(Ангел вопияше – англійською)
It’s so little time left for us to sing this hymn this season…
The angel cried to the Lady Full of Grace:
Rejoice, O Pure Virgin!
Again I say: Rejoice! Your Son is risen from His three days in the
tomb!
With Himself He has raised all the dead! Rejoice, all you(thee)
people!
Shine! Shine! O New Jerusalem!
The Glory of the Lord has shone on you!
Exalt now and be glad, O Zion!
Be radiant, O Pure Theotokos, in the Resurrection of your Son!
THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT: VENERATION OF THE PRECIOUS CROSS [READING for 27/03/2011]
Fr. George Nicozisin
In today’s gospel lection, taken from Mark 8:34, Jesus says: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” According to accepted English dictionaries, “deny” means to refuse, reject, repudiate and/or to declare something untrue. If we limit ourselves to these definitions, we do an injustice to the deeper meaning of Christian self-denial. For a clearer picture of what Jesus means, we must return to the original Greek text. The Greek is “aparnisastho” and it has the meaning of renunciation and absolute rejection of whatever is incongruous with Jesus’ planned salvation for us.
There are those of us who have a narrow and limited understanding of self-denial. We pick and choose at random what we will give up and what we will do in the name of Christianity. We proceed to label them “Our little crosses we must bear.” “I’ll give up movies and/or TV during lent.” Thus we conclude with a list of trivialities that have no bearing on the “self-denial” Jesus speaks about in our gospel lesson for today. Christ-like self-denial goes much deeper. It penetrates the facade which hides our hidden sins, our shortcomings and our faults.
Utter denial does not mean depriving ourselves of the necessities of life, nor does it mean we must become paupers and live in rags. Neither does it mean we must lose our individuality, personality and identity. When Jesus speaks of total and utter denial of self, He means we must subordinate our clamoring ego that prohibits us from being the Children of God we were intended to be. Good intentions are not enough. This is why Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
“Take up your cross and follow me” means to get started on our journey to salvation. If the road we are on does not have God’s Eternal Kingdom as its destination, then we had better make a U-turn and find the right one!
“Taking up our cross and following Jesus” means trying harder when those moments of calamity, tragedy, sorrow and loss and grief beset us. It means bringing under control our uncontrollable anger, our undue insensitivity, our impatience and impetuosity. It means subduing our temperament and disposition so that we can master them rather than their mastering us.
There is another reason this gospel passage is read at the Divine Liturgy of the Third Sunday of Lent. The Synaxarion, that portion of the Orthros service book which both announces and describes the observed Feast Day for today, says the following:
“On this the Third Sunday of Great Lent, we observe the Veneration of the Precious and Life-giving Cross and for this reason: Inasmuch as in the forty days of fasting we in a way crucify ourselves and become bitter, despondent and failing, the Life-giving Cross is presented to us for spiritual refreshment and assurance, for remembrance of our Lord’s Passion and for comfort. Like those who are following a long and tedious path are tired, see a beautiful tree with many leaves, they would sit in its shade and rest for a while and then, as if rejuvenated, they will continue their journey. Likewise today, in the time of fasting and difficult journey and effort, the Life-giving Cross was planted in its midst by the Holy Fathers of the Church to give rest and spiritual refreshment, to make us light and courageous for the remaining task.
Christ comforts us who are, as it were, in a desert until He will lead us up to the spiritual Jerusalem by His Resurrection. Just as the Precious Cross, which is also called the Tree of Life, was planted in the middle of Paradise, so our Holy Fathers planted the Cross in the middle of holy and Great Lent, as a sacred reminder of both Adam’s bliss and how he was deprived of it. Remembering also that by partaking of this Tree of Life, the Precious and Life-giving Cross, we no longer die but are kept alive.”
St. John Chrysostom, a fourth century Patriarch of Constantinople describes the Cross this way: “The Cross is the proof of the love of God. The Cross is the unshaken wall, the unconquered weapon, the Kingdom of virtue. The Cross has torn asunder our mortgage and rendered useless the prison of death. The Cross has opened Paradise, it has admitted the thief and has guided the human race from impending disaster to the Kingdom of God.”
Jesus extends His invitation to us once again to “deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him.” Our Church gives us this Third Sunday of Lent–Mid-point to Golgotha–to pause with Jesus, to refresh ourselves spiritually, to assess our Lenten journey and to continue with greater determination. But the initiative is still ours. There is no way into spring but that we endure the rigors of winter. There is no way we can arrive to Easter Sunday if we do not live the agonies of all our Good Fridays. There is no way we can achieve eternal life with God unless we deny ourselves utterly and totally in Christ. This we do when we endure and sustain our own personal crosses and follow Him….
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Fr. George Nicozisin was one of the most respected clergy in the Greek Orthodox Church of the last generation. Reading through this essay he wrote a while back (I could not find the date), you can see why. There were (and presumably still are) men who understood the evangelical mission of the Orthodox Church. Fr. George was such a man.
