Bulletin

33^rd Sunday after Pentecost

Tone 8

January 16/29, 2012

Veneration of the Precious Chains of the Holy and All-glorious Apostle Peter; Righteous Maximus of Totma (Vologda), Fool-for-Christ (1650); Hieromartyr John, Priest (1919); Martyrs Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Meleusippus, their grandmother Leonilla, and with them Neon, Turbo, and the woman Jonilla (Jovilla), in Cappadocia (ca. 161-180); Martyr Danax the Reader in Macedonia (2nd C).

All of us who are human beings are in the image of God. But to be in His likeness belongs only to those who by great love have attached their freedom to God.  Saint Diadochus of Photike

Please Join us for Coffee Hour – Today after Services

January Sponsor: Selina Eichelberger

St. Catherine Sisterhood – Meeting Today

The next meeting of the St. Catherine Sisterhood will be Sunday, January 29^th after Divine Liturgy.

This is the first meeting of the new year. All women are asked to attend.

5^th Annual Bible Bowl – February 4^th – 3:30 PM

Our parish will host this year’s Baltimore Orthodox Bible Bowl on Saturday, February 4, 2012. Middle and high school teams from our parish, St. Andrew’s, and Holy Cross will participate. Registration begins at 3:30 PM and the first round of competition starts at 3:45 PM. Pan-Orthodox Great Vespers will be celebrated at 6:00 PM in church. Afterwards, we will conduct an awards reception in our hall. A trophy and prizes will be awarded to the winning teams. Come out and support the youth of our parish. For more information or if you would like to help with the preparations contact Paul or Ann Marie Havrilko: 410-796-7617 Havrilko@comcast.net

Bible Bowl Volunteers

Parents and volunteers…we need your help to set up our hall for the Bible Bowl competition next Saturday. Please come to help starting at 12:30 PM: setting up the tables, decorating the hall, preparing the kitchen for snacks and dinner, etc. Thank you.

Souper Bowl of Caring – Sunday, February 5

Help our parish become Souper Bowl Champions!  On Sunday, February 5^th (Football’s Super Bowl Sunday), team up with our parish’s youth to help the needy of our community and around the world. Help our Sunday School team in the “Souper Bowl of Caring” by bringing a monetary donation and/or some canned goods with you to Liturgy.  All of the canned goods will be donated to a local soup kitchen and the monetary donations will be given to the International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC). For more information visit www.iocc.org.

Anniversary Dinner – Sunday, Feb. 12

This year’s Anniversary Dinner will be held on Sunday, February 12^th beginning at 1:00 PM in the church hall. Menu includes: fresh salad, soup, beef stroganoff with spinach casserole, ice cream bar, beverages, coffee/tea. During dinner there will be live entertainment – July Meyers will play classical and international folk music on the piano/accordion. Tickets: $20/person;  $10/child (ages 4-13); and children ages 0-3: free. Tickets must be purchased by Feb. 7. Contact Dave Eichelberger at 410-836-8043, deichelberger3@verizon.net or Michael Mickel at 410-666-2870 mcmickel@verizon.net.

Cleaning Groups – Group #2 /  Join a Group – Help your brothers and sisters

Group #2 is scheduled for this week: Jan. 30-Feb. 4: Natasha Makarava (captain), Joseph Bell, Natasha & Andrei Burbelo. This group needs more members. Any volunteers…?

Birthday / Anniversary Celebrations:  Jan. 29 – Feb. 4

We offer best wishes and birthday congratulations to Gregory Vass (2/4) and Valentina Bosaya (2/4).

May God bless them with health, prosperity and many years. To include your birthdays/anniversaries in the bulletin call Fr. John.

Vigil Candles

We are accepting donations to have three vigil candles – two near the large icon of the Holy Great-Martyr Barbara, and one on the holy altar table – burn each week either for the health/salvation of the living and/or in memory of a departed loved one. A donation of $15 will keep all three candles lit for one week. Please schedule your weekly candle offering with Vadim Radchenko 410-465-6172. 

Jan 29-Feb 4: Candles offered by Tony Bakie for the health/salvation of Carole Covelly.

* * * 2011 Pledges Fulfilled? * * *

Don’t forget to fulfill your 2011 Pledge. Over the next few weeks, the parish treasurer will continue to accept contributions to fulfill your outstanding pledge commitment for 2011. Thank you.

