Category: Adult Faith Formation

Forward in Orthodox-Catholic Relations

Here is a very interesting and important conversation among the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics. I’d also include in my descriptors is beautiful. This particular presentation is the first of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute online lecture series addressing issues, obstacles, and ways forward in Orthodox-Catholic relations.

The host is Sr. Vassa Larin of “Coffee with Sr. Vassa.”

The lecture’s participants:

Fr. Cyril Hovorun (Loyola Marymount University)
Fr. Mark Morozowich (Catholic University of America)

 

Resources for Sunday of the Forefathers

Resources for Sunday, December 13, Sunday of the Forefathers

God With Us Online pulls together great liturgical catechetical resources for use in three jurisdictions of the Byzantine Catholic Church (Ruthenian, Ukrainian and Melkite).

You will notice on the link below several things:

1. prayers for the Domestic Church
2. a music file of the Resurrectional Troparion
3. Catechist resources
4. a Gospel reflection given by 2 priests.

There is something for everyone. For example, the December reflection on St. Symeon the New Theologian is brief and helpful.

These resources are given to us to help prepare for the Divine Liturgy on Sunday. By tapping into what is given allows us to enter more deeply in our Catholic Faith and Ukrainian Tradition. Utilize as much as you have time for but something for your relationship with the Lord. These resources from God With Us Online are a particularly good and beautiful way to encounter the Lord in a personal way.

The Sunday of the Forefathers

 

Iconography of the Mother of God presented

Today,May 7, a presentation on the Iconography of the Mother of God was given as part of the Knights of Columbus Museum’s webinar series.

The presenter, Marek Czarnecki, is a well skilled in iconography. He lives in Meriden, CT.

Scholars have classified over 600 distinct prototypes for icons of the Mother of God. How can this multiplicity point to only one source, the first century Miryam of Nazareth? The first Christians responded to her intuitively with the earliest catacomb frescoes. The early church validated her importance with biographical icons narrating her participation in the life of Christ. Icons representing her solely with the Christ child expressed formal Marian dogma, beginning with her title as Mother of God. As Intercessor, her icons catalogued every possible human need. Other icons commemorated the sites of miracles or apparitions, while new prototypes continue to be revealed and painted into the present.

Does God really change you?

Often we can take the designation ‘child of God’ as a metaphor, as a nice thought, but not something that reaches down to our very core. Yet the communion that Jesus invites us into is no metaphor, but a reality that changes our inner landscape. In Jesus, we become part of his risen body, sharing his inheritance as sons and daughters of God. (NS)

The Sunday Before Christmas: The Genealogy of Jesus

The Gospel this Sunday presents us with an abundance of names, all those who were the ancestors of Christ. By this we see that on this feast, the Son and Word of God becomes a part of the human family and a part of human history. In this Gospel Jesus is also given a name, the final verse tells us that the child will be known as Jesus – Savior. In verse 22, though, he is given the name “Immanuel,” “God with us.” This gives us the theological meaning of the feast, the incarnation signifies our deification.

We all have names, but for the ancients, names had meanings, they did not simply give us an identification tag, but told us something of who we were. In that sense, we do not name ourselves, but we are given a name, we are all “called by name” by God, and so we enter into the ancestry of Jesus. The names are the forefathers of Jesus, but also the foremothers are mentioned: Tamar, who bore a son by trickery of Judah; Ruth, the grandmother of David, who left her people to follow Naomi; the unnamed wife of David, Bathsheba, who David married by arranging for the death of Uriah. We see, then, that even trough questionable and evil actions, as well as by faithfulness, Jesus becomes “the son given to us.” The greatest of the woman in his genealogy is, of course, Mary, his mother, who by her obedience cancelled the curse of Eve, and united God with humanity in her womb.

Today, we celebrate the Son of Abraham, according to the Law, and the Son of David, the everlasting King, to whom even David bowed, and even the Son of exile, for we are all citizens of the spiritual, not the earthly, Jerusalem. Today we must be named as a follower of Christ.

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

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