Parish announcements this week

Christ is in our midst!

WELCOME NEW PARISHIONERS! New parishioners are always welcomed in our parish. If someone wants to register with our parish please contact Father Iura Godenciuc at (203) 865-0388 or our financial secretary Natalia Chermak.

PARISH COFFEE HOUR: Dear parishioners and guests, after each Divine Liturgy, coffee and hard rolls are available in the church hall.

VIGIL LIGHT: This week vigil light is offered to God’s glory by the Czabala Family for God’s blessing and health for Brandon and Andrue Aponte.

Asleep in the Lord: +Wasyl Jureczko, please remember him in your prayers. Eternal Memory!

PHILIP’S FAST, ПИЛИПІВКА, the pre-Christmas fast which began on November 15 – the day after the feast of St. Philip – is a 40 day period of spiritual preparation for the celebration of the Nativity/Theophany cycle of the church year. It was once a period of strict fasting which has now been changed to a period of voluntary fasting and works of penance and charity.

Pyrohy Project: We will make Pyrohy on Saturday, December 15, 2018. We need your help to peel potatoes on Friday and to make Pyrohy on Saturday. Please come and help. See Walter Ushchak for more information.

If someone would like to buy a frozen pierogies (varenyky) during the week please call the rectory at (203) 865-0388.

STUFFED CABBAGE will be available for Christmas by calling the rectory at 203-865-0388 and placing your order for either buckwheat, meat or mushroom stuffed cabbage. Please see Fr. Iura for details.

Parish Council meeting was held on Monday, December 3, 2018 at 6:00 p.m. Updates were given concerning the various ongoing projects in our parish. A round table discussion followed. The next meeting will be held on February 4, 2019. All parishioners are invited.

From the Ukrainian Heritage Center (New Haven) 2018 Christmas Bazaar:

The Ukrainian Heritage Center’s Christmas Bazaar will be held on Saturday, December 8, Sunday, December 9, Saturday, December 15 and Sunday December 16 in the Heritage Center Gift Shop from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. This offers you an excellent opportunity to purchase, at very reasonable prices, the Ukrainian gifts and cards (for Christmas and other special occasions) that you would like to give to family members, friends, co-workers or teachers of your children. On Sundays only, please enter the Heritage Center through the front door of the building.

The Maternity of Holy Anna

The 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 [and the Ukrainian Church], 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.

Conception of the Theotokos by holy Anna

On Saturday, December 8, at 9:00 a.m., we will celebrate the Conception of the Theotokos by holy Anna. The Divine Liturgy will be served in both English and Ukrainian. It is a holy day of love; the feast has the rank of Sunday.

This of Mary, the Immaculate Mother of God, honors her title as the patroness of the USA. In these times, we need the maternal protection of Mary as she is the consummate intercessor for us before the Throne of Grace.

In places the feast is also called the Maternity of St. Anne or in the Latin Church the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Kondakion sung in the Liturgy reads:

Today is the conception of the mother of our salvation, for she begins her life in a fruitless womb. Anna rejoices over this with Joachim, and the thought of his liberation fills Adam with joy. We, too, salute her conception today and cry out to her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.

St Ambrose

St. Ambrose was the greatest Archbishop of Milan, at a time when it was the center of the Empire. He was elected bishop when he was still a catechumen and proved to be most competent—in administration as well as theology, and was a holy and sincere Christian. He had been a governor before and knew how “to talk to power.” When the Emperor Theodosius had 7,000 Thessalonians slaughtered over the assassination of their governor, he excommunicated him for his horrendous crime – and made it stick, bringing Theodosius to repentance.

As a theologian, he wrote about the incarnation of the Son of God: “And the Word was with God . This that he said is to be understood thus: The Word was just as was the Father; since He was together with the Father, He was also in the Father, and He was always with the Father. […] It is of the Word to be with the Father; it is of the Father to be with the Word, for we read that the Word was with God. So if, according to your opinion, there was a time when He was not, then, according to your opinion, He too was not in the beginning with whom was the Word. For through the Word I hear, through the Word I understand that God was. For, if I shall believe that the Word was eternal, which I do believe, I cannot doubt about the eternity of the Father, whose Son is eternal” (The Sacrament of the Incarnation of our Lord (III, 15-18, from the Vatican web site).

And again, Ambrose says, “He lay in the crib, that you might stand at the altar. He came to earth, that you might come to the stars” (Exposition of Luke 2.41).

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

St Nicholas Day

Blessed feast day of St. Nicholas!

 

Thy just works have shown Thee to thy flock as an example of faith, an image of meekness and a teacher of abstinence. By humility Thou didst achieve exaltation, and by meekness, riches. O Father Bishop Nicholas, intercede with Christ our God to save our souls.

(Troparion for St. Nicholas)

Wasyl Jureczko fell asleep in the Lord

On Friday, November 30, 2018, Wasyl Jureczko  fell asleep in the Lord. He was 92 and a longtime and faithful member of the Parish.

The funeral arrangements for Mr. Jureczko:

The Wake at Lupinski Funeral Home, 821 State Street, New Haven, on Monday, 8 – 9:15 a.m.

The Funeral Liturgy will be served at 10:00 a.m. at the Parish. Burial at All Saints Cemetery.

Mr. Jureczko’s obit can be read here.

