This year the Feast of the Annunciation falls on Holy Saturday. This means that Vespers on Holy Friday (Bringing out of the Shroud), Matins (Lamentations Service) and the Vesperal Liturgy on Holy Saturday morning will also incorporate liturgical material for Annunciation. Orthodox Christians are expected to prepare for and receive Holy Communion on great feasts, so if you are not normally in the habit of attending Divine Liturgy on Holy Saturday, this is the year you should start! Normally fish is allowed on Annunciation, but since it falls on Holy Saturday, fish is not allowed on the feast this year, since the solemnity of our Lord’s Passion takes precedence.
After Bright Week we will begin regular services every Wednesday and Friday evening for the foreseeable future. A parish’s strength is measured by the hours it spends in prayer together. On Wednesdays we will usually serve an Akathist, as we have done in the past. And on Fridays we will serve Small Compline, which normally includes one or more canons. In case you are not familiar with these services, an Akathist only takes a half an hour, and Small Compline takes about 45 minutes. These services have the added benefit of preparing us for Holy Communion on Sunday, because they will take care most if not all of the required three canons and one akathist that we are to read as preparation for the Eucharist. Confessions will usually be heard after these midweek services, so hopefully this will make for less of a wait at Saturday Vigil.
ØCongratulations to Anthony and Gabriella Damiano on the birth of their new baby, Michael! He was born on Tuesday, March 13.
ØCongratulations to the newly-baptized Edward Akiwumi and his sponsor Reader Andrew Miller. The baptism was on Sunday, March 25 (St. Mary of Egypt). Many years! And glory to God!
ØMany thanks to everyone who helped out with our Russian Bazaar last month.
ØThe parish council will meet on Sunday, April 15, after Divine Liturgy.
ØIf anyone has photos for our website, please get them to Fr. Peter.
ØTania Kawa would like everyone to submit their favorite Lenten recipes for a parish cookbook that the Sisterhood is compiling.
ØLooking ahead: The Hellenic Festival will be on June 1, 2 and 3 this year. Each night there will be a concert by “Eikona”, a nationally renowned trio of sisters (two of whom are matushki), singing traditional Orthodox hymnography and their own compositions, all in English! Please purchase your tickets in advance for discount pricing. Representatives from AnnunciationChurch will be coming to our coffee hour soon to help with tickets.
ØHis Eminence Laurus, Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York and First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, will be making an archpastoral visit to our parish the weekend of June 16-17.
ØAnd on Saturday, June 24, the Council of Orthodox Churches is sponsoring its annual Walk for Missions. Like last year, all of this year’s proceeds will go toward local summer missionaries. Fr. Deacon Raphael Barberg from St. George Church in Lewiston is leading a team to go serve in Kodiak, Alaska in August. What a great opportunity for us to help our brethren in Alaska, the land of St. Herman and St. Innocent!
vMarch 22/April 4: Basil Korbut (Hieromartyr Basil of Ancyra)
It is a joy to pass through the Lenten season as our Tradition instructs us: with prayer, fasting, almsgiving, the poignant services. And it is a blessing to see so many of our brothers and sisters making great strides in their spiritual life. Some share that they have begun to pray the Jesus Prayer for the first time. Others have found a greater appreciation for St. Andrew’s Canon of Repentance. Still others have rediscovered the Old Testament in the daily Lenten readings. And not a few have been coming to Confession and Communion as never before. Glory to God!
Now what? Now we have to be on our guard so that we do not lose in a single moment what it took weeks to build up. Western New York’s neighborhoods boast such beautiful trees, and it took many years for them to grow. But that one storm last October devastated them overnight. As spring arrives we are able to walk in the sun and really appreciate the loss. We all know it will take years for these trees to recover.
In the same way, we need to be mindful of how easily and quickly we can lose the spiritual fruit that we so painstakingly nurtured this past Lent. We need to go easy on the meat and eggs… and cheese Paskha! But we also need to be careful not to go back to the habits we worked so hard to reform, such as our television viewing habits and other ways we spend our time.
We no longer recite the Prayer of St. Ephraim, but this does not mean that these words no longer apply. We still need to struggle against idleness, despondency, love of power and idle talking. God forbid that we go back to these ugly vices! We still need to cooperate with God to bear the fruit of chastity, humble-mindedness, patience and love. And who of can say that we no longer struggle with condemning our brothers and sisters?
May God grant that we hold fast to what gains we have made during Lent, whether ten talents or five or just one. Let us take what we have gained and multiply it more still, so that when we meet our Lord He will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of Thy Lord!”