House Blessings

It is an ancient and pious practice to have our homes blessed with Holy Water from Theophany each and every year. There are few things more vital to our lives than our homes. In our homes we pray, we work, we talk to others, we order our lives, we work out our marriages, we raise our children, etc. And because of this we call upon God to bless our home, to cleanse it with the grace of the Holy Water and to sanctify it with the Holy Spirit.  After all we build and maintain our home to be a “little church”, where we have an icon in every room, where we say our daily prayers, where we gather, two or three, in the name of Christ and there He is in our midst. This is a spiritually significant practice…

How to Prepare for the Blessing of your Home? A lighted candle, an icon or cross, and a bowl for holy water should be placed on a table covered with a clean tablecloth preferably white. All radios, TVs, computers, etc. should be turned off. All who are present in the house should come together and stand by the table where the service takes place. All who are present should join in the singing of the responses. The first names of those for whom special prayers are to be offered (the members of the immediate family) should be clearly printed on a sheet of paper. Faithfully we call upon God to bless our home, to cleanse it with the grace of the Holy Spirit and to sanctify it with Holy Water. It is important to have our homes blessed every year!!! To schedule your house blessing, please leave your name on the sign up sheet in the hall or call Fr. John any weekday evening at 410-997-0802.

Columbia Pro Cantare – Feb. 11^th

The chorus Columbia Pro Cantare (www.procantare.org/) will give a FREE concert – Singathon – at The Mall in Columbia on Saturday, February 11 from 1:00 – 3:00 PM in the Center Court. A ‘singathon’ is like a walkathon except they will be singing to raise funds for the chorus.

Rally for Marriage and Family – January 30^th

Monday, January 30 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM at the Lawyer’s Mall in Annapolis, the Maryland Marriage Alliance (http://www.marylandmarriagealliance.com/) will conduct a “Rally for Marriage and Family” in order to show support of traditional marriage. This week the MD State Senate will begin debate on the Same Sex Marriage Bill (Senate Bill 241: http://mlis.state.md.us/2012rs/billfile/sb0241.htm) introduced by the Governor. For more info on the rally please contact Julia Vidmar 410-858-4030 julia@mdfamilies.org. If you can’t attend the rally, then please express your opposition to this bill by contacting your state senator and delegate.  Contact info for state senators and state delegates can be found here: http://mdelect.net.

Submit your 2012 Pledge

The mission of our parish is to spread the Word of God, to grow, to expand, to improve and not just to preserve our traditions.  Our parish shouldn’t become stale, but pursue holiness.

We strive to fulfill the mission of our parish, through prayer, work and sacrifice. Prayer – because we are called to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17); work – because we are taught to increase the talents given to us (Matt. 25: 14-30); and sacrifice – because "everyone to whom much is given, from him will much be required" (Luke 12:48).

Please be generous as the Lord is generous to you. When completing your pledge for the new year, please consider raising your level of giving. Our church cannot operate without your financial contributions. Our parish will grow only through your prayers, work and generous sacrifice.

Please keep in mind…

Every Sunday, Confessions are heard from 9:20 – 9:55 AM.  If you are unable to make your confession during this time period, come to Confession before the next divine service. We must start Divine Liturgy on time at 10:00 AM.   Thank you for your cooperation.

Next Council Meeting: Thursday, February 16^th - 7:00 PM – in the Church Hall

Luke 19:1-10 – Sunday of Zacchaeus

Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house." So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, "He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner." Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold." And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Holy Hierarch Nikolai Velimirovich

Zacchaeus of Little Stature

"Today, salvation has come to this house"  Luke 19:9

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. For the nearness of Christ is as the nearness of some life-giving and fragrant balsam which restores health, increases life, give fragrance to the soul, to the thoughts and to the words of man. In other words, distance from Christ means decay and death and His nearness means salvation and life.

"Today, salvation has come to this house" said the Lord upon entering the house of Zacchaeus the sinner. Christ was the salvation that came and Zacchaeus was the house into which He entered. Brethren, each one of us is a house in which sin dwells as long as Christ is distant and to which salvation comes when Christ approaches it. Nevertheless, will Christ approach my house and your house? That depends on us. Behold, He did not arbitrarily enter the house of the sinner Zacchaeus, rather He entered as a most desired guest. Zacchaeus of little stature climbed into a tree in order to see the Lord Jesus with his own eyes. Zacchaeus, therefore, sought him; Zacchaeus desired Him. We must also seek Him in order to find Him and desire Him in order that He would draw nearer to us and, with our spirit, to climb high in order to encounter His glance. Then He will visit our house as He visited the house of Zacchaeus and with Him salvation will come.