Read more here: http://www.aoiusa.org/blog/tag/fr-george-nicozisin/ and here: http://www.goarch.org/archdiocese/affiliates/rca/biography/nicozisin_george
The Sermon of Fr. Milan Medakovic taken from the Library of the Saint Gregory Palamas Outreach (http://www.saintgregorypalamas.com)
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
My dear brothers and sisters and in Christ, today is the Second Sunday of the Great and Holy Fast. The Church dedicates this Sunday to Saint Gregory Palamas.
Saint Gregory was a monk of Mount Athos or Continue reading
Sunday of Orthodoxy (First Sunday of Lent) [READING for 13/03/2011]
Fr. John Kaloudis, Holy Trinity Cathedral, Salt Lake City, UT
Since 843 the Church has designated the first Sunday of Lent as Sunday of Orthodoxy.
Specifically, we celebrate the restoration of Icons by the Empress Theodora. Generally, we commemorate: Continue reading
Prayer of Saint Ephrem as worded by Alexander Pushkin
The desert fathers and the ranks of holy women,
To have their hearts ascend to high celestial spheres,
To strengthen them amid the earthly storms and battles,
A multitude of godly prayers did compose;
But not a one among them do I find as moving,
As that which never-endingly the priest repeats
Throughout the Great Lent’s sad and somber days;
Most frequently it issues from my sinful lips
And fortifies invisibly my fallen spirit:
O Master of my days! Let not into my soul
The spirit of despondent idleness and prattle,
The spirit of that hidden serpent, lust for power;
But grant, O Lord, that I may rather see my sins,
That I withhold from passing judgment on my brother,
And in my heart the spirit of humility,
Of patience, love, and continence do Thou revive.
- A. S. Pushkin
Translated by Natalia Sheniloff
Dear Clubbers!
On the Great Lent eve and on the occasion of Forgiveness Sunday I’d like to say thank you all for staying together for a long time, for keeping in touch even not attending our meetings regularly, for enjoying being together and for love to Jesus Christ and His Truth!
Despite lack of time and sometimes inspiration, despite our business and laziness we meet together on Sundays and trying to speak (pray, read, preach and joke) in English.
Why do we do it? I think we still strongly believe that once our ability to say/to hear Word of God in English will help us somehow to be closer to Him. While traveling, speaking to our foreign colleagues and friends, helping tourists in the city center to find the right way we should be ready to show people really Right Way.
Disagree? You think we do it just to improve our English, don’t you? OK, show God that you are ready to speak English preaching Gospel and He will help you to speak better.
Even if you are here to make fun together – Orthodox English Club is proper place “for where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them”. (Mathew 19:20, NKJV)
So, let’s enter the Lent together within Orthodox English Club. Do you remember that the word “Lent” comes from an old English word for springtime? Think of it as a form of spring cleaning for the soul. Let’s forgive each other (not only in Forgiveness Sunday), let’s enjoy our diversity and celebrate together Spring Season in Orthodox English Club.
Faithfully yours,
Svitlana
As once more we are about to enter the Great Lent, I would like to remind us – myself first of all, and all of you my fathers, brothers, and sisters – of the verse that we just sang, one of the stichera, and that verse says: “Let us begin Lent, the Fast, with joy.” Continue reading
Dear Clubbers!
I invite you to celebrate the Great Lent and the spring season in the Orthodox English Club with western fathers of Orthodox Church.
I think many of us having heard words “American Preacher” immediately associate it with protestant guys who gather people in the huge halls of old soviet “DK” (ДК) and sing “Alleluia” dancing and jumping on the scene…
Do we know how many brilliant orthodox preacher of the Christ Word are overseas? Let’s look at Orthodox father from America and other western countries.
During nearest few months we will read and discuss their sermons on the Club meetings. And we start from this Forgiveness Sunday with Alexandr Shmeman and his sermon delivered on Forgiveness Sunday, March 20, 1983, at St. Vladimir Orthodox Theological Seminary Chapel before the Rite of Forgiveness.
Don’t miss the opportunity to discover the treasure of American, Canadian, British Orthodoxy. Welcome to the Orthodox English Club!
В это воскресенье – 20. 02. 2011. Во время встречи «Православного английского клуба» (здание библиотеки Лавры). Будет вынесено на обсуждение предложение отца Александра, о поездке по просторам Польши и Закарпатья. Все желающие ознакомиться с этой информацией подробнее приходите на 14:00 в библиотеку Лавры. Заседание предположительно продлится до 16:00. Continue reading
Thus it was spoken by the One Whose word is life and joy and restoration of the righteous. Just as the bleak forest clothes itself into greenery and flowers from the breath of spring, so does every man, regardless of how arid and darkened by sin, becomes fresh and youthful from the nearness of Christ.
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