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

E-Mail: Web: Webmaster:

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

March 4, 2012 Tone 5, Orthros 5 Liturgy Schedule: Saturday Vespers 4pm Compline Weds 8:30PM

Second Sunday of Lent Sunday of the Holy Relics Our Holy Father Gregory Palamas Sunday Orthros 8:55 am Sunday Divine Liturgy 10:00 am

Liturgy Intentions:
March 4, 2012 Joseph Abda Mildred Abda March 11, 2012 Dorothy Abda
Todays Icon: Saint Gregory Palamas

Parish Notes:

Welcome back Father Jerome Wolbert who serves at our altar today. Father has agreed to hear confessions after Liturgy today. Thanks to Reader Michael for stepping in for Deacon Michael Saturday Men's Breakfast March 10 at 9am (8:45am registration in Emmaus Hall) at Holy Dormition Monastery. Akathist to the Mother of God and Panachida for +Metropolitan Basil of Pittsburgh and +Metropolitan Nicholas of Johnstown. Followed by breakfast and discussion with Rev Lawrence Barriger on The Feast of the Annunciation. Prayers are requested for the servant of God, Father Philip Azoon who is now hospitalized

The Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great

Antiphons:
O Lord, our God, You have granted the holy martyrs that their relics would be spread throughout the world, including this church, to bring forth the grace of healing from diseases. Make us worthy, through the intercession of your Saints, to offer You the Spiritual Sacrifice and guide us on the way of Salvation For You are Good and the Lover of mankind and to You we render glory, 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 5 Tone 5 Tone 2

Hymns:
Resurrectional Troparion Troparion of the Holy Icons
O Victorious witnesses of the Lord, blessed is the earth that received your blood, and holy are the heavenly places that opened to your souls. You have vanquished the enemy in battle and proclaimed Christ with courage. We beg you to intercede with Him who is all good, that He may save our souls.

Troparion of Gregory Palamas

O Gregory the Wonderworker, light of Orthodoxy, support and teacher of the Church, glory of monks and invincible protector of theologians, pride of Thessaloniki and preacher of grace: Pray without ceasing for the salvation of us all.

Tone 8

Troparion of the Photina

Completely illumined by the Holy Spirit, you drank with great and ardent longing from the waters which Christ the Savior gave you. You were refreshed by the streams of salvation, which you generously shared with those who thirst. O great martyr and true equal to the Apostles, Photina, entreat Christ God to grant His mercy to us all.

Tone 3

Troparion of Saint Joseph Kontakion of The Annunciation

Triumphant leader to you belongs our prize of victory! And since you saved us from adversity we offer you our thanks. We are your people O mother of God! So as you have that invincible power, continue to deliver us from danger that we may cry out to you Hail, O Virgin and bride ever pure.

Tone 2 Tone 4

Prokiemenon

(Tone 5) You, O Lord, will keep us and preserve us always from this generation Stichon: Save me, O Lord, for there is no longer any holy man, for truthfulness has vanished from among the children of men. .

Reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews

1:10-2:4

You in the beginning, O Lord, did found the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands. They shall perish, but you shall continue; and they shall all grow old as does a garment, and as clothing shall you change them, and they shall be changed. But you are the same, and your years shall not fail (Ps. 101: 2628) Now, to which of the angels has he ever said, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool at your feet (Ps. 109: 1)? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent for service, for the sake of those who shall inherit salvation? That is why we should all the more earnestly observe the things we have heard, lest perhaps we drift away. For if the word spoken by angels proved to be valid, and every transgression and disobedience received a just punishment, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? For it was first announced by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard it.

