendents became heirs of death and corruption.

Fasting According to the Ancient Discipline of the Byzantine Churches With St. Paul, we urge all to leave the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. We all are sinners in need of metanoia (repentance) in order to be rid of sin, the passions, and everything that enslaves us with regard to food and drink, clothing, pleasure, jealousy, anger, hatred, pride, obstinacy, calumny, amusements, and superficiality. He who commits sin is not free, but is the slave of sin. Great Lent is a time of purity, holiness, prayer, and liberation from sin, evil and corruption: a time very pleasing to God, a time of salvation, and a spiritual springtime preparing us to shine with the light of the glorious Resurrection. We exhort the faithful to take on the discipline of fasting and abstinence that our fathers and ancestors always practiced. My brothers and sisters, repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand! What is the traditional fast and abstinence? Fasting: is abstaining from any food and drink from midnight until Vespers (prayers at sunset). So, the person fasting eats only a single meal a day after Vespers or after the Liturgy of the Presanctified.

Let us consider the benefits of fasting, the consequences of disobedience, and recall our fallen state. Today we are invited to cleanse ourselves of evil through fasting and obedience to God. Our fasting should not be a negative thing, a mere abstention from certain foods. It is an opportunity to free ourselves from the sinful desires and urges of our fallen nature, Days of fasting during Great Lent: Monday through and to nourish our souls with prayer, repentance, to Friday throughout Lent and Holy Week. Great and Holy Saturday is the only Saturday of the year on which participate in church services, and partake of the lifeone must keep a fast; otherwise it is forbidden to fast on giving Mysteries of Christ. Saturdays. Sunday, the day of Resurrection, is never a At Forgiveness Vespers we sing: "Let us begin the time fast day. of fasting in light, preparing ourselves for spiritual Days of abstinence: the whole of Great Lent, including efforts. Let us purify our soul, let us purify our body. As we abstain from food, let us abstain from all Sundays and all of Holy Week, except Annunciation passion and enjoy the virtues of the spirit." and Palm Sunday when fish may be eaten. Abstinence: is abstaining from meat, dairy products, and eggs, while fish is permitted on the Annunciation and Palm Sunday. Wine and oil are permitted on certain days.

GREAT AND HOLY LENT

2012
- WEEKLY SERVICES: 7PM Monday: Wednesday: Friday: - CHEESEFARE SUNDAY Great Compline Pre -Sanctified Liturgy Akathist Hymn FEBRUARY 19th

TODAY February 19th at 4PM Followed by Forgiveness Vespers and the beginning of the Great Fast

ICE CREAM SOCIAL 4:00 PM FORGIVENESS VESPERS 5:00 PM MYSTERY OF HOLY REPENTANCE / CONFESSION

- LENTEN MISSION

MARCH 12th-16TH The University of Scranton International Service trips provide opportunities for our students, faculty, and staff to be immersed in cultures and experiences in developing countries of our world. The program revolves around simple living, community, generosity, and faith-based reflection ANDREW MILEWSKI

- BEGINNING OF GREAT LENT FEBRUARY 20th

CLEAN MONDAY,
A DAY OF STRICT FAST & ABSTINENCE

- FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION - MARCH 25th - END OF THE GREAT FAST- MARCH 30th VESPERS: 7:00 PM - GREAT AND HOLY WEEK APRIL 2nd April 6th Great and Glorious Pascha April 8 BRIGHT WEEK APRIL 9th th 10

Is hoping to participate in this program and needs your financial support. There are envelopes for this purpose in the back of the Church

Among Todays Saints

Saints Archippus, Philemon and Apphia, Apostles of the Seventy were students and companions of the holy Apostle Paul. In the Epistle to Philemon, the Apostle Paul names St Archippus as his companion, and mentions him again in the Epistle to the Colossians (Col. 4:17). St Archippus was bishop of the city of Colossae in Phrygia. St Philemon was an eminent citizen of this city, and the Christians gathered in his home to celebrate church services. He was also made a bishop by St Paul and he went about the cities of Phrygia, preaching the Gospel. Later on, he became archpastor of the city of Gaza. St Apphia, his wife, took the sick and vagrants into her home, zealously attending to them. She was her husband's co-worker in proclaiming the Word of God. During the persecution against Christians under the emperor Nero (54-68), the holy Apostles Archippus and Philemon and Apphia were brought to trial by the ruler Artocles for confessing faith in Christ. St Archippus was brutally slashed with knives. After torture, they buried Sts Philemon and Apphia up to the waist in the ground, and stoned them until they died.

Devotions and Readings for this week

Mon 2/20 Tues 2/21 Wed 2/22 Thu 2/23 Fri 2/24 Sat 2/25 Saint Leo Bishop of Catania Holy Father Timothy The Symbollight and Eustathios Archbishop of Antioch Discovery of the remains of Holy Martyrs at Eugenios Hieromartyr Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna First and Second discoveries of the head of John the Forerunner Saint Tarasios Archbishop of Constantinople Gen 1:1-13 Gen 1:14-23 Gen 1:24-2:3 Gen 2:4-19 Gen 2:20-3:20 Heb 1:1-12 Prv 1:1-20 Prv 1:20-33 Prv 2:1-22 Prv 3:1-18 Prv 3:19-33 Mark 2:23-28 3:1-5

Prayer Requests

Rev. Father Philip Azoon Rev. Deacon John Karam Rev. Seraphim Michalenko Rev. Basil Samra Rev. Peter Boutros Rev. Deacon Bryan McNiel Rev. Deacon Irenaeus Dionne Rev. Father David White Rev. Deacon Michael Jolly

Parish Calendar
February 19 Cheesefare Sunday Parish Council, Ice Cream Social 4PM and beginning of Great Lent with Forgiveness Vespers at 5PM 20 Clean Mondaybeginning of the Great Fast A day of strict fasting minimum required midnight to noon

Marie Abda Marie Abda Marie Barron Joseph Barron Mary Sue Betress Chris Carey Nikki Boudreaux Nick Cianci Dr. Frances Colie John Colie Margaret Dillenburg

Mark Dillman Karen Haddad Kimberley Herman Karen Kane Niko Mayashairo Mary McNeilly Marie Patchoski Theodore Petrouchko Jr. Ruth Sirgany James Shehadi

Sacrificial Giving 2/12/2012 Candles Weekly Monthly $ 2.00 $ 1020.15 $ 5.00

The Weekly Quiz

Psalm 1 tells us. "...he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and..." his fruit will endure forever. he will not have a care in times of drought. his children shall call him blessed. whatsoever he does shall prosper.
Last Weeks Answer Q. There is a story in the Bible about four men whose other names were: Belteshazzar, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. What do we know them as? A. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

All those Serving in our Armed Forces The Christian Community in the Middle East