Divine Liturgy for the coming week

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Sunday, 2/18/18  First Sunday of Lent —the Sunday of Orthodoxy —Our Holy Father Leo, Pope of Rome
9:00 a.m. For the people of the parish
10:30 a.m. +Dario Aponte requested by Czabala and Aponte Family

Epistle: Hebrews 11:24-26; 32-40; 12:1-2
Gospel: John 1:43-51, Tone 4

Monday, 2/19/18 The Holy Apostle Archippus

Tuesday, 2/20/18 Our Venerable Father Leo, Bishop of Catania

Wednesday, 2/21/18 Our Venerable Father Timothy of Symbola
11:00 a.m. Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts
+Panachyda Ivan Kyzyk(11th Anniv.,) requested by Halya Lodynsky

Thursday, 2/22/18 The Discovery of the Relics of the Holy Martyrs at Eugenius
9:00 a.m. God’s blessing and health for Iura

Friday, 2/23/18 The commemoration of the Holy Priest Martyr Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna
9:00 a.m. God’s blessing and health for Zirca Godenciuc
7:00 p.m. Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

Saturday, 2/24/18 First and Second Finding of the Precious Head of the Holy, Glorious Prophet and Forerunner John the Baptist
9:00 a.m. +Gregory Dubno (Pan.) requested by the Dubno Family

Sunday, 2/25/18 Second Sunday of Lent —Commemoration of St. Gregory Palamas
9:00 a.m. +Gregory Dubno requested by Luba Dubno
10:00 a.m. All Souls Day – Sorokousty
10:30 a.m.  For the people of the parish

Epistle: Hebrews 1:10-2:3
Gospel: Mark 2:1-12, Tone 5

Parish announcements this week

Christ is among us!

1. VIGIL LIGHT: This week vigil light is offered to God’s glory by Alexis Hickerson in memory of +Robert Hickerson.

2. Reposed in the Lord: +Frances Harvey. Please remember her in your prayers. ETERNAL MEMORY!

3. Dear parishioners and guests, after each Divine Liturgy, coffee and hard rolls are available in the church hall.

4. The Annual Meeting of the Ukrainian National Association Branch 414 will be held on Sunday, February 25, 2018, at 12:00 noon in St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church Hall.

All members are invited to attend in order to elect a delegate to attend the convention in May of 2018.

5. SOROKOUSTY: will be celebrated next Sunday, February 25 at 10:00 a.m. Please take a book found in the entrance of the church, fill it  out, place it in envelope and drop it in the collection basket. Let us remember all our loved ones who have gone to their heavenly reward. Eternal Memory!

The next All Souls commemoration will be on March 4 and 11, and May 19.

6. Replica of the Shroud of Turin will be displayed in St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church, East 7th Street in NYC from February 17th to February 25th of this year. Father Emilian Dorosh invites all faithful to take opportunity to venerate God by praying by the Shroud of Turin.

7. By the threefold discipline of fasting, prayer and almsgiving the Church keeps the Great Fast/Lent from Monday, February 12, after the Cheesefare Sunday to the day before Easter, Holy Saturday, March 31.  The following regulations apply, in general to all Ukrainian Catholics of the Stamford Eparchy between ages 21 to 60: Abstinence from meat and dairy products on the first day of the Great Fast, February 12, and Good Friday, March 30. The following regulations apply, in general, to all Ukrainians Catholics of the Stamford Eparchy between ages 14 to 60: Abstinence from meat is to be observed on all Fridays of the Great Fast. Abstinence from meat is suggested and encouraged on all Wednesdays of the Great Fast. The following are exempt from abstinence: 1. The poor who live on alms; 2. The sick and the frail; 3. Convalescents who are returning to their strength; 4. Pregnant women, and women who are nursing their children; and 5. Persons who perform hard labor. Meat is to be understood as including not only the flesh, but also those parts of warm-blooded animals that cannot be rendered, i. e., melted down, e.g., the liver, lungs, blood, etc. meat gravy or soup made from meat is included in this prohibition. Dairy products are to be understood as comprising products derived from mammals and birds, but not regarded as meat, e. g., cheese, lard, butter, milk, eggs, etc.  Eucharistic Fast: A fast of one hour from food(prior to service begging time) should be kept by those receiving the Eucharist at the evening celebration of the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, as well as, the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great.

