Parish announcements this week

Christ is risen!

This week vigil light is offered to God’s glory by Carl Harvey in memory of Eugenia Harvey.

The next meeting of Knights of Columbus Blessed Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Ukrainian Council will be held on Monday, June 3, 7:00 p.m. in the Holy Name Room. All men of the parish are invited to attend.

The Panachyda service at the gravesites will take place on Saturday, June 8 at 11:00 a.m. at All Saints Cemetery and Sunday, June 9 at 12:30 p.m. at St. Lawrence Cemetery. For the Panachyda service at other cemeteries please call the rectory 203-865-0388.

Helping the poor – a work of charity: The Director of the St. Vincent DePaul Homeless Shelter in Waterbury wrote to us requesting assistance in collecting bath soap, tooth brushes, tooth paste, deodorant, Q-tips, men’s underwear, for the ministry to the homeless. We will have this collection for the poor through Pentecost (June 9). These items can be put in the basket at the entrance of the church in the marked box. Paul Zalonski (of our parish) will drive the donations to the Homeless Shelter in Waterbury.

We have for sale frozen Borscht for $5.00; Cabbage and Sausage (kapusta and kovbasa) $10.00 and pyrohy (varenyky) 2 dozen $14.00. You can buy pyrohy after each Divine Liturgy or during the week if you call the rectory.

Olga Iastrubchak is offering private dance classes for children ages 3-18. Classes will be held on Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. the St Michael’s church hall. For more information please contact Ola at (203) 400-4467 or email olgaiastrubchak@gmail.com

STAMFORD CHARITIES APPEAL

In the church vestibule are arranged the forms for the Diocesan Charitable Fund. The forms are designed for each family of our parish. Attached to the form is an envelope into which you can place your contribution. The form along with your contribution, we ask you enclose in the envelope and place it in the collection basket during church services. Please make check payable to the Byzantine Rite Eparchy of Stamford. DO NOT MAIL THIS FORM TO THE CHANCERY OFFICE. We sincerely ask all parishioners to make generous contributions.

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Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

The theme of baptism continues in this Sunday’s Gospel, re-affirming that Pascha is a feast of resurrection and of baptism, being born into eternal life. The center of Jesus’ conversation with this unnamed woman (the Church later gave her the name Photine, the “enlightened woman”) is about water. They met at Jacob’s well, a place of great tradition, a sign and a promise of God’s love and mercy for his people. Jacob’s well provided the riches of water to a desert place, the sign that God would always provide for and bless his people. However, the encounter with the woman reveals something more: Jesus is the Messiah to come, he is greater than the Patriarch Jacob. The water of Jacob’s well is only for this world, Jesus would give “the water that would become a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). This clearly refers to our baptisms, as it comes immediately after the comparison of Jesus with John the Baptist, and the baptisms done by Jesus’ disciples

We renew our baptism every time we receive Communion, and they are for life, for eternal life, from God, the giver of life. A couple of observations: as for Nathaniel, Jesus signs his ministry with intimate knowledge of the people he meets. He sees Nathaniel under the fig tree, and he tells the woman about her five husbands. In both cases, they become his disciple because of his knowledge of him. This is a theme of John’s Gospel, the shepherd knows his sheep and his sheep know him. Second, it should be to our wonder that Jesus always comes to the most underprivileged. To whom does he reveal the mystery of eternal life in baptism: to the paralytic who had no friends, to the woman who had led a shameful life, and came to the well at noon who no one else would be there, and to the blind man suspected of sin because of his blindness. And the disciples marvel that Jesus speaks to a woman! Not just any woman, but a heretical, decadent Samaritan woman! Are we humble enough to accept Jesus as our Messiah?

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras
#ByzantineCatholicNewHaven

Parish announcements this week

Christ is risen!

This week vigil light is offered to God’s glory by Lydia Koziupa in memory of all the deceased of Latyk and Koziupa families.

The Sestrechi meeting will be held today after the 9:00 a.m. Divine Liturgy. The meeting will be held in the church hall Classroom 1.

The Panachyda service at the gravesites will take place on Saturday, June 8, at 11:00 a.m. at All Saints Cemetery and June 9 at 12:30 p.m. at St. Lawrence Cemetery. For Panachyda service at other cemeteries please call the rectory (203) 865-0388.

Next Sunday, May 26, Maksym Zastawsky, Tristan Samuel Horbaty Young and Iaroslav Nakonechnyi will receive for the first time Holy Communion. God’s Blessings be upon the children and their families!

We have for sale frozen Pyrohy (Varenyky). You can buy Pyrohy after each Divine Liturgy or during the week if you call the rectory.

Helping the poor – a work of charity: The Director of the St. Vincent DePaul Homeless Shelter in Waterbury wrote to us requesting assistance in collecting bath soap, tooth brushes, tooth paste, deodorant, Q-tips, men’s underwear, for the ministry to the homeless. We will have this collection for the poor through Pentecost (June 9). These items can be put in the basket at the entrance of the church in the marked box. Paul Zalonski (of our parish) will drive the donations to the Homeless Shelter in Waterbury.

