Byzantine Catholic Mission
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Holy Resurrection Byzantine Catholic Mission |
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O ye incorporeal angels who stand before the throne of God, luminous with the brilliance thereof and everlastingly shining with radiance. As secondary luminaries, entreat Christ, that He grant unto our souls peace and great mercy. O immortal messengers of the truly incorruptible Life, ye most blessed ones who received life from the first Life, ye have become holy beholders of the eternal Wisdom, full of light, and reflecting lamps shown forth as is meet. O ye archangels and angels, principalities, thrones, dominions, six-winged seraphim, and divine, many-eyed cherubim, instruments of wisdom, virtues and powers most divine. Pray ye to Christ, that He grant our souls peace and great mercy. Archives:
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HOLY RESURRECTION BYZANTINE CATHOLIC MISSION
GLORY TO JESUS CHRIST! GLORY FOREVER!
DIVINE LITURGY BEGINS AT 4 P.M. EVERY SUNDAY
October 26, 2003
Divine Liturgy Intention: If you would like the Divine Liturgy offered for a loved one, deceased or living, please give your offering to Father and obtain a Liturgy intention card from William Gogar. Please write down the intention so it can be put in the bulletin.
OUR OFFERINGS
Halloween: Does it have a Christian connection?
No, Halloween has never been connected with Christian celebrations. Although the name is taken from a Western Rite feast,
All-Hallow’s Eve, Halloween has nothing in common with the feast of All Saints and is, rather, a tradition of pagan
times that has retained much of its original character and meaning.
Halloween customs stretch back to the ancient Druids. The Druids believed that during the night of November 1, demons,
witches, and evil spirits roamed the Earth in wild displays of joy as they greeted the arrival of their season: the long
nights and early dark of winter. That night these horrible creatures harmed, frightened, and played tricks on humans. The only
way, it seemed, for humans to escape this persecution was to offer them sweets or to disguise themselves and join in their
wild fury.
That is what the ancients did, and it is in this very form that the custom has come down to us, practically unaltered: wearing
disguises, roaming the streets at night, playing pranks, and demanding “trick or treat!”
Thought for Today
There are those who suffer from the delusion that holiness and happiness can never go hand-in-hand. There are those who
foolishly imagine that in order to become a saint one must go about with a long face and a solemn expression. In actual fact,
however, nothing could be further from the truth. As a distinguished spiritual writer has clearly pointed out, the more our
hearts are fixed on God, the less importance do we attach to material things and consequently the setbacks and disappointments
of this world will never unduly perturb or deflate us. “Every good and perfect gift comes from above,”
St. James reminds us, and the more we share in the light of God’s grace, the greater is our capacity for enjoying
such peace and happiness as this world cannot give. Our Divine Savior promised His followers peace of soul, and peace of soul
is the fountainhead of true happiness and contentment. Those who enshrine true peace of soul are blessed with a peace that
mere words can never adequately describe. It is not riches that can make a person happy. It is not material success that
brings joy and contentment. One can be poor and yet at the same time happy. One can be a failure in the eyes of the world and
yet be perfectly contented with her lot. The only misfortune that can ever make a person miserable is sin. Nothing else, not
even the most dreadful calamity, can ever cast a blight over hopes or shatter aims and ideas. “To be good is to be
happy” is a dictum which is just as true today as when it was first uttered. For goodness leads to happiness; goodness
is conducive to joy; goodness is the key which unlocks the door of the treasure-house of real and abiding contentment.
God wants us to be happy. He wants us to be happy both in time and in eternity. Anyone who thinks otherwise never really
grasped the meaning of the Christian message. Anyone who foolishly imagines that happiness and holiness are incompatible has
never fully understood what religion really means.
—Rev. James Melnic
Trivia Question
Liturgically speaking, there are two types of time. They are:
a. tempus and chronos
b. chronos and kairos
c. kairos and tempus
d. tempus and hora
e. time to get a watch and time to start attending liturgy class
*Answer will appear in next week’s bulletin.
** Answer to Oct. 19 question: The first priority of humanity should be (b). to establish the kingdom of heaven on
earth.
*** Answer to Oct. 12 question: The Seventh Ecumenical Council is best known for confirming the veneration icons. Which
action was not taken by that council? (c.) Required all priests to be at least 16 years of age
10/10 MUSIC CRITICS AGREE: www.hrbcc.org ROCKS!
The Responsibility of Riches
When God created humans, He created them in His own image and according to His own likeness, with intelligence and a free
will. With these gifted faculties, humans are to follow God’s plan and, with His help, reach heaven.
Dives, the rich man in today’s parable, was living a selfish and worldly life. God had given him wealth to be used for
the glory of God and the service of his brethren. But he spent it on himself. His spirit was selfish, his principles worldly.
It meant nothing that outside his gates was a world of poverty of which poor Lazarus was only one example. It was nothing to
Dives that there were treasures of a better kind than those of wealth, that there was an inheritance to gain in the unseen
world.
It is no sin to be rich, but it is a sin to be rich and ignore others, to fail to help those in need. Dives thought his wealth
was his own, to do with as he pleased. Sadly, it never occurred to him that everything belongs to God. He incurred punishment
for failing to use his wealth to relieve those whose sufferings touched the Heart of God.
This parable teaches several lessons: the uncertainty and the brief duration of earthly blessings; the responsibility of
wealthy individuals not only for what they do, but also for what they do not do with their wealth; the supremacy of the law of
God as a guide to eternal life; and that another world remains, one of happiness or one of misery. There is a price to pay for
ignoring God and His plan of salvation.
Last updated: 29-Oct-2003 |
