SS. kosmas & damianos Orthodox Church (goa)

703 W. Center Street, Rochester, MN (507) 282-1529 http://www.rochesterorthodoxchurch.org

office@rochesterorthodoxchurch.org Rev. Fr. Mark Muoz, Proistamenos

/APOLYTIKIA FOR TODAY

,

,

, .

You descended from on high, O merciful Lord, and endured the

three day burial to free us from our passions. O Lord, our life

and our resurrection, glory to you.

,

, ,

, ,

, , .

With the rivers of your tears, you have made the barren desert

fertile. Through sighs of sorrow from deep within you, your

labors have borne fruit a hundredfold. By your miracles you

have become a light, shining upon the world. O John, our Holy

Father, pray to Christ our God, to save our souls.

/KONTAKION FOR TODAY

Ti ypermacho stratigo ta nikitiria, os lytrotheisa ton deinon efharistia, anagrafo si e polis sou

Theotoke, allos ehousa to kratos aprosmahiton, ek pantinon me kyndinon eletheroson, ina krazo si,

Here nymfi anymfefte.

O Champion Leader, we your faithful inscribe to you the prize of victory as gratitude for being

rescued from calamity, O Theotokos. But since you have invincible power, free us from all kinds of

perils so that we may cry out to you: Rejoice, O Bride unwedded.

4th

Sunday of lent: st. john klimakos (of the ladder)

Basil the Holy Martyr of Ancyra, Kalliniki & Vassilisa the Martyrs, Euthymios the New Martyr

March 22nd, 2015

+Fast: Wine/Oil Allowed+

Todays scripture readings

Epistle reading

St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews 6:13-20

Prokeimenon. Grave Mode.

Psalm 28.11,1

The Lord will give strength to his people.

Verse: Bring to the Lord, O sons of God, bring to the Lord honor and glory.

BRETHREN, when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he

swore to himself, saying, "Surely I will bless you and multiply you." And thus Abraham, having patiently

endured, obtained the promise. Men indeed swear by a greater than themselves, and in all their disputes

an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the

promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he interposed with an oath, so that through two

unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge

might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast

anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a

forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Gospel pericope

Mark 9:17-31 At that time, a man came to Jesus kneeling and saying: "Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a

dumb spirit; and wherever it seizes him it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and

becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able." And he answered them,

"O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to

me." And they brought the boy to him; and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy,

and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, "How long

has he had this?" And he said, "From childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water,

to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us." And Jesus said to him, "If you

can! All things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I

believe; help my unbelief!" And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the

unclean spirit, saying to it, "You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter

him again." And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse;

so that most of them said, "He is dead." But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?"

And he said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting." They went on

from there and passed through Galilee. And he would not have any one know it; for he was teaching his

disciples, saying to them, "The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him;

and when he is killed, after three days he will rise."

Announcements

Liturgical/Program Schedule:

Mon. Mar. 23rd: Great Compline, 6pm

Wed. Mar. 25th: Feast of the Annunciation, Orthros/Divine Liturgy/Artoklasia, 8:30am

Thurs. Mar. 26th: Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, 6pm

Fri. Mar. 27th: AKATHIST HYMN, 6pm

AHEPA Annunciation Luncheon: Please join us TODAY for our annual AHEPA Luncheon in

commemoration of Greek Independence Day and the Feast of the Annunciation. Menu will include a

Mexican Fajita Bar w/ fire roasted veggies & shrimp, apple jalapeno salad with cilantro lime vinaigrette,

pico rice, and non-dairy churros!

Habitat for Humanity Book Drive: Our ever active GOYA is partnering w/ Habitat for Humanity to

provide a new bookcase loaded with books for children between the ages of 3-10. Thats where YOU get

involved! We are asking that parishioners bring either new or gently used books, targeting the

mentioned age group, to church on Sundays through Palm Sunday. If you have any questions please see

a GOYAN or one of their advisors, Mike or Halina. Thank you for helping us help local families!

Palm Sunday Fish Plaki Dinner: April 5th, immediately following Divine Liturgy in the church hall.