Alleluia (Tone 4)
Your favor, O Lord, I will sing forever; from generation to generation my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness Stichon: For you have said, My kindness is established forever. In heaven you have confirmed your faithfulness.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark

2:1-12

At that time Jesus entered Caparnaum, and it was reported that he was at home. And immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even around the door. And he spoke the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four. And since they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was, and, having made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the Paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven you. Now some of the Scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, Why does this man blaspheme in this way? Who can forgive sins, beside God? And at once Jesus, knowing in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, said to them, Why are you arguing these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Arise, and take up your pallet, and walk? But that you may know the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins he said to the paralytic I say to you, arise, take up your pallet, and go to your house, And immediately he arose and, taking up his pallet, went forth in the sight of all, so that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, Never did we see anything like this!

The Hirmos
In you, O full of grace, all creation rejoices, the orders of angels amd the human race as well: O sanctified Temple, spiritual Paradise, Glory of virgins from whom Our God who exists for all eternity, took flesh and became a little child! He has taken your womb as his throne, making it more spacious than the heavens. In you, O full of grace, all creation exults: glory to you!

Silent Spaces, Silent Times

by Albert Rossi, Ph.D. Iam
trying something new with my thirteen-year-old son, Tim. Whenever were riding together in the car, he gets the radio half the time, and I get it the other half. He chooses music for his time, which is usually the first half of the ride. Then coming back, after listening to a few minutes of news, I choose silence.

Silence allows us to be present to God through the prayer of the heart. For me, this means saying the Jesus Prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, as I inhale and, have mercy on me a sinner, as I exhale. Throughout the prayer, I am attentive to my breathing and the beating of my heart. Through the ages, great saints have found the Jesus Prayer to be a powerful experience within the silence. When my wife was alive, she once said to me, How can you write articles on silence when your teenage daughter, whose stereo is always on, has a sign on her wall that says, Everyone is entitled to my opinion? This was a valid point. Perhaps we all need to be more conscious of the role of silence in our lives and strive to include more quiet and prayerful spaces.

One place for us to begin is to discuss the role of silence in our family. I kiddingly refer to my nineteen-year-old daughter Getting half the radio time was an act of courage for me, as a telephone addict and to my thirteen-year-old son as a having frittered away my rights some time ago. I had allowed music addict. This gives us a starting point for further Tim to have the radio rights, while I tried to ignore his music. conversations about silence in out lives. Tim and I have discussed silence and have agreed that we can both be perfectly comfortable riding for long distances without talking. That takes the edge off needing incessant noise to compensate for the fact that we dont have much to say right now. Silence is okay for us. When I was a boy, my father would sometimes ask me to sit on the porch swing with him. Sitting with my father meant swinging in total silence for ten or fifteen minutes. He would then say, Thanks, and I was free to go. It was a dad/ son time, just him and me. And although I sometimes found it awkward, I must admit that I enjoyed the peace and forced intimacy. Time stood still. I would not have offered or freely chosen such silence; yet I was glad he suggested it in a way I couldnt easily refuse. We Americans generally admire extroverted personalities. It might even be said that we idolize extroversion. We are easily drawn to the persuasive speaker, the entertaining gossiper, the charming conversationalist, apart from what he or she might be saying. We place high priority on the skill of assertion and easily admire those who take a backseat to no one. But the idolization of extroversion and assertiveness by adults is, I believe, the foundation for tolerating and encouraging promiscuous behavior in children.

In our family, we are adding a moment of silence to our common prayer before supper. We are also trying, with mixed results, not to answer the phone during supper. At Christmas and Pascha, we gather in the living room before the evening meal and extend the quiet time to half and hour. Afterward, As we parents age, hopefully we choose silence more. we discuss what the feast means to us at this point in our Choosing silence means being attentive to the still place lives. within our hearts. We can choose this still place when we shower in the morning, while driving the car, or when we Perhaps what we need to do most is to pray and pray and have a few moments in the evening. pray. We need to pray to be given new and creative ways to recapture silent spaces and silent times within our family life. It is good for our children to see us silent. My children It may very well be that the quality of the life of the Holy sometimes find me quietly meditating. At first, it was Spirit in our family life depends upon our desire and skill to embarrassing for me and for them. Now they shrug it off as, find ways to face Him, as a family, in silence as well as in Dad doing his thing. dialogue; in quiet times as well as in activity.