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Friday of the First Week of the Great Fast

The readings from Genesis on the Fridays of the Great Fast point like an arrow to the covenant made on Good Friday, when our Lord gave his body and blood as a new covenant for the life of the world.

The first and second Fridays tell of the breaking of covenants, of the covenant with Adam and Eve when they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and of the decision of God to destroy the human race because of its wickedness. The third Friday is the renewal of the covenant with Noah, and the fourth Friday is the covenant with Abraham. On the fifth Friday, Abraham replaces the disobedience of Adam and Eve with obedience to God in the sacrifice of his beloved son. However, God does not want this sacrifice, though he allows his only-begotten Son to die on the cross for the salvation of the human race. The sixth Friday, the funeral of Joseph, looks forward to the burial of Christ, who through his death will trample upon death.
This is our Fast, it is the making of a new covenant with God. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were expelled from paradise, and stationed a cherub with a fiery sword to guard the way to the tree of life. Four curses were imposed on Adam and Eve, on Eve, pain in childbirth, and servitude to her husband, on Adam, hard labor and death.

In the new covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ, the curse is abrogated, as the Kontakion of the Third Sunday of the great Fast proclaims, “No longer does the flaming sword guard the gates of Eden, for the tree of the cross has come to quench it wondrously. The sting of death and the victory of Hades have been driven out.”

The curse is truly abrogated, but in God’s mystical and wondrous way. In childbirth, the woman still suffers pain, but her anguish gives way to joy because of new life (John 16:21), the marital relations between man and woman are now marked by mutual love and respect, in the subtle reading of Ephesians 5:9-19, the harshness of labor is eased by the sabbath rest (Hebrews 4:9). Death remains, and even the Son of God must suffer death (“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hands on a tree,” (Galatians 3:10, quoting Deuteronomy 21:23).

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Ukrainian National Association Branch 414 to meet

The Annual Meeting of the Ukrainian National Association Branch 414 will be held on Sunday, February 25, 2018, at 12:00 noon in St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church Hall.

All members are invited to attend in order to elect a delegate to attend the convention in May of 2018.

The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution, Book Talk with Marci Shore

The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution, Book Talk with Marci Shore

Friday, February 16, 2018 – 12:30pm

The presentation and discussion will take place at Henry R. Luce Hall (LUCE), room 202, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511

Discussion with author Marci Shore, associate professor of History at Yale University.

While the world watched the uprising in Ukraine during the winter of 2013-14 as an episode in geopolitics, the author contends, those in that country lived the revolution as an existential transformation: the blurring of night and day, the loss of a sense of time, the sudden disappearance of fear, the imperative to make choices.

In this book, Marci Shore evokes the human face of the Ukrainian Revolution. Grounded in the true stories of activists and soldiers, parents and children, Shore blends a narrative of choices with a historian’s reflections on what revolution is and what it means. She sets her portraits of individual revolutionaries against the past as they understand it — and the future as they hope to make it. In so doing, she strives to provide a lesson about human solidarity in a world where the boundary between reality and fiction is ever more effaced.

Marci Shore, associate professor of History at Yale University. A brief biography of Dr. Shore may be found here.

Wednesday of the First Week

For our prayer today…

Matins:

By fasting let us subdue the passions of our mind, and let us put on the wings of the spirit, so that overcoming the tempest raised by the enemy, we may be worthy to adore the Cross of the Son of God. He willed to be sacrificed for the world and we now spiritually keep the feast of his Resurrection from the dead. Let us ascend the mountain with the apostles to glorify the Son of the Father who loves all of us, and to whom all power is now given.

Vespers:

O faithful, while fasting bodily, let us also fast in spirit. Let us loosen every bond of injustice; let us tear apart the strong chains of violence; let us rip up all unjust assertions; let us give bread to the hungry and welcome the poor and homeless to our houses, that we may receive from Christ our God his great mercy.

Reflection:

I listened to this sticheron and was moved deeply in soul. It is a condemnation of me, for the fast really is about justice and charity toward one another. Who, indeed, rises to these challenges? Do we just sing this in our churches without effect? Does it really change our lives. God created a paradise for us and invites us back if only we are not deaf to his words.