Olga Iastrubchak will be offering private dance classes for children ages 3-18. Classes will be held on Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. the St Michael’s church hall. For more information please contact Olga at (203) 400-4467 or email olgaiastrubchak@gmail.com

STAMFORD CHARITIES APPEAL

In the church vestibule are arranged the forms for the Diocesan Charitable Fund. The forms are designed for each family of our parish. Attached to the form is an envelope into which you can place your contribution. The form along with your contribution, we ask you enclose in the envelope and place it in the collection basket during church services. Please make check payable to the Byzantine Rite Eparchy of Stamford. DO NOT MAIL THIS FORM TO THE CHANCERY OFFICE. We sincerely ask all parishioners to make generous contributions.

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Divine Liturgy for the coming week

Christ is risen!

Sunday, 5/19, Sunday of the Samaritan Women
9:00 a.m. +David Schwartz requested by Barbara Schwartz

Moleben to the Mother of God
10:30 a.m. For the people of the parish

Epistle: Acts of the Apostles 11:19-26; 29-30
Gospel: John 4:5-42, Tone 4

Monday, 5/20, The Holy Martyr Thaleleus
9:00 a.m. God’s blessing and health for Andrue and Brandon requested by Donna Czabala Aponte

Tuesday, 5/21, The Holy Great Rulers Constantine and Helen, Equal to the Apostles
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Wednesday, 5/22, The Holy Martyr Basiliscus
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Thursday, 5/23, The Holy Bishop Confessor Michael
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Friday, 5/24, Our Venerable Father Simeon
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Saturday, 5/25, Third finding of the head of Saint John the Baptist, Glorious Prophet
9:00 a.m.  No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Sunday, 5/26, Sunday of the Man Born Blind
10:30 a.m. For the people of the parish
Moleben to the Mother of God

Epistle: Acts of the Apostles 16:16-34
Gospel: John 9:1-38, Tone 5 

#ByzantineCatholicNewHaven

The Field Afar: The life story of Vincent Capodanno

Not to be missed! The Field Afar: The life story of Vincent Capodanno, a Catholic Priest who received the Medal of Honor for his valor as a chaplain to the Marine Corps during some of the most harrowing battles of the Vietnam war and whose Cause for Canonization is currently open in Rome.

Showing as part of the New Haven International Film Festival on Thursday, May 16 – 8:35 PM at Gateway Community College, 20 Church Street, New Haven.

Tickets: https://filmfreeway.com/NewHavenFilmFestival/tickets

Myrrh Bearing Women

SEEKING THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD
(Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearers)

“The godly women hastened to You with myrrh, O Christ. The one whom they had sought with tears, as a dead man, they worshipped as the living God! And they proclaimed the mystical pascha to Your disciples.” (Paschal Canon, Troparion of Ode 7)

The women hastened to the Tomb that Sunday morning, looking for “a dead man.” But the One they found, the One revealed to them, was “the living God.” Hence the “mystical pascha” (i.e., “passover” or “transition”) that they proclaimed to the disciples was not only the Lord’s transition from death to life, but their own, the women’s, transition from merely-human dedication to “a dead man” to faith in “the living God.” Because their beloved Teacher was “more” than they had recognized. In His resurrection, Jesus Christ exceeded all their expectations.

Today let me not approach “the living God,” my risen Lord, as if He were “a dead man”; as one to whom I may pay my respects in some external way, but whose life-giving Presence in my world I don’t quite recognize, for all practical purposes. Let me embrace wholeheartedly the Great Fact that He is, indeed, risen, and is there for me, and alive to me, beyond my expectations. “Let God arise,” I say this morning with the Myrrh-Bearing Women, “and His enemies be scattered” from my heart. Today let me start anew, and embrace, once again, the new life in my ever-living, ever life-bringing Lord, by re-connecting with Him, rather than “seek the living among the dead,” – among the merely-human opinions and expectations that come from my own head or from God-less voices in my world. O Christ, our mystical Pascha, help us transition once again today, from the tombs of self-isolation and self-reliance, according to our oft-suffocating expectations of ourselves and others, to the freedom of communion with You, a Lord beyond all our expectations.

Meditation by Sr. Vassa

Mother’s Day Divine Liturgy

As a reminder, there is only one (1) Divine Liturgy today, May 12, Mother’s Day at 9:00 a.m.

Following the Divine Liturgy there is the annual Mother’s Day Breakfast in the church hall sponsored by the Parish and the Knights of Columbus.

Blessings upon all Mothers. May the Holy Theotokos bless us.

Good Church Music Starts with Kids

Music is essential to life. Sacred music –that which is lived and performed in the Liturgy– is crucial important and integral to the worship of God. Yes, we live the text and the notes.

If you love music, if you love listening to music, if you love sharing the experience of listening to music with others, can you support church musicians –our church chanters, for both Divine Liturgies (in English and Ukrainian).

The “normal” parish does not spend enough time thinking about the sacred music program never mind spending money on it. (AND St. Michael’s is not the object of these moments.) Even a financially strapped parish could put $50.00 per week away for sacred music. More important to money is the understanding of pastor and laity have regarding the music and give personal, informed and reasonable interest to it and the people involved. The worship of God is paramount; the lifting of our soul is desired and beautiful and healing.

Read Orthodox Christian Benedict Sheehan’s blog post “Good Church Music Starts with Kids” which is spot-on and parishes, especially Catholic parishes, need to attend to what he Benedict proposes.

Benedict Sheehan regularly posts at The Music Stand –visit him there.