Divine Liturgy for the coming week

Glory to Jesus Christ

Sunday, 12/15, 27th Sunday after Pentecost —Sunday of the Forefathers
9:00 a.m. For our parishioners
10:30 a.m. Anya Rohmer-Hanson (Myketey) (40 days)

Epistle: Colossians 3:4-11
Gospel: Luke 14:16-24, Tone 2

Monday, 12/16, The Holy Prophet Haggai
9:00 a.m. +Volodymyr Shpaczynskyj (40 days, Pan.) requested by Maria Wysowskyj

Tuesday, 12/17, The Holy Prophet Daniel, the Three Holy Youths Ananiah, Azaraih and Mishael
9:00 a.m. +Warwara Bodnar (Pan.) requested by Maria Wysowskyj

Wednesday, 12/18, Holy Martyrs Sebastian and his companions
9:00 a.m. +Anna Yarmolenko (2nd Anniv. Pan.) requested by Larysa Kernychna

Thursday, 12/19/19 The Holy Martyr Boniface
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Friday, 12/20, Forefeast of the Nativity of Christ; The Holy Priest Martyr Ignatius the Godbearer
9:00 a.m. +Vera Puszkar Walnycky (Pan.) requested by Christine Walnycky Floramo

Saturday, 12/21, Forefeast of the Nativity of Christ; the Holy Martyr Juliana
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Sunday, 12/22, Sunday before Christmas —Sunday of the Holy Fathers, Forefeast of the Nativity of Christ
9:00 a.m. +Ivan and Martha Kootz requested by Kateryna Szymkiw
10:30 a.m. For our parishioners

Epistle: Hebrews 11:9-10; 17-23; 32-40
Gospel: Matthew 1:1-25, Tone 3

Parish announcements this week

Christ is among us!

This week’s vigil light is offered to God’s glory by Halia Lodynsky and family in memory of Stefan Jurchak.

All donations and contributions must be received by Wednesday, December 25th to be recorded on the annual statement for the year 2019.

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. Once a period of strict fasting, it has now been changed to a period of voluntary fasting and works of penance.

Prior to today’s Divine Liturgy, at 8:30 a.m. the Sestrechi will be the reading of the Akathist Hymn to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The regular monthly meeting will be held after the Divine Liturgy, in classroom 1.

The re-scheduled meeting of Knights of Columbus Blessed Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Ukrainian Council will be held tomorrow, December 9, 7:00 p.m. in the Holy Name Room. All men of the parish are invited to attend.

Our next Pyrohy Project will be December14, 2019. We need your help to peel potatoes on Friday, December 13, and more help on Saturday, December 14, 2019. Please come and help.

The Ukrainian Ridna Shkola invites children young and old to its annual St. Nicholas pageant on Sunday, December 29th at 12:30 p.m. in St. Michael’s church hall, 569 George Street. Come greet St. Nicholas on the eve of the Christmas holidays. Refreshments and gifts for all. Meet our teachers and visit our classrooms during our open house.

Ukrainian Women’s League of New Haven, Branch 108 will be holding their annual Christmas Bazaar, Sunday, December 8, Saturday, December 14 and Sunday, December 15, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. On December 14 and 15 we will have baked goods. Pshenytsia (wheat) for kutia will also be available (new source, more tender). Donations of Ukrainian items would be greatly welcome. (please bring to church hall.) For more information, contact Anna Salemme (203) 934-6520 or Larissa S. (203) 248-9767.

PARISH MAINTENANCE UPDATE NOTICE: Please take note of the fact that there is various concrete repair work being conducted around the Parish on all five buildings. This includes repointing the Church stairs, repairing walkways and concrete areas. Your care in walking around and avoiding the work areas for your safety is appreciated.

REMINDER: Please don’t forget to donate to the Charities Appeal. Kindly make checks 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.

STAMFORD CHARITIES APPEAL

REMINDER: Please don’t forget to donate to the Charities Appeal. Kindly make checks 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.

