Today’s Schedule: January 1st, Tone 4
29th Sunday After Pentecost – Sunday before Theophany
The Circumcision of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
St. Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (379)
9:00 AM Hours: Brad Miter
Greeter(s):
9:30 AM Divine Liturgy of St. Basil
Prosfora: Dot Federinko
Epistle: Steve Richey
Communion Aides:
Chapel Cleaners:
Donut Sponsor(s): In Honor of Mary & Art Schwaninger
Treas. Aides: Maria Brausch and Ben Lootens
11:00 AM Sunday School and Youth Group
11:10 AM 10 Minute Study Group
11:30 AM Fellowship Hour: Church Potluck
5:00PM Akathist: Glory to God for All Things
Today’s Hymns
Resurrection Hymn [Tone 4]: When the women disciples of the Lord learned from the angel the joyous message of Your Resurrection; they cast away the ancestral curse and elatedly told the apostles: Death is overthrown! Christ God is risen, granting the world great mercy!
Pre-Theophany Hymn: Prepare, O Zebulon! Make ready, O Nephtali! Stop your flow, O River Jordan! Receive the Master with joy! Rejoice with Eve, O Adam. Do not hide as of old in paradise! For He who beheld you naked there has now appeared to clothe you anew! Christ has come desiring to renew all creation!
Hymn of SS Peter and Paul [Tone 4] : O First-Enthroned of the Apostles! Teachers of the Universe! Entreat the Master of all, to grant peace to the world and great mercy to our souls!
Pre-Theophany: Today the Lord appears in the Jordan and cries to John: "Do not be afraid to baptize me! I have come to save Adam, the first formed man!
Resurrection Hymn [Tone 4]: My Savior and Redeemer as God rose from the tomb and delivered the earthborn from their chains. He has shattered the gates of hell, and as Master, he has risen on the third day!
Prokeimenon: O Lord, save Your people and bless Your inheritance!
EPISTLE: 2 Timothy 4:5-8
My Son Timothy,
Be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.
GOSPEL Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
Meditations on Today’s Epistle Reading
St. Paul 2 Tim. 4:5-8, Verse 8
Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. 1
What Paul says in verse 8 corresponds, in fact, to what Jesus said in Matthew 6 (part of the Sermon on the Mount). There, Jesus is talking about the ‘reward’ which God would give to those who gave away money spontaneously, from the heart; those who fasted and prayed out of genuine penitence and love of God. He was warning against the kind of religion which is all outward show and no inward reality. But he still used the language of ‘reward’, as Paul does here. We shouldn’t be so high-minded as to imagine that the only valid kind of Christian spirituality is that of pure disinterested love of God. Love isn’t like that, anyway. When you love someone, part of the ‘reward’ is the joy of being able to do things with and for them, and of being loved by them in turn.
The worry that many people have is related more particularly to the doctrine of ‘justification by faith’. Paul insists, especially in Romans and Galatians, that our ‘good works’ will not justify us. But it’s clear in those passages that he’s talking about our present standing before God. Whenever he talks about the future, final judgment, on the great coming ‘day of the Lord’, he always speaks of it as related not just to our faith, but to the total substance of our lives. (See, for instance, Romans 2.1-16 or 2 Corinthians 5.6-10.) Paul would of course say that this total life was itself the result, not of his own efforts, but of the hard work he had accomplished through the Holy Spirit at work within him. That’s more or less exactly what he says in passages like 1 Corinthians 15.10 and Colossians 1.19. As with the logic of love, so with the logic of working for God in the power of the spirit: God retains the initiative, and remains the ultimate source of energy, but the Christian is called and required to work hard with that energy. And when he or she does so, there will be an appropriate reward--not an arbitrary gift [like lottery prize money], but a glory and honor within God’s new world which corresponds to the kind of work that has been done. 2
hgaphkosi is in the perfect tense which expresses action in the past which has a continuing result.
thn epifaneian is the source of the word “epiphany” which suggests “theophany.”
[1] Orthodox Study Bible.