Please join us for a fish plaki dinner and support Holy Anargyrois Philoptochos Society as all proceeds

go to our chapter and local charities. $12 for adults and $6 for children.

Holy Week Liturgical Books: We have ordered several copies of the official Holy Week Book endorsed

by our Metropolis. This comprehensive book, compiled by Fr. Pappadeas, will be used exclusively for all

the liturgical celebrations from Palm Sunday evening through the Agapi Vespers on Pascha. Each book is

$25, and ARE NOW AVAILABLE.

HOW TO RECEIVE HOLY COMMUNIONOnly Orthodox Christians (i.e. the Orthodox Church does not observe open communion) in good standing are encouraged to receive Holy Communion frequently, provided they have prepared themselves spiritually, mentally and physically. They must be on time for the Divine Liturgy, and be in a Christ-like, humble state of mind. They should be in a confession relationship with their priest or spiritual father, have observed the fasts of the Church, and they should have self-examined their conscience. On the day of receiving Holy Communion, it is not proper to eat or drink anything before coming to church. When you approach to receive Holy Communion, state your Christian (baptismal) name clearly, and hold the red communion cloth to your chin. After receiving, wipe your lips on the cloth, step back carefully, hand the cloth to the next person and make the sign of the Cross as you step away. Please do not be in a rush while communing! Please take special care not to bump the Holy Chalice.

Pascha flowers: A table will be set up in the Narthex for collections of monetary donations

towards the Pascha flowers on Sundays until April 5th- Donations can also be made at any time

to the Church during Lent, please mark Pascha flowers with your check or donation. Thank

you!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Todays liturgical commemorations

1. THE PRIEST-MARTYR BASIL, PRESBYTER OF ANCYRA

Under Emperor Constantius, Basil endured and suffered much at the hands of the Arians. At that time he

was renown as a great zealot of Orthodoxy and a true shepherd of his entrusted flock in Ancyra. When

Julian the Apostate ascended the throne, he began to persecute Christians. Because Basil openly

unmasked this latest impurity and strengthened his people in the Faith, he was cast into prison. When

Emperor Julian came to Ancyra, Basil was brought before him and the emperor tried to persuade him to

abandon his faith in Christ, promising him honors and riches. Basil answered the emperor; "I believe in

my Christ, Whom you denied and Who gave you this earthly kingdom; but, that will be taken away from

you, shortly. Have you no shame of the sacred altar under which you were saved when they sought to kill

you as an eight year old child? That is why this temporary kingdom will be taken from you shortly and

your body will not be buried when your soul is violently wrested from you in bitter pains." Julian became

enraged and ordered that seven strips of skin be pealed from his body everyday. The tormentors did this

for several days. When Basil appeared again before the emperor, he took a belt of his own skin and threw

it into the face of Julian and crying out to him said, "Take it, Julian, and eat if this kind of food is sweet to

you but, for me, Christ is Life." This incident was proclaimed throughout the towns, and the emperor, out

of shame, secretly departed from Ancyra to Antioch. They continued to torture Basil with red hot irons

until he gave up his soul to God, for Whom he suffered in the year 363 A.D.

2. THE VENERABLE MARTYR, EUTHYMIUS

Euthymius was born in the village of Dimitsana in the Peloponnese. As a child, Euthymius lived as a

Christian but, later on, he went to Romania where he gave himself over to a life of great debauchery. In

this debauchery an evil spirit lead him to become a Muslim. As soon as he did that, Euthymius began to

repent bitterly. He again returned to the Faith of Christ and was tonsured a monk in Athos, the Holy

Mountain. After several years spent in strict fasting and prayer, he decided to die for Christ. With the

blessing of his spiritual father, he traveled to Constantinople where he succeeded somehow to come

before the Grand Vezir. Euthymius began to cross himself, to praise Christ and to insult Mohammed in

the presence of the Vezir. After prolonged torture he was sentenced to death and beheaded on Palm

Sunday, March 22, 1814 A.D. Many miraculous healings of the sick occurred over his relics. His

honorable head is preserved in the Russian Monastery of St. Panteteimom [Pantaleon] in the Holy

Mountain. And so, this twenty-year old youth, at first, died to Christ and after that died for Christ.

