Newsletter January 12, 2024

On Epiphany

Christmas remained connected to the feast of Epiphany, in the early Church, until the fourth century. After Christianity became a recognized religion in the Roman Empire, and then the state religion, the Church made the birth of the Lord in the flesh an independent feast, separated it from Epiphany, and appointed the feast of the sun as its date. The feast of the sun was a popular pagan feast, accompanied by celebrations unworthy of Christians. The Church had baptized, or Christianized, the pagan feast and shifted its center from the visible sun to Christ, the “sun of justice,” as the Church chants in the apolytikion of Christmas. In the Orthodox Churches, theologically, attention is focused more on the feast of the Epiphany than on Christmas. The theological significance of the Feast of the Epiphany makes it the third feast, after Easter and Pentecost.

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St. John the Baptist prepared the way for Christian baptism. His call to repentance was thus: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ (Mark 1:3). His baptism was a declaration of repentance, and a call to abandon a life of sin, while Christian baptism is for the forgiveness of sins and the acquisition of the grace of divine sonship. The Master, who is innocent of sin, humbly accepted the fulfillment of John’s baptism, “for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness” (Mt. 3:15), presenting himself as a model to those for whose salvation he came.

The Gospel of St. Matthew says that “heavens were opened” (Mt. 3:16) immediately after Jesus’ baptism. It’s the first time this expression had been used. After Adam and Eve fell from Paradise, heaven was closed to man, and now it opens again with the coming of the Messiah, who will restore the divine glory man had lost when he refused to live in God’s bosom and care. Also, when heaven was reopened, the voice of the Father was heard, and the Holy Spirit descended. God clearly reveals his Trinitarian mystery to humankind. From that moment on, he no longer only invites humanity to know him, but he will give it, through Christ, the desired salvation and reopen the way for it. Heaven is no longer far away; God is among us.

Read the entire article:
part 1: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/1885
part 2: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/1897

In this time after the Feast of Theophany and before Great Lent (1/6 – 3/18) we bring the Holy Water newly blessed during Theophany services to each of our homes and celebrate the service of the Theophany Home Blessing. I would love to celebrate it at everyone’s home (catechumens included!) this year.

As I am still working a secular job, weekday evenings are the prefered time. Please contact me via phone or email to schedule a time. Also, while I appreciate everyone’s hospitality, I would ask that there be food. We can celebrate the service and then have a visit over a cup of tea (or other refreshment).

For the celebration of the service, I simply need a small space near your icons. I will bring everything required with me. If you would like to light a candle and carry it around during the blessing that would be great. The service is simple: we will say the few prayers and a litany, and then we will walk through the home and bless each room with the Holy Water.

Please remember that our full calendar continues to be available at our parish web site. Here is a link:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Calendar/calendar.php

Full schedule:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Prosphora/Docs/prosphora sched 2024 web.pdf

Full schedule:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Altar/Docs/epistle readers for 2024.pdf

Epistle: ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS 4:7-13

BRETHREN, grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (in saying, “He ascended, ” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Gospel: MATTHEW 4:12-17

At that time, when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth he went and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

God will never give you more than you can handle

Fr. Lawrence Farley

I forget, in the course of my long life as a Christian, how many times I have heard people assure me that “God will never give you more than you can handle”. By this they seemed to mean that God knows my emotional limits and capabilities, and will make sure that no disaster befalls me that will tax me emotionally beyond my present strength. Sometimes they affix a Bible verse from 1 Corinthians 10:13 to it to make their case: “No temptation has overtaken you but such is common to man, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it”. I must report however, on the basis of my long life as a Christian, that the assuring notion that God will never give anyone more than they can handle is nonsense.

I could provide examples of people who experienced more trial and disaster than they could bear, but it is hardly necessary. Odds you that you can provide examples yourself from your own life.

I remember attending a service in an Evangelical “praise band” type of church, and one of the hymns there asserted that because the author of the hymn served God, He would never allow him (or her) to be overwhelmed, and I recall vividly thinking, “That is a lie”.

More than that, it can be a dangerous lie, for when disasters engulf and overwhelm us and we find that we cannot handle it, we may be tempted to blame God and declare that He has been unfaithful to His promises. It is fatally easy to embrace a Christianity that is little more than a supposed insurance policy against future disaster, and to imagine that the “plan” that God has for our life is that we will always be healthy, happy, materially-sufficient, serene, and at peace, living in the eye of the storm which rages throughout the world and affects everyone except the Christians. When God lets such a person encounter the reality of life in this world with its inevitable storms and heartbreak, it is easy for the person’s faith to crumble under the onslaught. Such persons had been taught that God had promised—promised!—that they would be immune from being overwhelmed by suffering. How could God have lied?

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God therefore will not spare us from the disasters that are the common lot of mankind, and which proved to be the lot of His chosen vessel St. Paul also. Sometimes He may allow disaster to strike us—whether that disaster be terminal illness, poverty, grief from our children or family, or the death of loved ones. These things may indeed overwhelm us, and we may feel that we are burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we may be tempted to despair even of life, having the sentence of death within ourselves.

It is then that we may remember St. Paul, and look beyond ourselves—indeed, beyond our suffering, beyond our life, beyond our death, and into the deathless joy that comes to us in the Kingdom of God and in the age to come. It is from the Lord that we may draw our strength, and find the power to endure, and to go on, and to place one foot in front of the other. In ourselves we are weak and overwhelmed and have the sentence of death within ourselves. In our Lord, we can be strong, trusting in Him who even raises the dead.

Read the entire article:
https://nootherfoundation.ca/god-will-never-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle