Category: Mary the Mother of God

Patriarch approves feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

The Head of the UGCC issued a decree on proclamation of the Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

The Head of the UGCC, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, approved the decision about introducing the Feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, which was concluded by the Patriarchal Liturgical Commission and handed over to the Primate for familiarization and proclamation.

The decree of the proclamation of the Feast is issued in Kyiv, at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ on Wednesday, June 20.

“We, by our authority, with our decree – BA 17/454 of December 11, 2017 of God – made it known to the people of God, having also decided on its celebration on the first Sunday of July. The Patriarchal Liturgical Commission was instructed to work on the liturgical texts of this holiday,” says in the document.

“In accordance with the provisions of the section” Liturgical Texts,” of the Instructions for the submission of liturgical texts, their reprints and translations (e.g., the Messenger of the Supreme Archbishop of the Kyiv-Halych UGCC 2013, p. 114), we approve and declare ad experimentum the Feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Help for the term of three years,” says in the Decree, which takes effect on June 21, 2018.

It is worth noting that the official proclamation of the holiday and celebrations on this occasion will be attended by the Metropolitans and Bishops of the UGCC, representatives of the fraternities of Our Mother of Perpetual Help of Ukraine and numerous faithful.

It should be added that on Sunday, July 1, the Head of the UGCC, His Beatitude Sviatoslav will visit Ternopil on the occasion of the pastoral visit, and solemnly proclaim the Feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, which the believers will celebrate each year on the first Sunday of July. The Head of the UGCC will lead the Hierarchical Holy Liturgy in the temple of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Danylо Halytsky boulevard, 1B). The Liturgy begins at 11:00.

Department of Information of the UGCC

May is Dedicated to the Mother of God

During the month of May our Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church honors the Mary the Mother of God in special prayer services as the akathist and moleben services. Mary was the humble servant of the Lord Who was always one with Her Son, our Lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

On the Cross the crucified gave John to His Mother and said: “This is Your Son!” At this moment we along with the beloved disciple John became spiritual children under the protection of His Mother Mary. Then turning to His disciple, Jesus said: “This is Your Mother!” At this moment not only John but all of us had a Spiritual Mother Who loved and cared for and about us. Mary is even now, today, our Intercessor always ready to help us, aid us in our times of need.

During the Moleben to the Mother of God we sing, pray and implore the Holy Theotokos to protect, save and keep us on the road leading to the Heavenly Kingdom saying:

“O Holy Mother of God, save us.” We refer to Mary as:
Ever-merciful Mother of God Mother of Eternal Love Mother of God’s grace Untainted Dove
Fragrant flower of incorruption
Our Intercessor before the Just Judge Comfort to those in sorrow
Refuge of sinners.
Indeed, Mary the Mother of God is ever there for us, ready to help and save those in need.”

Rev. D. George Worschak
Archeparchy of Philadelphia

The Annunciation

Today is Palm Sunday; it is also the solemn feast of the Annunciation to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel. We celebrate both on the same day.

The Annunciation of Gabriel to Mary that she would be the Theotokos almost always falls during the Great Fast. (*) According to the liturgical norms, it is celebrated on whatever day it falls, and the Divine Liturgy is celebrated, even on Good Friday. (**) The meaning of the Annunciation, however, is in conformity with the meaning of the Great Fast. The Great Fast is a journey from the sin of Adam and Eve to the Resurrection of our Lord. It is a passage from human pride to fidelity to God’s plan of salvation. The sin of Eve, which became the fundamental sin of the whole human race was to choose one’s own plan for salvation over God’s. It’s result, though, was death. Jesus in the resurrection, takes the power of death and twists it into life, as St. Paul said, “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)” Jesus was able to do this because he became a human being in the womb of Mary, who replaced Eve’s disobedience with obedience to God, “ “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. (Luke 1:38)” Thus, God “condescended” (that is, he came down to be with us) so that the plan of God could be lifted up. “Though he was in the form of God, [Christ] did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6-8)” Therefore, the Annunciation is a part of Pascha, as Melito of Sardis explained in his Paschal Homily: “And indeed there were many other things proclaimed by numerous prophets concerning the mystery of the passover, which is Christ, to whom be the glory forever. Amen.

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Synaxis of the Theotokos

Many Byzantine feasts have a commemoration on the day after a great feast called a “synaxis,” that is, an “assembly” or “gathering” in honor of one who participated in the feast. No more honorable person could ever be found than the holy Lady, the Mother of God.

This feast of her Synaxis was actually the most ancient, the first, celebration of her memory on the church calendar, because her giving birth to the Son of God was truly her greatest glory. It was by her free will, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. (Luke 1:38),” that our God and Creator became one of us. It was certainly her joy that she gave birth to this child, but we commemorate on this day all the suffering she bore because of her choice, the near repudiation by Joseph, the persecution of her son by Herod, causing them to flee for their lives to Egypt, until, at the end, she had to endure seeing her beloved son crucified as a common criminal on the cross. So Simeon the prophet told her, “ “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted, and you yourself a sword will pierce, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. (Luke 2:34-35)” Truly, she became by her suffering an intercessor with her Son.

We must ask if we are prepared, as St. Paul, who wrote “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body. (Colossians 1:24)” We also have the comfort of knowing, if we unite our will with that of Mary, that we, too, can become bearers of God through Communion in his Body and Blood by our own free will.

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

Maternity of St Anna

maternity-of-st-anneThe conception of the all-holy virgin Mary in the womb of Anna is celebrated on December 9 in the Byzantine tradition, for a natural reason, that the Eastern ancients thought a girl was in the womb one day less than a boy. However, in the Ruthenian Church in America, the feast is now celebrated together with the Roman Church on December 8, nine months before her birth on September 8, because she is the patron of the United States.

It is clear that this is a preparation for the birth of Christ on Christmas, for the first sticheron of the feast begins: “The barren Anna leaped for joy when she gave birth to Mary the Virgin who in turn will give birth in the flesh to God the Word.” Mary, the daughter of Anna and Joachim by way of natural birth is to be the temple of the Word of God incarnate for our sake and for our salvation.

The Eastern and Western Churches put the accent on different aspects of the feast. In the East, we celebrate the miracle of God taking away the barrenness of Anna’s womb. The Protoevangelium of James portrays the sadness of Joachim and Anna. Joachim lamented, “I have searched whether I am the only one who has not begotten offspring in Israel, and I have found of all the righteous that they had raised up offspring in Israel.” Anna wept, “I will bewail my widowhood, and bewail my childlessness.” (1,3 and 2,1) Two angels came, one to Joachim and another to Anna with a divine message that they would bear a child, even in their old age. When God takes away an emptiness, he fills us more than our faith can grasp, and they gave birth not only a child, but to the new Ark of God’s covenant with us.

The Western Church, on the other hand, puts the accent on Mary’s purity from all sin from her conception, defined by Pope Bl. Pius IX in 1848 as the Immaculate Conception. The theology behind this is that the incarnation of the sinless Word of God must come from a sinless temple, the womb of Mary which was never touched by sin, even from her conception.

It is unfortunate that this dogma has become a bone of contention between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Both believe in the ancestral sin, but in different ways, so that for the Orthodox the main curse of the sin of Adam and Eve is death, while for the Catholics, it is original sin. May we seek unity and not division. Most Orthodox theologians do believe that the “ancestral sin” has infected the human race, but might disagree about the way it does this. In our dialogue, we must seek a mutual understanding, perhaps in the words of Orthodox theologians who saw a “pre-purification” in Mary. “And in every way [the Lord] became a man, save sin, for he had been conceived from a virgin, after she had been pre-purified with respect to soul and body through the Holy Spirit.” (Gregory the Theologian, Homily 38 on the Theophany) or St. John Damascene, who wrote, “O all-blessed loins of Joachim, from which the all-pure seed was sown. O epic womb, in which the all-holy infant was born, after she was formed, and a little later increased by nutriments from Anne. Her (Anne’s) belly conceived in itself an ensouled heaven, wider than the wide space of heaven.” (Both quotes from Christian Kappes’ book, The Immaculate Conception 21 and 60).

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Maternity of St. Ann –Holy Day

December 8 is a Holy Day celebrating the Maternity of Saint Ann (AKA Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Mother of God in the Latin Church). You will also hear the feast as the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Divine Liturgy will be served at 9:00 a.m. in Ukrainian AND 7:00 p.m. in English.

The Holy Theotokos under the title of the Immaculate Conception is the patroness of the United States of America.

“With the Angels let us celebrate the aIl-glorious conception of the Mother of God” (From the Matins). Historically, Saint Ann is the mother of the Virgin Mary. Ann’s biography says that she was the youngest daughter of the priest Nathan from Bethlehem, descended from the tribe of Levi. She married Saint Joachim, who was a native of Galilee.

For many years Saint Ann was childless, but after twenty years, through the fervent prayer of both spouses, an angel of the Lord announced to them that they would be the parents of a daughter, Who would bring blessings to the entire human race.