You Dont Have to Like Your Priest! Continued from last Sunday: And this analogy says as much if not

more about the qualities of the shepherd as it does those of the sheep. Being

a shepherd means putting the well-being of the sheep first, even to the point

of laying down his life for them (St. John 10:15). Being a priest rarely

involves actual crucifixion, but the priesthood does bring the modern

spiritual and physical equivalents of the kind of nomadic life that is easy to

romanticize but difficult to live. Trusting the priest as the sheep do their

shepherd may go against deeply-seated American values like egalitarianism

and democracy, but it really is part of our relationship with Christ and His

Church. This is a dangerous world; everyone needs to be under

the protection of a good shepherd.

The priest is a physician. The Church is a hospital that Christ created for those who are sick, and the

priest administers the strongest medicine of healing and salvation. The good doctor does not judge his

patients; does not treat them like employees or marks; nor is he inconvenienced by their complaints or

offended by their diseases. The good doctor does not care for people to receive a paycheck or good

benefits, but because he genuinely desires that they be well. The good doctor treats the whole person,

helping them make better life-style choices and prescribing medicines and disciplines that will allow

them to live life in abundance. A good patient takes his health seriously and works openly, honestly, and

earnestly with his physician. He takes his prescriptions seriously and communicates his improvements

and setbacks so that his treatment will be effective. This world is full of disease, everyone needs

to be under the care of a good physician.

Finally, priests are fathers. This one used to be obvious and easy for people to accept. That is no longer

true. Most people have been affected, either directly or indirectly, by divorce, dead-beat dads, and

abusive and unreliable male role-models. We should not be surprised that many people bring the

damage such a history has wrought in their lives with them as they encounter priests, Christ, and the

Church. It is rare to meet a person who has a completely healthy intuition about what it means to be a

father to a child or child to a father. This makes it very difficult for them to have a healthy relationship

with their priest. For some, this is compounded by the modern idea that the male priesthood offends the

dignity of women. These two lenses distort the image of priest as the father of the parish. In order to

heal this, the priest must be reliable and loving; and the parishioner must re-learn what a father is. The

father helps give life, then he nurtures, guides, and protects it. This is the fundamental role of the priest;

not chores or discipline (although these may come into play), but to enliven and strengthen. Our Lord

loves us too much to leave us as orphans; everyone needs a father.

In the end, we dont have to like our priest much at all; our relationship with him is not about our

emotions or satisfying our preferences. Our connection with him is different from the one you share

with anyone else. Even if you find your priest a bore or a jerk, he is your shepherd, your physician, and

your father who has, in imitation of Christ, offered His life so that you might be saved. When you are

feeling disappointed or unfulfilled because of your priests unaffability, it may help to remember the

difficulty of his calling and that he is as human as anyone else.

As Brother Patrick Mary Briscoe put it;

Priests arent ordained because they are perfectly qualified or worthy or, in any simply

natural way, deserving of the privilege of ministry; they are ordained because God has

chosen to care for His people by means of frail human beings. And whether we like them

or not, their frailty is a welcome reminder that Gods ways are not our ways, nor are

His thoughts our thoughts (Isa 55:8). The One who redeemed the world by the

foolishness of the cross continues to draw a people to himself through faulty

instruments instruments like you and me.

Orthodox Prayer for the Priesthood O Lord Jesus Christ, enkindle the hearts of all Thy priests with the fire of zealous love for Thee, that

they may ever seek Thy glory; Give them strength that they may labor unceasingly in Thine earthly

vineyard for the salvation of our souls and the glory of Thine All-Honorable and Majestic Name of

the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

http://www.dominicanablog.com/2014/03/07/you-dont-have-to-like-your-priest/

St. John of the Ladder

Saint John Climacus was probably born in the second half of the sixth

century; but his country and origins are alike unknown because, from

the beginning of his renunciation of the world, he took great care to

live as a stranger upon earth. Exile, he wrote, is a separation from

everything, in order that one may hold on totally to God. We only

know that, from the age of sixteen, after having received a solid

intellectual formation, he renounced all the pleasures of this vain life

for love of God and went to Mount Sinai, to the foot of the holy

mountain on which God had in former times revealed His glory to

Moses, and consecrated himself to the Lord with a burning heart as a

sweet-smelling sacrifice.