Adult Faith Formation

The Conception of Saint Anne —The Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God (Theotokos)

“Today the world celebrates the conception of Anne which was provided by the work of God, for she will give birth to the One who will give birth to the Word in a manner which defies human understanding.” (From the Kondak of the Feast)

Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, 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.

The righteous Joachim and Anne were childless for fifty years of their married life. In their old age the Archangel Gabriel appeared to each one of them separately, telling them that God had heard their prayers and that they would give birth to a daughter, Mary. Then Saint Anne conceived by her husband and after nine months bore a daughter blessed by God and by all generations of men: the Most Holy Virgin Mary, the Theotokos. Mary would bring blessings to the whole human race.

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Our Holy Father Spiridon

St. Spiridon is commemorated with special solemnity in the Greek Church. The Synaxarion tells us, that “he led the peaceful life of a simple shepherd. He was a plain, unpolished countryman and yet without equal when it came to love of neighbor, meekness, acts of kindness, almsgiving and the practice of virtues.” He was a man of hospitality, who would break his ascetic fast to feed a stranger in need. He was a man of simple and plain words, who put to shame the vain eloquence of a prelate “who wanted to show off by altering certain words of the Gospel too common for his taste.” He was a perfect example of a saint, for through him the love of Christ manifested itself, raising the dead, stopping droughts, looking into the hearts of sinners and forgiving them. Because of his Christ-like virtues, he was called from being a shepherd of sheep in the field, to being the bishop pastor of Christ’s rational sheep in Tremithus. In this way, he was the fulfillment of the shepherds who came to Christ at his birth.

Because of his connection to Christmas, the Greek Church honors St. Spiridon with doxastichera in his office foreshadowing the feast of the Birth of our Lord, at Vespers, we sing, “O shepherds, keep watch and then bear witness to the awesome wonder,” and “Listen, O mountains, hills and all you regions around Judah; Christ is coming to save the human race which he created, for he loves us all.”

And so the doxasticheron of Matins proclaims, “O God-bearing Spiridon, light of the world, like Moses and David, whose calling you followed, the Spirit led you from an irrational flock to the rational one.”

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

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The Maternity of the Holy Anna

December 8 (December 9) THE MATERNITY OF THE 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. The [Ukrainian Catholic Church in America celebrates the feast on December 8] Ruthenian Church in America, celebrates the feast together with the Roman Church 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)

In both cases, the conception of the Theotokos in the womb of Anna today is our preparation for Christmas. For God took away the barrenness of one couple in a conception that would have a cosmic dimension for every one of us: the coming into the world of it’s Creator, who would take away the curse on Adam and Eve by the birth of his Son with the power to bring us all into sinlessness. Receiving his body and blood in Communion, the priest prays, “may this be for the remission of sins and life everlasting.” The Hymn of Light at Matins thus proclaims: “Today Anna conceives the One who will give birth to the Light which illumines all creation. Therefore, let us all gather together, for the one who delivers us from the judgment of Eve now comes forth.”

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Divine Liturgy for the coming week

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Sunday, 12/08, 26th Sunday after Pentecost —Immaculate Conception of the Theotokos

8:30 a.m.Akathist to the Mother of God
9:00 a.m. +Luka Szymkiw requested by the Szymkiw and Alderidge Families
10:30 a.m. For our parishioners

Epistle: Ephesians 5:9-19
Gospel: Luke 17:12–19, Tone 1

Monday, 12/09, Our Venerable Father Patapius
9:00 a.m. +Halyna Choma (3rd Anniv. Pan.) requested by Lidia and Ihor Choma

Tuesday, 12/10, The Holy Martyrs Menas, Hermogenes and Eugraphus
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Wednesday, 12/11, Our Venerable Father Daniel the Stylite
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Thursday, 12/12, Our Venerable Father Spiridon the Wonderworker
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Friday, 12/13, The Holy Martyrs Eustratios, Auxentius, Eugenius, Mardarius and Orestes
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Saturday, 12/14, The Holy Martyrs Thyrsus, Leucius, Philemon, Apollonius and Callinicus
9:00 a.m. No intention for the Divine Liturgy

Sunday, 12/15, Sunday of the Forefathers
9:00 a.m. For our parishioners
10:30 a.m. +Anya Rohmer Hanson (Myketey) (40 days)

Epistle: Colossians 3:4-11
Gospel: Luke 14:16-24, Tone 1

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Parish announcements

Christ is among us!