Draw near to us O Lord, draw near and bring to us Your eternal salvation. To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (+2003)

Zаcchaeus

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Today's Gospel is one of those which prepares us for Lent. These readings of the Gospel beginning with last week are not simply disjointed readings; they show us how to make ourselves ready and like a ladder lead us to the moment when we shall be able to meet face to face the greatest reality of history, the greatest event of it - the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would like to attract your attention to two things in the present Gospel.

Zacchaeus was small of stature yet he wanted to see Christ and to achieve this he climbed a sycamore tree to be able, above the heads of the crowd, to see Christ, to meet Him face to face. This is an event of the life of Christ, but this is also an image which we can usefully take advantage of. We are all too small. We are small in stature not only physically but spiritually, in every respect, our hearts are too small, our minds are too small. If we wish to meet Christ and to see Him as He is, it is not enough for us to try - we must climb, we must take advantage of a height which is not ours in order to see what otherwise we could neither see, nor understand. This height which is apparently, seemingly as humble, as ordinary as the tree on which Zacchaeus climbed, is the Church. The Church with all its teaching, all its experience, expressed not only verbally in doctrine, but expressed in all the ways in which the Church lives, because Christian life is life that takes us from every angle.

Zacchaeus might not have done it any more than very often we don’t do it, for the same reason: he might have been too proud, too vain, he might have counted on his own abilities, he might have thought, as many did and do and will do, that they do not need the humble help which is offered them, because they can reach soaring to the heights. Zacchaeus yet was not defeated by vanity, by pride, because something had gone on in him as we can see at the end of this reading, making it absolutely imperative for him, of necessity to meet Christ. He was ripe and at that moment, as everyone knows when this moment comes - we are prepared to face not only criticism and hatred and opposition, we are prepared to face even the ridicule of becoming like none around us, to behave in a way that is  strange to our normal surroundings. This person had the position of what we should call nowadays a bank manager and yet he was not afraid or ashamed of all the fun he was giving to the crowd because he was prepared to go beyond that. It mattered too much to him to meet Christ to worry about what those, who had not reached his stage of ripe anguish for eternity, would think. And Christ saw him alone in the crowd because he alone had overcome vanity and pride in order to meet Him. The reason why he had we can see in the last words of the Gospel, in his readiness to put all his life right in order to be worthy of the Guest who now entered his house.

Is not that one of the images, one after the other, that should teach us an important lesson? The fact that we are all so small and yet prefer to stand upright in our pride, in our vanity, in our blindness, rather than take advantage of the experience of centuries of things we cannot understand, of things which seem to be so humble, so far away from the greatness we are looking for, because what we look for is greatness out of our very small stature instead of looking for salvation which can find us anywhere we are. We are stopped by this vanity and pride. Is it not something we must learn to defeat? And pride and vanity cannot be defeated by simple reflection, by meditation, or by prayer. It is only when pride and vanity are exposed, when we despise them as much as others may despise us, that we can overcome them, because then only do we stand before nothing but the judgment of God and the judgment of Truth spoken in our conscience. And in the end if we want to bear fruits for this anguish of God, this longing for God, then we must be prepared to do something, not to expect mystical illumination, not to expect spiritual experience which is beyond us, but to do those things which are within our reach.

Zacchaeus promised to put all his life right. Are we prepared to face our life under the judgment of God, put it right, accept the humiliation that will lead us to humility, accept to recognize the smallness of our spiritual, intellectual, emotional and other stature and take advantage of the help which is offered us by the wisdom of centuries which have led millions of people into the Kingdom of God? Amen.  (http://www.metropolit-anthony.orc.ru/eng/eng_serm.htm)

The Veneration of the Venerable Chains of the

Holy and All-Praiseworthy Apostle Peter

The Veneration of the Venerable Shackles of the Holy and All-Praiseworthy Apostle Peter: On the orders of Herod Agrippa, in about the year 42 the Apostle Peter was thrown into prison for preaching about Christ the Savior. In prison he was held secure by two iron chains. By night, on the eve of his trial, an Angel of the Lord removed these chains from the Apostle Peter and miraculously led him out from the prison (Acts 12: 1-11). Christians who learned of the miracle took the chains and kept them as precious keepsakes. Those afflicted with illness and approaching them with faith received healing. The Chains of the holy Apostle Peter were kept at Jerusalem until the time of Patriarch Juvenalios, who presented them to Eudocia, spouse of the emperor Theodosius the Younger, and she in turn transferred them from Jerusalem to Constantinople in either the year 437 or 439. Eudocia sent one Chain to Rome to her daughter Eudoxia, who built a church in the name of the Apostle Peter and put within it the Chain. At Rome were also other Chains, in which the Apostle Peter found himself before his death under the emperor Nero. On 16 January the Chains of the Apostle Peter are brought out for veneration by the people.

Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria

Commentary on the Story of Zacchaeus

Let us see how Zacchaeus reaped the benefit of Christ’s entrance into his house. He says, The half of my goods I give to the poor. Do you see his fervor? He began to disburse without stint, not giving just a little, but all that he had. Even what he held back, he held back so that he could give to those whom he had wronged. From this we learn that there is no benefit at all to a man who gives alms to others of money he has obtained unrighteously and ignores those whom he defrauded in obtaining that money. See what Zacchaeus does with this money: if he defrauded anyone he restores to him fourfold, thus remedying the harm he had done to each man he defrauded. This is true almsgiving. He not only remedies the harm, but he does so with increase. This is in accordance with the law, which commanded that that the thief make fourfold restitution (Ex. 22:1). If we consider well, we see that nothing at all remained of Zacchaeus’ money. Half he gave to the poor, and of the half that remained to him, he gave fourfold to those whom he had wronged. But since the living of the chief publican was derived from fraud and extortion, and since he paid back fourfold all that he had wrongly taken, it follows that he stripped himself of everything he had. From this we see that his thinking goes beyond the prescription of the law, for he had become a disciple of the Gospel, and he loved his neighbor more than himself. And what he promised to do, he did: he did not say, “I shall give half, and I shall restore fourfold,” but instead, Behold, I give and I restore. For he had heard the counsel of Solomon, Say not, Come back another time, tomorrow I will give (Prov. 3:28).

Christ proclaims to him the good tidings of his salvation. By this house He means Zacchaeus, for the Lord would not call a building without a soul a son of Abraham. It is clear that that the Lord named this living master of the house a son of Abraham, because Zacchaeus was like the patriarch in two respects: he believed and was counted righteous by faith, and with money he was magnanimous and generous to the poor. See that the Lord says that Zacchaeus is now a son of Abraham, and that in his present behavior the Lord sees the likeness to Abraham. The Lord did not say that Zacchaeus had always been a son of Abraham, but that he is now a son of Abraham. Before, when he was a chief publican and and tax collector, he bore no resemblance to that righteous man, and was not his son. To silence those who were complaining that the Lord went to be the guest of a sinful man, He says, The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

This is the explanation of the literal words; but it is easy to understand these things in another sense as well, for moral benefit. Anyone who is chief among many in wickedness is little in spiritual stature, for flesh and spirit are opposites to one another, and for this reason he cannot see Jesus for the crowd. Crowded in by a multitude of passions and worldly affairs, he is not able to see Jesus acting, moving and walking about. Such a man as this cannot recognize Christian acts for what they are—Christ acting and moving in us. But such a man, who never sees Jesus passing by and cannot perceive Christ in Christian acts, will sometimes change from negligence and come to his senses. Then he will climb up to the top of the sycamore-fig, passing by every pleasure and sweetness, as signified by the figs, and counting them as foolish and dead. Becoming higher than he was and making ascents in his heart (Ps. 83:6), he is seen by Jesus and can see Jesus, and the Lord says to him, Make haste, and come down, which means, “Through repentance you have ascended to a higher life; come down now through humility lest pride and high mindedness make you fall. Make haste, and humble yourself. If you humble yourself, I must abide at your house, for it is necessary that I abide in the house of a humble man. Upon whom shall I look, if not upon him who is humble and meek, who trembles at My words? (Is. 66:2) Such a man gives half of his goods to the destitute demons. For our substance is twofold: flesh and spirit. The righteous man imparts all his fleshly substance to the truly poor, the demons who are destitute of everything good. But he does not let go of his spiritual substance, for as the Lord likewise said to the devil concerning Job, Behold, I give into thine hand all that he has, but touch not his soul (Job 1:12). And if he has taken anything from any man by false accusation, he restores it to him fourfold. This suggests that if a man repents and follows a path that is opposite to his former way of wickedness, he heals his former sins through the four virtues (courage, prudence, righteousness, and self-control), and thus receives salvation and is called a son of Abraham. Like Abraham, he also goes out of his land and out of his kinship with his former wickedness and out of the house of his father (Gen. 12:1), meaning, he comes out from his old self and rejects his former condition. He himself was the house of his father, the devil. Therefore, when he went out of the house of his father, that is, when he went out of himself and changed, he found salvation, as did Abraham.