Setting aside, from the moment of his entry into the stadium, all self-trust and self-satisfaction through

unfeigned humility, he submitted body and soul to an elder called Martyrios and set himself, free from all

care, to climb that spiritual ladder (klimax) at the top of which God stands, and to add fire each day to

fire, fervour to fervour, zeal to zeal. He saw his shepherd as the image of Christ and, convinced that

his elder was responsible for him before God, he had only one care: to reject his own will and with all

deliberateness to put aside the capacity to make [his] own judgement, so that no interval passed between

Martyrios commands, even those that appeared unjustified, and the obedience of his disciple. In spite of

this perfect submission, Martyrios kept him as a novice for four years and only tonsured him when he was

twenty, after having tested his humility. Strategios, one of the monks present at the tonsure predicted that

the new monk would one day become one of the great lights of the world. When, later, Martyrios and his

disciple paid a visit to John the Savaite, one of the most famous ascetics of the time, the latter, ignoring

the elder, poured water over Johns feet. After they had left, John the Savaite declared that he did not

know the young monk but, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he had washed the feet of the Abbot

of Sinai. The same prophecy was confirmed by the great Anastasios the Sinaite (April 21), whom they

also went to visit.

In spite of his youth, John showed the maturity of an elder and great discernment. Thus one day, when he

had been sent into the world on a mission, and finding himself with lay-people, he had preferred to give in

somewhat to vainglory by eating very little, rather than to gluttony; for, of these two evils, it was better to

choose that which is less dangerous for beginners in monastic life.

He thus passed nineteen years in the blessed freedom from the care that obedience gives, freed from all

conflict by the prayer of his spiritual father and on a safe voyage, a sleepers journey, moved towards

the harbor of impassibility. On the death of Martyrios, he resolved to continue his ascension in solitude, a

type of life suitable for only a small number, who, made strong on the rock of humility, flee from others

so as not to be even for a moment deprived of the sweetness of God. He did not commit himself to this

path, one so full of snares, on his own judgment, but on the recommendation of the holy elder George

Arsilaites, who instructed him in the way of life proper to hesychasts. As his exercise ground, he chose a

solitary place called Tholas, situated five miles from the main monastery, where other hermits lived, each

not far from the others. He stayed there for forty years, consumed by an ever-increasing love of God,

without thought for his own flesh, free of all contact with men, having unceasing prayer and vigilance as

his only occupation, in order to keep his incorporeal self shut up in the house of the body, as an angel

clothed in a body.

He use to eat all that was compatible with his monastic profession, but in very small quantities, thus

subduing the tyranny of the flesh while not providing a pretext for vainglory. By living in solitude and

retreat, he put to death the mighty flame of greed, which, under the pretext of charity and hospitality,

leads negligent monks to gluttony, the door to all passions, and to the love of money, a worship of idols

and the offspring of unbelief. He triumphed over sloth (acedia)that death of the soul which attacks

hesychasts in particularand laxity, by the remembrance of death. By meditating on eternal rewards, he

undid the chain of sadness; he knew only a single sadness: that affliction which leads to joy and makes

us run with ardor along the path of repentance, purifying the soul from all its impurities. As his cell was

too near the others, he would often withdraw to a distant cave at the foot of the mountain, which he made

an antechamber of heaven by his groans and the tears which fell effortlessly from his eyes like an

abundant spring, transfiguring his body as with a wedding garment. By this blessed affliction and these

continual tears, he did not cease to celebrate daily and kept perpetual prayer in his heart, which had

become like an inviolable fortress against the assaults of evil thoughts (logismoi). Sometimes he was

ravished in spirit in the midst of the angelic choirs, not knowing if he was in the body or out of it, and

then with great simplicity he asked God to teach him about the mysteries of theology. When he came out

of the furnace of prayer, he sometimes felt purified as if by fire, and sometimes totally radiant with light.

The angels are a light to monastics, and monastics the light to all men.

-St. John of the Ladder