November 25, 2021

Luke 17:11-19 - On the way to Jerusalem [Jesus] was passing along between Sama'ria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." When he saw them he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then said Jesus, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" And he said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well." (RSV)

Confess the Lord for He is good! Alleluia! – The Lord rebukes those who keep the Passover the way the Jews did, just as he rebuked certain lepers he had cleansed. Recall that He loved the man who was thankful, but He was angry with the ungrateful ones, because they did not acknowledge their Deliverer. They thought more highly of their cure from leprosy than of He who had healed them…. And realize that the man who returned to give thanks was given much more than the others. Besides being healed of the leprosy, he was told by the Lord, “Rise and go your way, your faith has made you well.” (St. Athanasius, Festal Letter 6)

America is a country blessed with so many good things. At Thanksgiving we celebrate that we, too, have been blessed by God. Let us not be like the nine lepers who rejoiced only in what they had been given. Let us be like the tenth leper and praise God with a loud voice, thanking Him as both the Giver of Good Gifts and – more importantly – as Savior. As we thank God for our freedom and blessings let us remember what true freedom is and from Whom it comes.

The icon of Christ above is called the “Mandylion” (meaning face which appeared on a napkin). The story that comes to us in Christian history is that King Abgar of Edessa wanted to see Jesus, the miracle worker who went about healing, but he could not leave his country. Instead, he sent a servant, who presented himself before the Lord with the instruction to remember what Jesus looked like. During the meeting the servant presented Jesus with a cloth to wipe His face, and the image of His Face appeared on the cloth. This story is recorded by Eusebius in his “History of the Church” in the early fourth century. Tradition holds that this “Icon Not Made by Human Hands” is the first image of our Lord. Other sources suggest that King Abgar was a leper, and that when he laid eyes on the cloth containing the image of the Lord, was instantly cured.

Who do you say that I am?

Roy Jensen, Editor of Christbearers - Meditations for the Pre-Christmas Fast, Christmas, and Theophany

"But you", He said, "Who do you say that I am?" Then Simon Peter spoke up, "You are the Christ," he said, "the Son of the living God." Matthew 16:15,16

"Who do you say that I am?" Was there ever such a penetrating question? Our answer to this question reveals not only who we think Christ is, but also who we are. Many of those who first heard Jesus ask this question were men and women of the Law. This is why they thought Jesus only a prophet. But Simon Peter could truly see Jesus for Who He Is. In his answer Peter revealed himself to be a man of God.

What of our answers to the question of Jesus? What do our answers say about us? Are we men  filled with the Holy Spirit? One of the most ancient titles Christians give themselves was "Christ-bearers." From the very first we have been aware that we are called "to bear the mysteries of God," to bear Christ to the world. As we prepare to greet Christ in His Nativity and His Baptism in the Jordan, we should look to our life. Do we bear Christ in all of our life, or only in those parts of our life we consider "religious" or "spiritual"?

May our life during this season bear witness to the reality that "Christ is among us!" May our life answer that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the living God."

(Abridged from the original)

Virtual Conference via Zoom

Liturgy and Scripture:
Praying the Word of God

Virtual Conference Online
June 22, 2021

The Orientale Lumen XXV Conference will be held as a "virtual" conference in June 2021 on the theme of "Liturgy and Scripture: Praying the Word of God." Speakers will pre-record their lectures for viewing on YouTube in early June, and a 3-hour live, interactive panel discussion will be held on Tuesday, June 22 from 1:00 to 4:00 pm EDT via Zoom video conference. We will also offer archive lectures about Liturgy from OLTV by Metropolitan Kallistos and Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ (of blessed memory). Registration for both the 10 pre-recorded videos and the interactive panel discussion will be $75 per person, $50 for advance registration before June 1st. All registrations must be completed by June 20th. Links will be sent to only those who register for access to the videos and Zoom panel discussion. Questions can be submitted before the panel discussion or during the discussion. Advance questions will receive priority from the moderator.

Speakers will include:

Archbishop Job of Telmessos
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Geneva, Switzerland

Father Andrew Summerson
Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma, Whiting, IN

Father Ted Pulcini
Antiochian Orthodox Church, Chambersburg, PA

Dr. Sr. Vassa Larin
Host of "Coffee with Sister Vassa", Vienna, Austria

Father Marco Benini
The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC

Dr. Daniel Stevens, Director of the Scholars Initiative
Brian Hyland, Curator of Latin and Greek Manuscripts
Museum of the Bible, Washington, DC

Additional videos by
Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ

Bishop John Michael Botean, Moderator
Romanian Catholic Diocese of St. George, Canton, OH

For more information navigate to: https://olfoundation.net/conferences/ol-xxv/

Uniontown, PA - The Sisters of St. Basil the Great are pleased to announce that on Sunday, September 5, 2021, the 87^th Annual Pilgrimage in honor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help will be held at Mount St. Macrina. With the theme, “Mother of Perpetual Help, Our Gentle Protectress”, the Pilgrimage will be an in-person event and will also be streamed live. Weather permitting, liturgical services will be broadcast at www.sistersofstbasil.org.