This week’s vigil light is offered to God’s by Halia Lodynsky and family in memory of Stefan Jurchak.

All donations and contributions must be received by Wednesday December 25th to be recorded on the annual statement for the year 2019.

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. Once a period of strict fasting, it has now been changed to a period of voluntary fasting and works of penance.

The Ukrainian Ridna Shkola invites children young and old to its annual St. Nicholas pageant on Sunday, December 29th at 12:30 p.m. in St. Michael’s church hall. Come greet St. Nicholas on the eve of the Christmas holidays. Refreshments and gifts for all. Meet our teachers and visit our classrooms during our open house.

Ukrainian Women’s League of New Haven, Branch 108 will be holding their annual Christmas Bazaar, Saturday December 14 and Sunday December 15, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. On December 14 and 15 we will have baked goods. Pshenytsia (wheat) for kutia will also be available (new source, more tender). Donations of Ukrainian items would be greatly welcome. (please bring to church hall.) For more information, contact Anna Salemme (203) 934-6520 or Larissa S. (203) 248-9767.

A note on some parish maintenance projects: Various parts of the driveway by the rectory and the front sidewalks are being repaired and at the other buildings. We need to re-point the church stairs. Please be careful walking around and avoid the work areas.

The Connecticut State Ukrainian Day Committee has announced a net profit of $14,986.65 from the 2019 Ukrainian Day Festival. All those who volunteered their time and efforts made this possible. Thank you to the pyrohy workers who donated the pyrohy. Thank you to Joe Oleschuk, who transported the pyrohy to Stamford, and Thank you to all the volunteers who worked at the festival. We, as a parish, can be proud to have helped make the festival a success!

REMINDER: Please don’t forget to donate to the Charities Appeal. Kindly make checks 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.

STAMFORD CHARITIES APPEAL

REMINDER: Please don’t forget to donate to the Charities Appeal. Kindly make checks 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.

Adult Faith Formation

From a sermon given on October 28, 2019

“Christians from ancient times wanted to learn to love. The great disaster of the modern world and culture is that sometimes we know how to fly to the Moon, but we do not know how to love,” the Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church His Beatitude Sviatoslav said this during his homily at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ.

“Where can you take the strength to do what Christ calls us in His teachings? At times, the answer to these words was very ironic – utopian. It’s a good idea, but it’s impossible for a person to do it. But if we listen to the Word that God is speaking to us today, we will hear that it is not so much about the human capacity to love. In those words of the Sermon on the Mount, Christ proclaims to us the good news of God’s love for us. Because it is God Who loves His enemies. His love for man is unconditional. He Himself is love,” said His Beatitude Sviatoslav.

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St Nicholas the Wonderworker

One can easily say that the greatest saint of the Byzantine Church is Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia. Yet the only thing we know of him for certain is his name, and that a holy man named Nicholas was the bishop in Myra in the fourth century. He has become essentially connected with the feast of Christmas. While the details of his life are certainly legendary, the first appearance is the Vita per Michaelem, in the ninth century, and then by Simeon Metaphrastes in the tenth century, yet we cannot help but suspect that there is a tradition of the goodness of his character that prompted such stories. He is the a golden example of all that is good in a true Christian, following the Lord in love for the poor, in joy of salvation, and in greatness of heart. Where, then, the stories written to fit his character. Certainly, the human race is hungry for such a saint, explaining his embrace by Greece and Russia as their patron saint. He gave a dowry to the poor girls, he saved sailors from storms, he obtained the liberation of those falsely accused. When his body was taken from Myra to Bari, the goodness of his life made him a favored saint throughout all the West.