The Lenten Prayer of St Ephrem the Syrian By Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann

twelve times saying: "O God, cleanse me a sinner." The entire prayer is repeated with one final prostration at the end. Why does this short and simple prayer occupy such an important position in the entire lenten worship? Because it enumerates in a unique way all the "negative" and "positive" elements of repentance and constitutes, so to speak, a "check list" for our individual lenten effort. This effort is aimed first at our liberation from some fundamental spiritual diseases which shape our life and make it virtually impossible for us even to start turning ourselves to God. The basic disease is sloth. It is that strange laziness and passivity of our entire being which always pushes us "down" rather than "up" -- which constantly convinces us that no change is possible and therefore desirable. It is in fact a deeply rooted cynicism which to every spiritual challenge responds "what for?" and makes our life one tremendous spiritual waste. It is the root of all sin because it poisons the spiritual energy at its very source. The result of sloth is faint-heartedness. It is the state of despondency which all spiritual Fathers considered the greatest danger for the soul. Despondency is the impossibility for man to see anything good or positive; it is the reduction of everything to negativism and pessimism. It is truly a demonic power in us because the Devil is fundamentally a liar. He lies to man about God and about the world; he fills life with darkness and negation. Despondency is the suicide of the soul because when man is possessed by it he is absolutely unable to see the light and to desire it. Lust of power! Strange as it may seem, it is precisely sloth and despondency that fill our life with lust of power. By vitiating the entire attitude toward life and making it meaningless and empty, they force us to seek compensation in, a radically wrong attitude toward other persons. If my life is not oriented toward God, not aimed at eternal values, it will inevitably become selfish and selfcentered and this means that all other beings will become means of my own self-satisfaction. If God is not the Lord and Master of my life, then I become my own lord and master -- the absolute center of my own world, and I begin to evaluate everything in terms of my needs, my ideas, my desires, and my judgments. The lust of power is thus a fundamental depravity in my relationship to other beings, a search for their subordination to me. It is not necessarily expressed in the actual urge to command and to dominate "others." It may result as well in indifference, contempt, lack of interest, consideration, and respect. It is indeed sloth and despondency directed this time at others; it completes spiritual suicide with spiritual murder.

Of all lenten hymns and prayers, one short prayer can be termed the lenten prayer. Tradition ascribes it to one of the great teachers of spiritual life - St. Ephrem the Syrian. Here is its text: O Lord, Master of my life, grant that I may not be infected with the spirit of slothfulness and acquisitiveness, with the spirit of ambition and vain talking. Grant instead to me your servant the spirit of purity and humility, the spirit of patience and neighborly love. O Lord and King, bestow upon me the grace of being aware of my own sins and of not thinking evil of those of my brothers and sisters. For You are blessed unto ages of ages. Amen. O God, be gracious to me a sinner, and have mercy on me. Yes, O Lord and King, bestow upon me the grace of being aware of my own sins and of not thinking evil of those of my brothers and sisters. For You are blessed unto ages of ages. Amen. This prayer is read twice at the end of each lenten service Monday through Friday (not on Saturdays and Sundays for, as we shall see later, the services of these days do not follow the lenten pattern). At the first reading, a prostration follows each petition. Then we all bow

Finally, idle talk. Of all created beings, man alone has been endowed with the gift of speech. All Fathers see in it the very "seal" of the Divine Image in man because God Himself is revealed as Word (John, 1:1). But being the supreme gift, it is by the same token the supreme danger. Being the very expression of man, the means of his selffulfillment, it is for this very reason the means of his fall and self-destruction, of betrayal and sin. The word saves and the word kills; the word inspires and the word poisons. The word is the means of Truth and it is the means of demonic Lie. Having an ultimate positive power, it has therefore a tremendous negative power. It truly creates positively or negatively. When deviated from its divine origin and purpose, the word becomes idle. It "enforces" sloth, despondency, and lust of power, and transforms life into hell. It becomes the very power of sin.