For more information on this feast, read an article published by the Ruthenian Metropolitan Church in Pittsburgh, which also speaks to the Ukrainian observance.

 

The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

The feast today is the story of our salvation through the temple of God.

The first temple was the temple in Jerusalem. It was a foreshadowing of the temple to come. It was localized in one place – the city of Jerusalem. In it were no images of God, for “No one has ever seen God. (1 John 4:12)” The Liturgy tells us that he is “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever existing, yet ever the same.” The temple was his footstool on earth. Here animal sacrifice was offered to God, which was only a foreshadowing of the perfect sacrifice to be offered by our Lord, “when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be, passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation, he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:11-12)”

The second temple is Mary, the birth-giver of God.” In today’s feast, she enters the temple of Jerusalem in order to replace it, for she shall bear God within her womb. As the new and living temple of God, she is our temple, for like Mary, who carried God in her womb, we receive God into our bodies in Holy Communion. As Mary was fed in the temple by angelic bread, so we receive the bread of life, the Body of Jesus, and his holy blood of the perfect sacrifice, which becomes our sacrifice of praise. St. Paul teaches us, “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1),” in Sunday’s Epistle, he wrote, “you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)” This is the temple of God for us today.

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Feast of the Protection of the Theotokos

On this Sunday, we celebrate the feast of the Protection of the Theotokos. This commemorates the vision of St. Andrew, the Fool for Christ, who, during an attack, as the people kept an All-night Vigil of Prayer, saw the Mother of God holding a protecting veil over her city. We can say, then, that this feast celebrates the power of Mary, who fights on behalf of Christians, and is a mighty protector of the people. On this day we read the common Gospel from St. Luke on feasts of Mary, the story of Mary and Martha. Maybe a better gospel would be the story of the wedding at Cana in Galilee. There, at Cana, it was Jesus’ mother, a woman, who by her plea, guided God to make wine out of water, telling the stewards, and through them, saying to all of us, “Do whatever he tells you.” As his mother, she began the story of Jesus’ mission, even though he had said, “My hour has not yet come.” This truly is power given to her by God. This is still Mary’s relationship with us. She is our protector and motherly intercessor. She is the mother of all believers, for our Lord, on the cross, gave her to his beloved disciple and through him to all of us. Her message to us always, every time she appears, is “Do what my Son tells you.”

Today, we have fierce debates about the role of women in the Church. But the evidence here is for the power of women, just as Eve brought about the fall of the human race by her disobedience (Adam only ratified her decision), so Mary brings salvation into the world by her obedient decision to become the mother of God Incarnate. She said, as every Christian must also say, ““Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” And Mary receives this great power in a human way, through humility and weakness. She plays a hidden role in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, but it is through her weakness that the Christian finds strength, it is in her humility that we find wisdom, and in her death we are given the hope of life, “O Theotokos, … in your falling asleep you did not forsake the world … and through your prayers you deliver our souls from death. (Troparion of the Feast of the Dormition)

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Feast of the Birth of the Theotokos

Christians of East and West can express their gratitude for today’s feast to brought  to our awareness by Eastern monks. It was in the seventh century, this feast  of Our Lady was celebrated by Greek Christians. The narrative of Mary’s Nativity is not testified to in sacred Scripture but known only from apocryphal sources. By the end of the seventh century this feast gained acceptance in the Diocese of Rome.

Our meditation for today

The Epistle today is from Philippians, and it is about Christ, “Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. (Philippians 2:7-9)” The mystery of Mary, the Theotokos, the Birth-giver of God, is united with the mystery of Jesus our Lord, the Giver of Life to all. Every feast is a celebration of the one Paschal Mystery, how through his death on the Cross (“by death trampling upon death”) the Son of God bestowed life upon the whole world, and how, therefore, in our humiliation, in giving ourselves in love to God and, through him, to each other, we find glory in God.

Joachim and Anna were humbled and desolate, barren of children, and yet, “from infertile ground, the fertile ground is born. From her has grown the Gardener (see that Mary Magdalene mistakes the risen Christ for a gardener) of all fruit, the flower bringing life, who by the will of God nourishes the universe. (1st Troparion, Ode 3, Matins of the Pre-feast)” Today we chant that “Joachim and Anne were freed from the reproach of childlessness.” This mystery must be re-lived in the life of Christ, the child born of Mary, who dies on the Cross in desolation, so that all the universe may be freed from the “despair of death,” and find life in God.

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

Dormition’s blessing of herbs and flowers

Tonight at the Divine Liturgy, Father Iura blessed herbs and flowers.

In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death. (Byzantine Liturgy; Troparion, Feast of the Dormition)