In the West, he has become secularized as “Santa Claus,” (possibly from early Dutch settlers, who would have known him “Sinterklass”). A poem by Thomas Nast in 1823, has been influential in the legend that he lives at the North Pole, and distributes toys to children on Christmas eve or early Christmas morning. This image, unfortunately, has sometimes been commercialized to sell products to be given as gifts.

As Christians, we surely recognize him as a saint, a bishop in Christ’s body, the Church. Perhaps from the visit of the Magi, giving gifts, and the legend of his life, of giving gold as a dowry have connected him with gift-giving. Gift-giving can be a sign of Christian love, as our Lord taught, as related by St. Paul: “Keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 10:35) In giving gifts, we, together with the Magi, recognize the image of Christ in all people. In imitating the saints, we are brought closer to Christ. Is it not true, then, that on our Holy Father Nicholas and in the secularized Santa Claus, we see the same virtues: joy in life, generosity, love for all people, sincerity and truthfulness? Do we not also see in our Holy Father Nicholas and in the secular Santa Claus, the ability to perform wonders?

The Troparion for St. Nicholas may be the model for all holy bishops. We don’t have to count all his good deeds, because he was “a rule of faith, an image of gentleness and a teacher of moderation.” As a true Christian, he became poor, but found wealth, he became humble and found greatness. If we were to follow him in poverty and humility, we would become true “Christmas saints,” worshiping Jesus with the Magi and the shepherds.

Because his feast is so closely connected to Christmas, on this feast the doxastichera at Psalm 140, at the Litija, at the Apostichera and at The Psalms of Praise are all about the birth of our Lord.

The sticheron at Psalm 140 invites the cave, the manger, the shepherds and the Magi all to welcome and receive Jesus who has been born from a Virgin Mother. The sticheron at Litija extends that same invitation, to receive as a small child who holds all creation in his hands, held in the arms of his mother. The sticheron at the apostichera asks how a child can be born of a virgin, a worthy cave is his birthplace, worthy because of its humility and poverty, for the one who emptied himself and became poor for our sakes.

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The Great-Martyr Barbara

There is little doubt that the legendary story of the Holy Martyr Barbara was embellished a bit by early hagiographers. There is no reason for this, since the mere fact that someone who comes to faith in Christ is willing to lay down their life for him. For this reason, the more plausible facts of her life are a beacon for us who struggle in and for the faith. Her story tells us that she was a philosopher, a “lover of wisdom.” It was her love of wisdom, guided by grace that brought her to faith in the one true God in the Holy Trinity. It is a reminder that our faith is not blind, it is rational, based on an authentic consideration of reality. Clement of Alexandria was one of the first Christians to see the value of Greek philosophy for the Christian faith, and on this same day, December 4, we celebrate the memory of Our Holy Father John Damascene, who wrote a massive work, the Fount of Wisdom, reasoning about our faith.

St. Barbara, however, shows that once we believe in the true God, it becomes more than just an intellectual exercise, but it changes and transforms our whole life, so that we cannot live any other way, and so she gave up her life for her faith. The story also tells us that it was her very own father who executed her. This is plausible. We know, as Christ told us, “From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Luke12:52-53). What does family truly mean in our faith? What does it mean to be a father? Should not a father encourage his daughter to become her own person, and not simply to imitate his way of life? A beautiful idea, but how do we carry it out in practice? What if the roles had been revered and the father was a Christian and his daughter would want to revert to paganism? Would he then be justified in his actions? I think some of us might say yes. We have difficulty, I think, separating sin and sinner. We say, “Hate the sin, but love the sinner,” but we have difficulty distinguishing the two, and we end up hating the sinner double. The father would not be justified in killing his daughter, even if she was wrong, and even less, of course, because she was right.

Our Lord taught, “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. (Matthew 5:44-45)” Therefore, we pray today to St. Barbara, in whom the light of Christ shone forth, to lead us to a rational faith and a love for all people created by God.

A very happy feast-day to all named Barbara.

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

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