Out of an abundance of caution, and in consultation with local county CDC/health department officials, the Pilgrimage will be conducted with guidelines and limitations.

Although we are very happy to warmly welcome Pilgrims to the grounds of Mt. St. Macrina this year, we encourage those with compromised health conditions, unvaccinated Pilgrims, or those who would need to travel great distances to pray with us virtually via the livestream at www.sistersofstbasil.org.

By Gina Christian • Posted August 12, 2021 - CatholicPhilly.com

Following Pope Francis’ recent institution of the ministry of catechist, a local Catholic college has launched a one-of-a-kind program to “teach the teachers” of the faith.

Starting this fall, Manor College will offer the world’s first post-baccalaureate certificate in Eastern Christian catechetics.

The 180-hour, fully online curriculum is designed for catechists or lay persons wishing to delve more deeply into Eastern Christian tradition.

Courses, which begin Sept. 7, are structured in seven-week segments, with each costing $1,125. Tuition for the certificate totals $4,500, and discounts are available when five students from the same diocese or eparchy enroll.

The program is anchored in the “Catechism of the Ukrainian Catholic Church: Christ – Our Pascha,” released in 2016 in response to St. John Paul II’s call for “new and local catechisms” of the 23 additional churches that along with the Latin church comprise the entire Catholic Church. All are in full communion with Rome and recognize the pope as their visible head.

This is from an email sent out by Jack Figel of Eastern Christian Publications:

21st Annual Cyril and Methodius Lecture, Byzantine Catholic Seminary, May 18 at 7:00 pm
“The Liturgy of Jerusalem: History, Theology and Lessons for Today” by Deacon Daniel Galadza

https://www.bcs.edu/2021/04/13/21st-annual-lecture/

50th Anniversary Forum, Washington Theologica Consortium, May 26 at 7:00 pm
“Educating Religious Leaders to Engage in Public Life” with Archbishop Job of Telmessos, Bishop Mariann Budde of Washington, Dr. Gregory Howard of the Proctor School of Theology, and Fr. Mark Morozowich, School of Theology and Religious Studies, CUA

https://washtheocon.org/wtc_events/anniversary-forum/

Orientale Lumen XXV Conference, June 22 at 1:00 pm
“Liturgy and Scripture: Praying the Word of God”

Advance lectures and panel discussion with Archbishop Job of Telmessos, Fr. Andrew Summerson, Fr. Ted Pulcini, Dr. Sr. Vassa Larin, Fr Marco Benini, and Dr. Daniel Stevens and Brian Hyland, Curators of the Museum of the Bible; additional videos by Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia and Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ

https://olfoundation.net/conferences/ol-xxv/

Pittsburgh - The Byzantine Catholic Seminary’s plans for a hybrid annual lecture experience have been altered. There will be no lecture delivered from the Cathedral Center as originally planned. Father Deacon Daniel Galadza will deliver only through livestream the 21st annual Ss. Cyril and Methodius Lecture entitled “The Liturgy of Jerusalem: History, Theology, and Lessons for Today.”

The Church of Jerusalem was the cradle of Christianity, influencing when and how Christendom celebrated the conception, birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ and the memorials of the Theotokos, apostles, and martyrs. For the Byzantine Catholic Seminary’s annual Cyril and Methodius Lecture, the Reverend Deacon Daniel Galadza presents Jerusalem’s liturgical year, its historical sources, and theology. His lecture will illustrate connections between the “Byzantinization” of the Eastern Patriarchates at the end of the first millennium and the Latinization of the Eastern Catholic Churches from the middle of the second millennium onward.

Father Deacon Daniel Galadza completed studies at the University of Toronto and the Sheptytsky Institute before defending his doctorate in Byzantine liturgy at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome in 2013. He has been a junior fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C., assistant professor at the University of Vienna, visiting professor at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, and is currently a research fellow at the Centre of Advanced Studies of the University of Regensburg, Germany. In February of 2018, Oxford University Press published his Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem : the first study dedicated to the question of the Byzantinization of Jerusalem’s liturgy, providing English translations of many liturgical texts and hymns for the first time.

