Manor College Certification Program
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24 August, 2008: 15th Sunday of Pentecost, tone 6
John Popivchak passed to life this past Friday night, and will be buried from this church on Tuesday, August 26th, at 10am, with interment in our parish cemetery. Visitation will be held on Monday from 2-4pm and 6-8pm at the Bagnato Funeral Home. May John’s memory last forever!
What’s happening in our parish this week . . .
Sat. 4:00pm Divine Liturgy to mark the first anniversary of the late Elizabeth
8/23 Wengryn, requested by her mother Amy Wengryn & Family GA
. . . also, for the repose of Michael V. Zaletski
requested by Stephen Zinski PB
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Sun. The transfer of the remains of Peter, metropolitan of
8/24 8:30am Divine Liturgy for the repose of Helen Swentosky IS
requested by Susan Kanai
11:00am Divine Liturgy for the people of the parish GA
3:00pm Parakles at St. John’s-in-the-Rox
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Mon. The return of the relics of St. Bartholomew
8/25 8:00am 40th Day Liturgy for Anna Holowaty GA
Canon Philip has the day off.
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Tues. The Vladimir Icon of Our Lady . . . third class
8/26 8:00am Divine Liturgy for the repose of Evelyn Steffora PB
requested by the family
10:00am The funeral of John Popivchak
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Wed. Pimen, the desert-dweller
8/27 8:00am Divine Liturgy for the priest’s intention PB
The pastor will take vacation days for the rest of the week.
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Thurs. Augustine, bishop of Hippo
8/28 7:30am Pyrohi . . . Group 2
8:00am Divine Liturgy for the repose of Joseph Staskowicz PB
requested by Margaret Staskowicz
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Fri. The Execution of John the Baptist . . . first class
8/29 (This is by tradition, but no longer by law, a fast day
and there is a custom of not eating from plates or platters today.)
7:30am Pyrohi . . . Group 2
9:00am Divine Liturgy for the priest’s intention PB
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Sat. Alexander, John & Paul, patriarchs of Constantinople
8/30 3:15pm Confessions . . . until 3:45pm
4:00pm Divine Liturgy for the repose of John & Eva Pavuk
requested by the Honchar Family GA
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Sun. The enshrining of Our Lady’s sash at Calcoprateia . . . third class
8/31 8:30am Divine Liturgy for the people of the parish IS
11:00am Divine Liturgy for the repose of Mary & John Zaletski
requested by Eleanor Patross GA
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Moleben to pray for the canonization of Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky, our Church in Ukraine and the victims of the Holodomor will be held today, Sunday, August 24th at St. John’s-in-the-Rox. This will be the “September” Moleben, but has been moved up to coincide with Ukrainian Independence Day. With the Russian invasion of Georgia, Ukraine is in a very precarious position and these prayers are more needed than ever.
We welcome to the community of the Church Shereena nee Stranko Zaletski, wife of James H. Zaletski, and their son, Matthew. They were baptized and confirmed, and admitted to Holy Communion, on Monday afternoon, August 18th. May the light that Christ lit in their hearts at that time shine with his love for many, many years.
Pyrohi this week with Group 2: on Thursday: J. Daniels, A. Donner, A. Drost, S. Fedora, J. Andrejasik, M. Medwig, H. Makar, M. Simek, E. Kalymon, M. Stasko, N. Spikula & K. Zaliszczuk. On Friday: J. Hurey, S. Kanai, T. Konecky, B. Krisovenski, C. Ostaffe, O. Medwig, E. Stecko, K. Sembrat, K. Zaliszczuk, M. Zorey.
Lectors: at 4pm on Saturday, August 30th, the cantor; then on Sunday morning at 8:30, Terry Styran; and at 11 o’clock, Veronica Alstad.
Vital Statistics: will be reported next week.
The annual 74th Annual Labor Day Pilgrimage sponsored by the Sisters of St. Basil the Great at Mount Macrina in Uniontown is fast approaching. It opens with a Divine Liturgy at 10:30am on Sunday, August 31st, and closes with a Liturgy at 9:30am on Monday, September 1st. Myron & Barbara Spak have volunteered to be the local parish contact for this event. For the weekend calendar of events, you can go on-line to http://www.sistersofstbasil.org/pilgrimage.jsp and select the 2008 Early Pilgrimage Schedule link.
From the Pastor’s Sermon . . .
Our church has been reading from the “second” letter of St. Paul to the Church in Corinth and—in this Year of St. Paul—I would like to continue talking about him and his theology. But first, something about these letters to the Corinthians. We know from the two documents we possess that originally there were more than two; in fact, there were five. After spending two years in Corinth, Paul moved on to Ephesus. It was from Ephesus that Paul wrote to the Corinthian congregation as news of problems reached him. The “first” letter to the Corinthians (5:9) mentions an earlier one, so what we call the first letter is really the second, and the first is lost. The third letter, referred to by Paul himself in II Corinthians as the “letter in tears,” is also thought to be lost, but a fragment of it may be contained in what we call II Corinthians. The fourth and fifth letters combined—but in reverse order—are what make up most of the document we call II Corinthians.
First, how did this all happen? It seems that an important Corinthian city official named Erastus was the first to begin to gather and compile Saint Paul’s letters near the end of the first Christian century. It appears that, as he found copies of letters probably forty years old when he found them, he simply put them in a file and arranged them as best he could.
So why am I telling you all this? It sounds like the old joke, “Who’s on first.” To begin with, it upholds the fact that the Catholic Church is not a fundamentalist church and the Bible is truly God’s revelation, but the agents of this revelation are human, and working in a human manner. Apparently the Holy Spirit did not think it necessary to produce the Bible like a “user’s manual” in our sense of the term. The Bible was, and is, something that follows revelation as such and is a witnesses to revelation and not itself the revelation.
It proves again the quip attributed to St. Thomas Moore that “God created us to serve him in the tangle of our wits.”
But let us put all that aside to look at what today’s reading (II Cor. 4:6-15) has to say, for St. Paul, far more than any other writer in the New Testament, puts his chief emphasis on the fact that we—you and I—not only make up the body of Christ but as individuals have Christ living in each one of us by virtue of our baptism. How did he arrive at this idea? Remember that at his conversion, he was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial when he was knocked to the ground. He heard a voice saying, “Saul! Saul, why are you persecuting me?” He asked the voice, “Who are you?” and was told “I am Jesus whom you persecute.” This was Paul’s first introduction to the teaching of Jesus found in Matthew’s Gospel, “whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters you do to me.” As time passed, Paul would come to understand this reality in a far deeper and awesome way, so that in his letters he teaches it more boldly than anyone else in the New Testament.
Consider the line in today’s reading, “We carry in our mortal bodies the dying of Jesus so that his living may be seen in our bodies.” Jesus is living in each one of us by virtue of our baptism, so what whatever is done to us is done to Jesus, and whatever we do to each other is done to Jesus. More than that, Jesus continues to operate directly through us, so that Paul can say in another place, “I finish in my body what is missing in the Passion of Christ for the sake of the community.” So let us take this to heart. Although, as today’s reading says, we carry this treasure of Christ’s abiding in us in something no stronger than a clay flowerpot, in spite of our limitations, our fears and faults, our sins, let us strive to worship Christ by the way we treat others and to bear and forgive all as he did on his cross. This is what will make that light that he lit in our hearts at our baptism—as the opening verse of the text says today—shine for those who come in contract with us and provide glory to God.