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

Spiritual Reading for Lent 2018

We are at the beginning the season of Great Lent. May I commend to you these titles for your spiritual reading and meditation (listed in no particular order):

Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent

Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon:  Meditations on the Last Words of  Jesus from the Cross 

Flannery O’Connor, A Prayer Journal 

John Behr, Becoming Human

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

Jean-Pierre de Caussade,  The Sacrament of the Present Moment

Frederica Mathewes-Green, The Illumined Heart

Frank Sheed, Theology for Beginners

Peter Kreeft, Your Questions, God’s Answers

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Pope Benedict XVI, Holy Days: Meditations on the Feasts, Fasts, and Other Solemnities of the Church 

Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection 

Which books would you recommend for Lent?

Beginning Lent, again…

Archpriest David Petras reviews some hallmarks of the liturgical observance and prayer.
 
In the Great Fast, the days follow the more ancient system of the Roman Empire, running from midnight to midnight. In the oldest stratum of the Proper texts for the Great Fast, there is a “samohlasen,” (Slavonic term) or “idiomelon” (Greek term) for the morning service (Orthros/Matins) and for the evening service (Vespers) that gives the keynote for each day of the Fast. These hymns are sung twice, usually at the apostichera, to accent their importance.
 
Cheesefare Sunday:
Matins:
Behold, this is the time of spiritual struggle and the victory over demons. The armor of temperance is the splendor of the angels and the assurance of closeness to God. By it Moses became a confidant of the Creator, and was able to hear his voice in invisible revelations. By it, grant us also in your goodness, O Lord to adore your Passion and your holy Resurrection.
 
Vespers:
The light of your grace has shone upon our souls, O Lord. Behold, this is the favorable time, the season of conversion. Let us turn away from the works of darkness, and let us clothe ourselves with the armor of light, so that, crossing the ocean of the Fast, we may come to the harbor of the Resurrection on the third day with our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of our souls.
 
Monday of the First Week:
Matins:
The holy Fast has arrived; it denounces sin and defends repentance. It is the time of temperance. It brings salvation close to us, and makes us share the life of angels. O faithful, let us cry out with full voice: Lord have mercy on us.
 
Vespers:
Let us offer a fast acceptable to the Lord, for the true fast is the estrangement from sin: no more idle chatter, no more wrath; no more evil desires, no insults; no more lying, no false oaths. If we abstain from all this, we shall keep a fast that is indeed acceptable to the Lord.

Divine Liturgy for the coming week

Glory to Jesus Christ

Sunday, 2/11/18 Sunday of the Cheesefare —The Holy Priest-Martyr Blaise, Bishop of Sebastea

9:00 a.m. For the people of the parish
10:30 a.m. +Dario Aponte requests by the Czabala and Aponte Families

Epistle: Romans 13:11-14:4
Gospel: Matthew 6:14-21, Tone 3

Monday, 2/12/18 Our Holy Father Meletius, Archbishop of Antioch

All weekdays of Lent are aliturgical. On Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is to be celebrated (See Dolnytskyj Typikon p. 349).

Today is a day of abstinence from both meat and dairy products.

Tuesday, 2/13/18 Our Venerable Father Martinian

Wednesday, 2/14/18 The Repose of Our Venerable Father Constantine the Philosopher, in the Monastic Life, Cyril, Teacher of the Slavs

Thursday, 2/15/18 The Holy Apostle Onesimus

Friday, 2/16/18 The Holy Martyrs Pamphilius the Priest and Porphyrius and Companions

Saturday, 2/17/18 Commemoration of the Miracle the Great Martyr Theodor the Recruit

9:00 a.m. +Anna Lipcan (9th Anniv., Pan) requested by Patrick and Barbara Bagley

Sunday, 2/18/18 First Sunday of Lent —The Sunday of Orthodoxy —Our Holy Father Leo, Pope of Rome

9:00 a.m. For the people of the parish
10:30 a.m. +Ivan Kyzyk (100 years from birth) requested by the Kyzyk Family

Epistle: Hebrews 11:24-26; 32-12-2
Gospel: John 1:43-51, Tone 4