to Him. The closer we come to God, the more patient we grow and the more we reflect that infinite respect for all beings which is the proper quality of God. Finally, the crown and fruit of all virtues, of all growth and effort, is love -- that love which, as we have already said, can be given by God alone-the gift which is the goal of all spiritual preparation and practice. All this is summarized and brought together in the concluding petition of the lenten prayer in which we ask "to see my own errors and not to judge my brother." For ultimately there is but one danger: pride. Pride is the source of evil, and all evil is pride. Yet it is not enough for me to see my own errors, for even this apparent virtue can be turned into pride. Spiritual writings are full of warnings against the subtle forms of pseudo-piety which, in reality, under the cover of humility and self-accusation can lead to a truly demonic pride. But when we "see our own errors" and "do not judge our brothers," when, in other terms, chastity, humility, patience, and love are but one in us, then and only then the ultimate enemy--pride--will be destroyed in us.

These four are thus the negative "objects" of repentance. They are the obstacles to be removed. But God alone can remove them. Hence, the first part of the lenten prayer; this cry from the bottom of human helplessness. Then the prayer moves to the positive aims of repentance which also are four. After each petition of the prayer we make a prostration. Chastity! If one does not reduce this term, as is so Prostrations are not limited to the Prayer of St. Ephrem but often and erroneously done, only to its sexual connotations, it constitute one of the distinctive characteristics of the entire is understood as the positive counterpart of sloth. The exact lenten worship. Here, however, their meaning is disclosed best and full translation of the Greek sofrosini and the Russian of all. In the long and difficult effort of spiritual recovery, the tselomudryie ought to be whole-mindedness. Sloth is, first of Church does not separate the soul from the body. The whole all, dissipation, the brokenness of our vision and energy, the man has fallen away from God; the whole man is to be inability to see the whole. Its opposite then is precisely restored, the whole man is to return. The catastrophe of sin wholeness. If we usually mean by chastity the virtue opposed lies precisely in the victory of the flesh -- the animal, the to sexual depravity, it is because the broken character of our irrational, the lust in us -- over the spiritual and the divine. But existence is nowhere better manifested than in sexual lust -- the body is glorious; the body is holy, so holy that God the alienation of the body from the life and control of the Himself "became flesh." Salvation and repentance then are not spirit. Christ restores wholeness in us and He does so by contempt for the body or neglect of it, but restoration of the restoring in us the true scale of values by leading us back to body to its real function as the expression and the life of spirit, as the temple of the priceless human soul. Christian asceticism God. is a fight, not against but for the body. For this reason, the The first and wonderful fruit of this wholeness or whole man - soul and body - repents. The body participates in chastity is humility. We already spoke of it. It is above the prayer of the soul just as the soul prays through and in the everything else the victory of truth in us, the elimination of all body. Prostrations, the "psycho-somatic" sign of repentance lies in which we usually live. Humility alone is capable of and humility, of adoration and obedience, are thus the lenten truth, of seeing and accepting things as they are and therefore rite par excellence. of seeing God's majesty and goodness and love in everything. This is why we are told that God gives grace to the humble and resists the proud. Chastity and humility are naturally followed by patience. The "natural" or "fallen" man is impatient, for being blind to himself he is quick to judge and to condemn others. Having but a broken, incomplete, and distorted knowledge of everything, he measures all things by his tastes and his ideas. Being indifferent to everyone except himself, he wants life to be successful right here and now. Patience, however, is truly a divine virtue. God is patient not because He is "indulgent," but because He sees the depth of all that exists, because the inner reality of things, which in our blindness we do not see, is open