The public is welcome to attend this lecture virtually on Tuesday, May 18 at 7:00 PM via our website. The lecture can also be accessed live as well as in the future on the Seminary’s YouTube archive. www.bcs.edu

Great and Holy Pascha

4 April 2021

Christ is Risen!
He is risen indeed!

This resurrection cry is the subject of my good wishes to my friends, to whom I attribute the beautiful title of “sons and daughters of the Resurrection.”

We are sons and daughters of the Resurrection, although in the reality of our everyday life, we all carry all sorts of crosses, as do our countries, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the Holy Land, Palestine… We all bear the cross of illnesses, Coronavirus, handicaps, prison, loss of parents, vagrancy, emigration, deportation, hunger, suffering, homelessness and hopelessness.

Despite that, we are children of the Resurrection, of hope and joy. We believe in the Resurrection and in the Salvation of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead!

Psalm 73: 12 (LXX) makes allusion to this real, true spirituality, “But God is our King of old; he has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.” I like to link the meaning of this verse with the Holy Land, Jerusalem and the Church of the Resurrection, where Jesus wrought his saving work “for us and for our salvation,” as we state in the creed.

This is what we see when we look at the cross: Jesus, the tree of life (like the tree in paradise), a cave under the cross, the symbol of all our sufferings, the skull of Adam, who transgressed the law of the Lord, whence the name Golgotha, the place of the skull.

That symbolises a theological reality: Jerusalem is the centre of the world; Paradise is at the centre of Jerusalem. Sin is in the world, the human heart and in our life, yet salvation is still at the centre of the world and of our life, in Jerusalem and in the life of every person.

This salvation is there for everyone, for every creature, for every man and woman. And it is to this salvation that the Resurrection is calling us. And we shall always be sons and daughters of the Resurrection!

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!

Gregorios III

Patriarch Emeritus of Antioch and All the East,
Of Alexandria and of Jerusalem
For the Melkite Greek Catholic Church

Great Lent and Holy Week Renewal of Our Baptism Commitment

Let us enter the season of the radiant Fast with joy,
Giving ourselves to the spiritual combat.
Let us purify our spirit and cleanse our flesh. As we fast from food,
let us abstain from every passion. Rejoicing in the virtues of the Spirit, may we persevere with love
so as to be worthy to see
the solemn Passion of Christ our God, and with spiritual gladness
to behold His holy Resurrection.
(Forgiveness Vespers)

In the early Church baptisms took place in connection with the glorious feast of Christ’s Resurrection. The one to be baptized, the catechumen, was plunged into the baptismal pool, symbolic tomb of Christ, only to be raised with Christ from the tomb which now symbolized a womb to new life. Catechumens studied the Christian faith for one to three years, and the last forty days before their baptisms were given more intense instruction on how to live the life of Christ through prayer, fasting and good works, – the basis for a Christian life. So this season was not dismal or sad and gloomy but rather joyful – living Christ was filled with joy.

Sybertsville, PA

Father Anthony Skurla, O.F.M., fell asleep in the Lord after a short illness on December 28, 2020. A friar of Holy Dormition Byzantine Catholic Friary in Sybertsville for more than 72 years, he was well known for his ministry at the friary and his service to many Byzantine churches.

Father Anthony was born to Andrew and Mary Uchal Skurla in Syracuse, New York May 27, 1928. His early education, both elementary and secondary, was in the public schools of Chisholm, Minnesota. He was prepared for the priesthood at St. Basil College, Stamford, and St. Mary Seminary, Norwalk, both in Connecticut.

After making his solemn profession on September 7, 1952, he was ordained to the priesthood on June 14, 1954 by Most Reverend Constantine Bohachavesky at Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Philadelphia.

At the friary, Father Anthony held the following offices and appointments: Master of Novices, Custodial Counselor, Local Superior, Provincial Counselor, and Provincial Custos. From 2011 to 2017 he served as chaplain to the Byzantine Carmelite Nuns of Sugarloaf, and upon retirement in 2017, he resided at Mt. Macrina Manor Nursing Home in Uniontown.

A kind and gentle priest, Father Anthony was blessed with a most pleasant disposition marked by his constant smile, an out-going personality, and a pleasing sense of humor. He was preceded in death by his brothers, George and John, He is survived by his nephew, Archbishop William C. Skurla, Metropolitan Archbishop of Pittsburgh; and many nieces and nephews and their families.

Visitation will be from 10 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday, January 2, in Mt. Macrina Monastery Chapel with all COVID-19 restrictions applying. The Panachida Service will follow with limited space for visitors, then interment in Mt. Macrina Cemetery.

All arrangements are under the direction of the DONALD R. CRAWFORD FUNERAL HOME.

Eternal Memory! Vičnaja jemu pamjat!