Please pray for the soul of Mr. Jureczko and his wife Mary who predeceased him, and for the comfort of his family and friends who mourn is passing. May Wasyl Jureczko’s memory be eternal.

Twenty-Eighth Sunday after Pentecost 2018

Read: Colossians 1:12-18; Luke 18:18-27

The epistle this Sunday tells us who Jesus truly is. He is the very center of our being. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, …. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.” St. John tells us the same thing, “All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race” (John 1:3-4). We have the saying, “Put Christ back into Christmas,” but we must take this a step further, “We must put Christ into everything that we are, and in all creation.” Our whole lives must be oriented to Christ, “God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11). This worship is not complete until we imitate the Lord in his love for all who have come to be in his loving-kindness.

In today’s gospel Jesus tells us his will when he tells the young man, “You know the commandments …. There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” The human problem, perhaps today more than ever, is that we do not have the moral capacity to discern the will of God. The young man was certainly unable to do so, and so our Lord said, “For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

We consistently confuse our own will for God’s will, and we sing with Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way.” This is because we do not have the moral power to deny ourselves, and look through the eyes of God. The feasts of the birth and of the baptism of Christ are “feasts of light,” as the Fathers taught. St. John tells us that at the birth of Christ, “ the true light, which enlightens everyone, … coming into the world” (John 1:9). The magi saw this light in the star, and the shepherds saw this light in the angels, and both went out of themselves, and came to Bethlehem. Only by leaving their places of comfort, their country or their fields, their work, were they able to see the true light. This is what we must do this Christmas, we must not see our salvation in our own self-interest and comforts, in our own delusions about reality, but only in the good news and the will of God spoken to us through his word, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Holy Prophet Habakkuk

Today is the feast of the Holy Prophet Habakkuk. As you know, the Byzantine Church pays more attention, liturgically speaking, to the Old Testament prophets.

The fourth Ode of the Canon of Matins is the Hymn of Habakkuk. The Irmosi of the Canon often describe Habakkuk as standing at a guard post (watchtower): “I will stand at my guard post, and station myself upon the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what answer he will give to my complaint. (Habakkuk 2:1) Thus, at Paschal Matins, we sing, “Let Habakkuk, speaking in behalf of God, stand with us at the divine watch; let him show us the brilliant Angel who proclaims: “Today, salvation comes to the world; for Christ, being Almighty, is risen.” What Habakkuk saw at his guard post was a vision of the coming of Christ. “God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and his praise filled the earth; his splendor spread like the light.” Teman is the East, the sunrise from on high in the Christmas Troparion, “those who worshiped the stars have learned from a star to worship you, the Sun of Justice, and to know you, the Dawn from on high.” In the Greek Septuagint, Mount Paran becomes the “dark, shady mountain,” and was seen as a prophecy of the virgin birth of Christ from Mary.

The Christmas Irmos explicitly recognizes this: “O Christ, the rod from Jesse’s root and its flower, you blossomed from the virgin; praiseworthy one, from the overshadowed shady mountain. You came in the flesh from her who knew not man.” What was the result of Christ’s coming, Habakkuk foretells, “He stood and shook the earth; he looked and made the nations tremble. Ancient mountains were shattered, the age-old hills bowed low, age-old orbits collapsed.” The “orbits” were the established journeys of the stars, and indeed, at Christ’s birth, a new star appeared, leading the Magi to Bethlehem.

Habakkuk tells us that our lives will be shaken by the coming of Christ. We must follow the star, for by taking human nature and by rising from the dead, Christ has brought us life.

St Andrew and the work of Christian Unity

It is a legend, but also a symbol, that St. Andrew evangelized the town of Byzantium before it would become a great city. The symbol, therefore, is that Rome, the West, and Constantinople (Byzantium), the East are united in the fraternity of the two apostles, Peter and Paul. In our broken world, the Church is hampered in preaching the gospel by internal divisions. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches are heroically trying to re-unite to preach the one true Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are hampered by narrow-minded people in both Churches, who cannot see Christ living in the eucharist of these Churches. There is only one Christ in Holy Communion, and we do not partake of one Christ, and the other another Christ. There is only one Christ born of Mary in Bethlehem, whose Body we cannot divide. Now is the proper time for the one Church to proclaim the one Lord and Savior in the one holy Gospel. We must pray for unity this Christmas that we are not too late.

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

Divine Liturgy for the coming week

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Sun., 11/25 27th Sunday after Pentecost
9:00 a.m. +Emilia Dubno requested by the Family
10:30 a.m. For the People of the parish

Epistle: Ephesians 6:10-17
Gospel: Luke 13:10-17, Tone 2

Mon., 11/26 Our Venerable Alypius the Stylite

Tue., 11/27 Holy Martyr James the Persian

Wed., 11/28 Holy Martyr Stephen

Thurs., 11/29 Holy Martyrs Paramon, Philemon

Fri., 11/30 Holy Apostle Andrew

Sat., 12/01 Holy Prophet Nahum

Sun. 12/2 28th Sunday after Pentecost
9:00 a.m. +Luka Szymkiw requested by the Szymkiw and Alderidge Family
10:30 a.m.  For the People of the parish

Epistle: Colossians 1:12-18
Gospel: Luke 18:18-27, Tone 3