affirmation that our physical nature is a blessing, is a gift, is something good given to us by the loving Lord. And this is important in a world which for all Brothers and sisters, today a few brief words on fasting from our holy father among the saints, John its hedonism and its emphasis on seeking pleasure of the body, nonetheless in spiritual terms, is all too Chrysostom. These are timely topics to be addressing today: fasting and asceticism. As in the eager to dismiss the body, the material as something base, defiled, lesser than the spiritual. But in the new week, or in fact, later this week, those who follow the old calendar of the Orthodox Church will Church, through our fasting, we affirm again and begin the fast leading to the Nativity of Christ. And again that the body has sacred power. Fasting of the body says St. John, is food for the soul. As for those who follow the new calendar, this fast is Saint John says in another place, as bodily food already underway. So, whichever calendar one fattens the body so fasting strength into the soul, follows by the blessing of ones bishop, the fast is imparting it an easy flight, it makes it able to ascend upon or nearly upon us. on high, to contemplate lofty things, and to put the heavenly higher than the pleasant and pleasurable But what is fasting? In the Orthodox Church, we things of life. fast regularly. Every week of the year, with few exceptions, have days dedicated to this task. Certain Our body is a sacred gift, and yet through our seasons throughout the year are appointed as specifically fasting seasons. Most obviously: Great gluttony, through our misuse of the body, not by its own limitation, but by our misuse, our Lent, but also this Nativity Fast, the Fast of the disfigurement of this sacred gift. The body all too Dormition, the Fast of the Holy Apostles, and the often serves to weigh down the soul, to weigh down fasts before various feasts. It behooves us, then, to ask not just once or twice in our lives, but regularly, the Spirit, to keep it from the spiritual ascent, rather what is this fasting and why do we do it? And here, than doing that which it was created to do, which is to assist us in our spiritual growth. And so, says the fathers, the saints of the Church, have much to Saint John, we fast in order to strengthen the soul teach us and continually to remind us. by cleansing the body, by giving the body back to the spiritual contest, by offering it back into the Saint John Chrysostom in one of his pithy sayings, realm of the Christian life, reclaiming it from our simply states, Fasting of the body is food for the sensual passions, from our ordinary misuse of the soul. And this short saying puts everything in the flesh, to that which may draw us closer to God. right perspective. Fasting, in some sense, is a By Fr. Dcn. Matthew Steenberg bodily, spiritual exercise. We refrain from certain foods. We keep longer vigils. We dedicate more time to prayer. We alter our diet. We perhaps take less sleep. It is also an act of our bodies in their normal day-to-day motions. We may refrain from certain social activities and dedicate that time instead to prayer, alms-giving, or to other such spiritual things. But in all these cases, we utilize by the direction of the Church, our physical body, our material nature as something sacred, some which, when focused upon, when cleansed and purified, has the power to transfigure our spirit, our soul. So, fasting is for the Christian person a basic So, fasting is a tool by which our bodily natures are reclaimed and reunited to the spiritual. And for this reason, as we enter upon the Nativity Fast, we must take blessed attention towards our body as well as our soul, uniting them together in the ascetical project. And yet, we must not become conceited, focusing solely on ourselves. We fast in order to reclaim creation, to offer this world which we have disfigured through our sin back to God, and our fathers teach us that we must begin this project in our own heart. For if our own heart is weighed down, we can no more lift another up than we can ourselves. And yet, the project of working on our heart is a pastoral project, a missionary project. For