2 Wright, Tom “Paul for Everyone” The Pastoral Letters, p. 128-29, SPCK, 2004.
ST.BASIL THE GREAT
“‘For he who loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘will keep my commandments’ [Jn. 14.23]. ‘And this,’ he says, ‘is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you’ [Jn. 15.12]. And again, one who loves the neighbor fulfills love for God, who himself accepts the gift as given to himself. Therefore, the faithful servant of God Moses showed such great love for his brothers, as indeed to wish to have his name erased from the book of God, where it had been written, if the people’s sin was not forgiven [Ex 32.32]. And Paul dared to pray to be accursed from Christ on behalf of his brothers of the same race according to the flesh, wishing in imitation of Christ to give himself in exchange for the salvation of all [Rom. 9.3]. Yet at the same time he knew that it was impossible to be estranged from God through his having rejected God’s favor out of love for God and for the sake of the greatest of commandments, and that because of this he was about to receive in return many times more than he had given. The things we have said provide sufficient proof that in fact the saints were first to arrive at this measure of love for their neighbor.” (St. Basil the Great, On the Human Condition, pg. 118)
THOUGHT FOR THE NEW YEAR
“The sources of our existence have been made common so that we all might live more securely. God has made you rich; why do you make yourself poor. He has given you money, not to shut it away to feed your own destruction, but that you can pour it forth to the benefit of others and for your salvation. God has also made the possession of riches unstable so that the intensity of man’s madness for it might slacken. Let us not consider riches to be a great good. The great good is not the possession of money, but to posses the fear of God and piety. A righteous man, even if he were the poorest of mortals, would need to but spread forth his hands toward heaven and call upon God, and the clouds would pass away! But gold, saved in abundance, is more useless than clay for delivering one from impending calamities.” (St. John Chrysostom,The Rich in this World, pgs. 6-7)
THE CIRCUMCISION OF OUR LORD
“The earliest view, that Christ came to earth primarily as a teacher in order to tell us how to get to heaven, was always inadequate. A simple teacher of spirituality does not need to be God incarnate and does not need to die on a cross to illustrate his teaching.[…]At the moment God became human, divinity was united with humanity, and the eastern church stressed that as a consequence of this, humanity had had bestowed upon it the capacity for deification. In the words of Athanasius, ‘God became human that in him human beings might become God’. The link with God that had been lost by the Fall had been reestablished by the Incarnation, and it was once again possible for us humans to become not God, but what God is: that is, to share in his qualities and participate in his perfection and immortality. (David N. Bell, Many Mansions, pgs. 209-210)
THE DIVINE LITURGY
“The Divine Liturgy is a sublime creation which enables man to abide without despair in spite of his distance from God, because it is God’s own good pleasure to overshadow him each time he enters into His presence. We bring the best we can offer before God in the Liturgy.[…]Throughout the history of the Church, the Liturgy has been the ‘place’ where Christians have learned to dwell in the presence of God and thereby to receive the life of God, Who is ‘the Bread of Life which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world’. Created in God’s image and likeness, man’s deepest desire is for contact with his Creator: divine worship is therefore the main preoccupation of the spiritual person. It is in divine worship that man fulfils his true purpose, and in this he joins the feast of ‘the spirits of just men made perfect’ in the heavenly Jerusalem. He is sanctified and united to God in the Holy Eucharist through his partaking of the perfection of divine grace. Christ Himself is present in divine worship, according to His promise, especially in the Divine Liturgy. He dwells among His anointed and makes them His Church, His Body, of which He is the Head Who imparts life and the gifts of His Spirit to His members.” (Archimandrite Zacharias, Remember Thy First Love: The Three Stages of the Spiritual Life in the Theology of Elder Sophrony, pgs. 211-212)
Singing Therapy Helps Stroke Victim Speak Again A miraculous story to lift one's hope at the end of the year.
Jesus & Augustus, Christ & Caesar (III) An addendum to a previous blog series.
Santa & Facts, Jesus & Truth When Santa is true
2011 Christmas Blogs Available as one PDF All of Fr. Ted's blogs with a Christmas theme together in one document
The Stargazer's Joy A picture is worth a thousand words they say - stargazers are scientists and magi.
This Square Peg Finds It's Place at Last A poem for the end - of the year - and how odd it is to finally find one's place in the world.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
CELEBRATIONS: Birthday(s): Virginia File, Jonathan Watt, Michael Federinko, Peter Pavlina Name Day(s): Adam Garber, Julianna Bobosh, Sherri Pritchard Anniversaries:
JANUARY CHARITY: Our January Charity will be given to support the work of the Orthodox pro-life organization, ZOE for Life! ZOE helps support unwed mothers who decide to give life to their babies rather than abort them, and also helps with adoption of babies whose mothers choose to bring them to life rather than abort them.
WEDNESDAY MORNING ADULT DISCUSSION GROUP: Our Wednesday morning group will resume meeting this week on January 4th at 11:00 AM . We continue discussion on the book, HOW TO READ THE NEW TESTAMENT (Chapter 4) by Etienne Charpentier.
SUNDAY EVENING BOOK DISCUSSION: The next book our evening group is to discuss is David Bell’s MANY MANSIONS: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT AND DIVERSITY OF MEDIEVAL THEOLOGY. Copies of the book are now available from the bookstore for $23 (make checks payable to St. Paul Church). We will begin discussing this book on Sunday, January 15, but you may want to start reading now to be able to keep up with the discussion.