Fr. Peter
Why are the Matins services on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday called the “Bridegroom” services?
At these services we sing the hymn “Behold the Bridegroom cometh at midnight”, which is based on the Lord’s parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25. The bridegroom is Christ and the ten virgins symbolize us. The five wise virgins had oil in their lamps, symbolizing the Holy Spirit, but the ten foolish virgins had no oil. This teaches us that we are to spend Holy Week in vigilant expectation of the Lord’s Resurrection.
When exactly do we stop making prostrations?
Beginning with Matins on Thursday evening (the “Twelve Passion Gospels”), we make no prostrations until after Pentecost. The exception is that we do make prostrations before the Holy Shroud (Plaschanitsa) on Holy Friday and Holy Saturday.
What is the rule about fasting on Holy Friday?
The Typikon (the book which regulates liturgical matters) says that we are not to eat or drink anything on Holy Friday. Of course, this is modified for the elderly and infirm. In the early Church no one ate anything from Holy Friday until Pascha, and some would even go without food for all of Holy Week. The custom today is to fast from midnight Thursday until the Holy Shroud is brought out at Vespers on Friday. Last year we began the practice of permitting a light Lenten snack (bread, fruit, juice) downstairs between Vespers and Matins.
When should we make our confession for Pascha?
You may make your confession for Pascha anytime after the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent (St. Mary of Egypt). You may then receive Holy Communion at any of the Divine Liturgies between your confession and Pascha, as long as you attend the services preceding the Liturgy and read your rule of preparatory prayers. You may also receive on Bright Thursday, because we will be serving a Liturgy then this year. If it has been several months since your last confession, you are especially urged to come earlier, because it may take longer than normal. If you leave it to the last moment, there may not be time to properly devote to your confession, you might not be absolved, and then you would not be able to receive Holy Communion on Pascha. We do not want this to happen!
Why don’t we serve the Sacrament of Holy Unction on Holy Wednesday?
Many parishes have this custom, but the Typikon says nothing about it. Perhaps this custom began because there is a bit of “lull” at that point of Holy Week. It may be better to focus on the services already appointed for the week, rather than pile on one that has no bearing on the season. Holy Unction may be performed at any time, and anyone may request it.
What is the Rule of Preparation for Communion at Pascha and Bright Week?
You just read the Paschal Hours, which can be found in the Jordanville Prayer Book. They are to be sung, but if there is a part whose melody you do not know, you can just read it. The Paschal Hours also replace morning and evening prayers throughout Bright Week. It takes about four minutes to sing or read.
Fr. Peter
W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W
"A life of fasting, properly understood as general self-limitation and abstinence, to the annual practice of which the Church always calls us with the Great Lent, is really that bearing of the cross and self-crucifixion which is required of us by our calling as Christians. And anyone who stubbornly resists this, wanting to live a carefree, happy, and free life, is concerned for sensual pleasures and avoids sorrow and suffering that person is not a Christian. Bearing one's cross is the natural way of every true Christian, without which there is no Christianity."
Archbishop Averky of Syracuse
We have begun a sermon series based on the famous book of St. John of the Ladder, abbot of St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt.Sinai. This is a fundamental text for all Orthodox believers and it is fitting that we become more acquainted with it. As a guide, here is a list of the steps that St. John enumerates:
Renunciation (seeking God’s Kingdom above all else)
Detachment (not being attached to people or things)
Exile or pilgrimage (being “in the world but not of the world”)
Obedience
Painstaking and true repentance
Remembrance of death
Joy-making mourning (not self-pity, but godly sorrow over sin)
Freedom from anger, meekness
Overcoming remembrance of wrongs
Overcoming slander
Overcoming talkativeness and learning silence
Overcoming lying
Overcoming “accidie” (spiritual sloth)
Taming “that clamorous mistress”, the stomach
Incorruptible purity and chastity
Overcoming love of money
Non-possessive “that hastens one heavenwards”
Overcoming insensibility
Coming to divine services on time
The all-night vigil
Overcoming “unmanly and puerile” cowardice
Overcoming the many forms of vainglory
Overcoming mad pride and unclean, blasphemous thoughts
Meekness, simplicity and guilelessness
Most sublime humility, “the destroyer of the passions”
Discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues
Hesychia (“stillness”) of soul and body
Holy and blessed prayer, the mother of virtues, and the attitude of mind and body in prayer
Godlike dispassion and perfection, “Heaven on earth”, and the resurrection of the soul before the general resurrection