when our heart is restored to communion, when we Do not say to me, I fasted for so many days. I did are lifted up ourselves to God, we are able to do the not eat this or I did not eat that. I did not drink wine, that I endured want. Instead, show me if thou, same to the cosmos, to the world around us. from an angry man, has become instead gentle. If So fasting, though it focuses inward on the heart, is from a cruel man, thou hast become benevolent. If thou art filled with anger, why oppress thy flesh? If nonetheless an act of charity, of love, of giving to hatred and avarice are within thee, of what benefit the other in this world. And this is constantly is it that thou drinkest water instead of wine? Do reminded to us by the fathers. It is one of the not show forth a useless fast, for fasting alone does reasons that almsgiving is tied into fasting, and not ascend to heaven. when we fast, we deliberately engage in acts of charity, reclaiming not only our body, but our time and our activities back from our selfish Let this be our reminder as we engage in the fast preoccupations into an orientation aimed at the leading us to the Holy Pascha Let us not engage in other, at all of creation. In that light, hear these what St. John calls a useless fast which attempts to ascend to heaven by its own merits, its own words of Saint John. Do you fast? He asks. power, repeating the sin of the people of the Tower Then feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit of Babel. Let us instead use the fast as the Church the sick, do not forget the imprisoned, have pity on intends and the fathers instruct: as a time to work out our transformation by Gods grace. What the tortured, comfort those who grieve and those sacrifices we make, let them be sacrifices that who weep. Be merciful, humble, kind, calm, transform us. They are not ends in and of patient, sympathetic, forgiving, reverent, truthful themselves. They are the tools by which we can and pious so that God might accept your fasting become a little closer to Gods image, a little closer and might plentifully grant you the fruits of to Christs life. Let us use the fast as a time of repentance. charity, of love, of meekness and ultimately, have great and unending joy in the incarnate and risen This is the spirit of self-offering that must Lord. Through the prayers of our holy fathers and accompany the ascetical dimensions of any fast. the saints, John the Golden-Mouthed of Though we refrain in our own life from certain Constantinople and of all the saints, Lord Jesus acts, behaviors, foods, occupations which might keep us from God, we also add to our lives during Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen. the fast: an increase of prayer, an increase of time in the Church, an increase of love towards our brother and our sister. This becomes the litmus test Memory Eternal of the true fast. Do I fast solely to the end that I have given up certain foods, that I have given up certain activities, but have in no way changed my relationship to neighbor or God? If that is the judgment of my fast, then it is a fast not of God, but of the demons. It is a fast of selfishness. The true litmus test of the fast is whether through these acts of sacrifice, of aschesis, we have grown in love towards our brother. We have developed in our heart a Christ-like demeanor that has come about Kimberley Herman through reclaiming ourselves from sin. St. John O Christ God, with theSaints grant rest says in another place, to your handmaid Kim

Among Todays Saints

Saint Gerasimus was a native of Lycia (Asia Minor). From his early years he was distinguished for his piety. Having received monastic tonsure, he withdrew into the desert of the Thebaid (in Egypt). Thereafter, in about the year 450, the monk arrived in Palestine and settled at the Jordan, where he founded a monastery. For a certain while St Gerasimus was tempted by the heresy of Eutyches and Dioscorus, which acknowledged only the divine nature in Jesus Christ, but not His human nature (i.e. the Monophysite heresy). St Euthymius the Great (January 20) helped him to return to the true Faith. St Gerasimus established a strict monastic Rule. He spent five days of the week in solitude, occupying himself with handicrafts and prayer. On these days the wilderness dwellers did not eat cooked food, nor did they kindle a fire, but ate only dry bread, roots and water. On Saturday and Sunday all gathered at the monastery for Divine Liturgy and to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. In the afternoon, taking a supply of bread, tubers, water and an armload of date-palm branches for weaving baskets, the desert-dwellers returned to their own cells. Each had only old clothes and a mat, upon which he slept. When they left their cells, the door was never locked, so that anyone could enter and rest, or take whatever he needed.

Phoenician city of Ptolemais. The emperor happened to visit Ptolemais, and among those who met him was Paul, who made the Sign of the Cross. They arrested him and threw him in prison. On the following day, when they brought him to trial, he openly and boldly confessed his faith in Christ, for which he was subjected to fierce tortures. Juliana, seeing the suffering of her brother, began to denounce the emperor for his injustice and cruelty, for which she was also subjected to torture.