THE FEAST OF THEOPHANY: We will celebrate the Feast of Theophany, the Baptism of Christ and revelation of God as Trinity, this Thursday, January 5, with the Royal Hours at 9am and Noon. At 6:00pm we will celebrate Vespers-Liturgy followed by the Great Blessing of Waters. If you bring a small container, you can take some of the blessed water home with you. We do have a number of small plastic Holy Water Bottles from the St. Photios Foundation. The empty bottle sell for $2/each. At 7:30pm that evening we will have a Festal Potluck Supper, so please bring a dish to share with the community. On Friday, January 6, we will celebrate Matins at 8:30am followed by the Blessing of Waters again. There also is a Service of Blessing Your Home available at the Greeter’s table which you can take if you would like to bless your own home with the Holy Water. If you have the custom and want Fr. Ted to come to your house to bless your home in January, please sign the list on the bulletin board. Fr. Ted will be contacting you to set up the time to do the house-blessing. If you have a particular time you hope to have the house-blessing done, let Fr. Ted know. Please note: You do not have to have Fr. Ted come to do the blessing, you can use the Service of Blessing and do it yourself. You do not have to have your home blessed in January. House-blessings can be done at any time of the year, so if you have a special event you would like to schedule during the year (an open house for example) and want to do the blessing at that time, speak with Fr. Ted.
2012 PLEDGE CAMPAIGN REPORT:
Here is where we are as of December 30th:
Number of Pledges for 2012: 69
(Number of Pledges in 2011: 80)
Total Number of Members: 102
Total Pledges: $173,864
2012 Annual Budget: $197,261
Percentage of Budget Pledged: 88%
THANK YOU: Thank you to everyone who has returned their pledge’s for 2012. Thank you to those who have volunteered their time, talents, and energy into the maintenance and growth of St. Paul’s community this year. God's blessings on all of you for your generous support of the parish and the Orthodox Church throughout the past year. Indeed our parish has been blessed by your generous giving of your time, talents, and resources. May God bless you in the New Year with His grace and peace.
2012 ORTHODOX WALL CALENDARS ARE IN: Every household that has turned in a pledge is eligible to pick up one of the 2012 Orthodox Wall Calendars. Thanks to all of you who have returned your pledges for 2012. Since all pledges were due in December, we will assume that all members who wanted a calendar have received theirs. If there are any calendars remaining and you have need for a second calendar, you can have one while supplies last. But we do ask that you not take calendars home and then throw them away. The calendars cost the parish about $4.00/calendar and we try to order enough to cover demand. But if people take the calendars home and throw them away, then we end up over ordering the supply. Also calendars not claimed now might be used by new members and converts who join the parish through the year, so hopefully none will go to waste.
INSTALLATION OF THE PARISH COUNCIL: Our 2012 Parish Council and the decisions of our 2011 Annual Parish Meeting have been approved by Bishop Matthias. We will do the prayer service of the Installation of the Council next Sunday, January 8, following the Divine Liturgy. Parish Council is scheduled to meet next on Monday, January 16. The meeting will immediately follow 6pm Vespers.
This Week’s Schedule
Monday, January 2
Hieromartyr Theogenes (ca. 320)
Heb. 8:7-13 Luke 20:27-44
8:30 AM Matins
9:15 AM Office Hours
Tuesday, January 3
Martyr Gordius (4th c.)
Heb. 9:8-10, 15-23 Luke 21:12-19
Wednesday, January 4
Synaxis of the Seventy Apostles
Heb. 10:1-18 Luke 21:5-7, 10-11, 20-24
8:30 AM Matins
9:15 AM Office Hours
11:00 AM Adult Discussion Group (How to read the New Testament, Chapter 4)
Thursday, January 5
Hieromartyr Theopemptus (303)
Eve of the Theophany
1 Cor. 10:1-4 Mark 1:9-11
9:00 AM 1st&3rd Royal Hours
12:00 PM 6th & 9th Royal Hours
6:00 PM Vespers-Liturgy followed by the Great Blessing of Waters
7:30 PM Festal Potluck Supper
Friday, January 6
Ven. Macarius (1431)
THE HOLY THEOPHANY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST
Titus 2:11-14, 3:4-7 Matt. 3:13-17
8:30 AM Matins followed by the Great Blessing of Waters
9:15 AM Office Hours
Saturday, January 7
Synaxis of the Holy Glorius Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist, John
Eph. 6:10-17 Matt. 4:1-11
5:00 PM Great Vespers
5:45 PM Confession
Sunday, January 8
Ven. George the Chozebite (6th c.)
Eph. 4:7-13 Matt. 4:12-17
9:00 AM Hours: Ryan Sima
Greeter(s):
9:30 AM Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
Prosfora:
Epistle:
Communion Aides:
Chapel Cleaners:
Treas. Aides: Irene Snodgrass and Pam Friesel
Donut Sponsor(s): In Honor of Mary & Art Schwaninger
11:00 AM Church School and Youth Group
11:00AM Installation of the Parish Council
11:10 AM 10 Minute Study Group
11:30 AM Fellowship Hour: Team 2