St Gerasimus himself attained a high level of asceticism. During Great Lent he ate nothing until the very day of the All-Radiant Resurrection of Christ, when he received the Holy Mysteries. Going out into the desert for all of Great Lent, St Gerasimus took with him his beloved disciple St Cyriacus (September 29), whom St Euthymius had sent to They beat the martyrs, tore their bodies with iron hooks, him. burned them over red-hot grates, but they were not able to When St Euthymius the Great died, St Gerasimus saw break the wondrous endurance of the Lord's confessors. how angels carried the soul of the departed up to Heaven. Three soldiers torturing the saints were struck by the Taking Cyriacus with him, the monk immediately set off courageous spirit of the martyrs, and they in turn believed to the monastery of St Euthymius and consigned his body in Christ. These newly chosen of God were named Quadratus, Acacius and Stratonicus, and they were to the earth. immediately executed. St Gerasimus died peacefully, mourned by his brethren and disciples. Before his death, a lion had aided St The tormentor tried to seduce St Juliana with a promise to Gerasimus in his tasks, and upon the death of the Elder it marry her, if she were to renounce Christ, but the saint died at his grave and was buried nearby. Therefore the refused the offer and remained steadfast. By order of the emperor they sent her to a brothel to be defiled. The Lord lion is depicted on icons of the saint, at his feet. also preserved her there, and anyone who tried to touch The Holy Martyr Paul and his sister Juliana were the saint lost his sight. Then the enraged emperor executed under the emperor Aurelian (270-275) in the commanded that they again burn the bodies of the saints.

GREAT AND HOLY LENT 2012

- WEEKLY SERVICES: 7PM Monday: Wednesday: Liturgy Friday: - LENTEN MISSION Great Compline Pre -Sanctified Akathist Hymn MARCH 12th-16TH

- FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION - MARCH 25th

WEDNESDAY PM THURSDAY MARCH 24th VESPERS: 7:00 MARCH 25th LITURGY: 7:00 PM

- END OF THE GREAT FAST- MARCH 30th VESPERS: 7:00 PM

With one accord, we praise you as the sacred and divine vessel of wisdom and clear trumpet of theology, O our righteous Father Gregory of divine speech. As a mind that stands now before the Primal Mind, do you ever guide aright and lead our mind to Him, that we all may cry: Hail, O herald of grace divine.

- GREAT AND HOLY WEEK APRIL 2nd April 6th - PASCHA AND BRIGHT WEEK APRIL 4th th 10

Devotions and Readings for this week

Mon 3/5 Tues 3/6 Weds 3/7 Thurs 3/8 Fri 3/9 Sat 3/10 Holy Martyr Conan the Issaurian Forty Holy Martyrs of Amorium Hieromartyrs Ephrem, Basil, Eugene, Agathodore, Capiton, Aitheres and Elipedes Holy Father Theophilactus Forty Martyrs of Sebastes Holy Martyr Codratus of Corinth and his comapnion Gen 6:9-22 Gen 7:1-5 Gen 7:6-16 Gen 7: 11-8:3 Gen 8:3-21 Heb 10:32-36 Prv 8:1-21 Prv 8:32-9:11 Prv 9:12-End Prv 10:1-12 Prv 14:15-26 Mark 2:14-17

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

Parish Calendar
March Lenten MissionMarch 12-16th 12th at St. Joseph 13th at St. Ann 14th at St. John the Baptist 15th at St. Vladimir 16th at S. Mary 25 Feast of the Annunciation
Sacrificial Giving 2/19 Weekly Candles Monthly Holyday $ 287.00 $ 7.00 $ 122.50 $ 25.00 2/26 $ 685.00 $ 3.00 $ 30.00

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 Karen Kane Niko Mayashairo Mary McNeilly Marie Patchoski Theodore Petrouchko Jr. Charlie Simon Ruth Sirgany James Shehadi

The Weekly Quiz

What was the occupations of Cain and of his brother, Abel? Cain was a physician and Abel was a keeper of sheep Cain was a keeper of sheep and Abel was a tiller of the ground Cain was a carpenter and Abel was a physician Cain was a tiller of the ground and Abel was a keeper of sheep Last Weeks Answer Q.Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be _____. A. health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones

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