First Sunday of Great Fast Sunday of Orthodox
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever!
1st Sunday of Great Lent; Sunday of Orthodoxy
March 9, 2025
Sat 3/8/25 4:00pm Vigil Divine Liturgy +Herbert and Margaret Moniot by Drew Moniot
Sun 3/9/25 9:30am Divine Liturgy +Abbot Leo Schlosser by The Fizer Family
Wed 3/12/25 7:00pm Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts
Fri 3/14/25 7:00pm Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts
Sat 3/15/25 9:30am 2nd All Souls Saturday
Sat 3/15/25 4:00pm Vigil Divine Liturgy + John R Prokopchak by John Prokopchak family
Sun 3/16/25 9:30am Divine Liturgy +Nancy Zavacky by Butler American Legion
Variable Part Tone 1 - Pages 125 -127 1st Sunday of Lent Pgs 220 - 222
Epistle Hebrews 11: 24-26, 32-12:2
Gospel John 1:43-51
Memorial Candle Request - No Candle Request
Epistle Readers 8-Mar Mary Troyan 9-Mar Hans Bergh 15-Mar John Baycura/Mary Motko 16-Mar Mike Dancisin
Attendance: 3/1 - 15 3/2 - 84; Collection: 3/1 & 3/2 - $2,294.
2 Food Prep Events - Help Needed: 1. We will be baking nut rolls on March 14th. 2. We will bake Easter bread on April 10th and 11th. The starting time for all these events is 9am.
Paska Bread: Orders will be taken March 2nd till March 30th. $10 per loaf and $12 for round. Order forms are on the bulletin board, or you may call 412-837-9446. Pickup: Saturday April 12th 10am - 1pm.
Salad Bingo: Please save the date on April 26th for Salad Bingo.
Donation Request: 1. We need Gift Card donations for the salad bingo. Cards of $10.00 or higher value are being requested for door prizes and the basket auction. Cards may be placed in the collection basket. Please mark the cards with their appropriate monetary values. Thank you!
2. If anyone is aware of businesses that may consider making donations, a tax exemption number will be required. Please ask Shari for the donation letter which contains the tax number.
Nut Roll Purchase: Nut rolls will be available for purchase at the church on March 14th from 1:00 - 3:00pm. There are no orders being taken. When they are gone - they are gone.
Do not forget our Bible study in Gibsonia starts this Monday at 6:00pm
On this first Sunday of Great lent, we celebrate the return of icons into the life of the Church. In 726, the Iconoclastic Controversy began. The iconoclasts were people who were convinced that icons did not belong in the church. They considered the icons to be heresy, because they believed that the Christians were worshipping the icons, and God commanded us not to worship graven images. But the Church has always clearly taught that we worship God, and no one - and nothing - else. We venerate icons, because we respect and honor these people who have loved God so completely, and we also honor Christ as we see Him reflected in their life. More importantly, since Christ took on human flesh, He has become visible and tangible. As a result, we can make an icon of Him, because we know how He looks. (In fact, He Himself made the first icon, the "Icon-not-made-with-hands"!)
Icons help to solidify for us the incarnation of Christ. But unfortunately, the zealous iconoclasts did not (or refused to) understand all of this. Much blood was shed as they removed and ruined icons from the churches, then persecuted and killed their believing neighbors. Many Christians hid the icons in their homes in order to protect them. The iconoclast struggle went on for more than a century. It began to come to an end when the seventh ecumenical council met and declared once and for all that icons should be allowed in churches, and given the same veneration as is given to the Cross and the Gospel book. It finally ended on the first Sunday of Great Lent in 843.
The first two verses of the entire Bible: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters " (Gen l: 1-2). The Spirit of God appears to us here as the mysterious power that moves the world from its initial formless, deserted, and gloomy state to its ordered and harmonious state, because the Spirit makes harmony, harmony in life, harmony in the world. In other words, it is He who makes the world pass from chaos to the cosmos, that is, from confusion to something beautiful and ordered. This, in fact, is the meaning of the Greek word kosmos, as well as the Latin word mundus, that is, something beautiful, something ordered, clean, harmonious, because the Spirit is harmony. This still vague hint of the Holy Spirit's action in creation becomes more precise following the revelation. In a psalm we read: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth" (Ps 33:6); and again: "When thou sendestforth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the ground" (Ps 104:30). This line of development becomes very clear in the New Testament, which describes the Holy Spirit's intervention in the new creation, using precisely the images that one reads about in connection with the origin of the world: the dove that hovers over the waters of the Jordan at Jesus' baptism ( Mt 3:16); Jesus who, in the Upper Room, breathes on the disciples and says: "Receive the Holy Spirit" (Jn 20:22), just as in the beginning God breathed His breath on Adam (Gen 2:7). The Apostle Paul introduces a new element into this relationship between the Holy Spirit and creation. He speaks of a universe that groans and suffers as in labour pains (Rom 8:22).
It suffers because of man who has subjected it to the bondage of corruption. It is a reality that concerns us closely and dramatically. The Apostle sees the cause of the suffering of creation in the corruption and sin of humanity that has dragged it into its alienation from God. This remains as true today as it was then. We see the havoc that has been done, and that continues to be wrought upon creation by humanity, especially that part of it that has greater capacity to exploit its resources. Saint Francis of Assisi shows us a way out, a beautiful way, to return to the harmony of the Creator Spirit: the way of contemplation and praise. He wanted a canticle of praise to the Creator to be raised by the creatures. We recall, "Praised be You, my Lord... ", the canticle of Francis of Assisi. One of the psalms (19:1) says, "The heavens are telling the glory of God", but they need men and women to give voice to this mute cry of theirs.
And in the "Sanctus" of the Mass we repeat each time: "Heaven and earth are full of your glory". They are, so to speak, "pregnant" with it, but they need the hands of a good midwife to give birth to this praise of theirs.
Our vocation in the world, Paul again reminds us, is to be "praise of his glory" (Eph l: 12). It is to put the joy of contemplating ahead of the joy of possessing. And no one has rejoiced in creatures more than Francis of Assisi, who did not want to possess any of them. Brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit of God, who in the beginning transformed chaos into cosmos, is at work to bring about this transformation in every person. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God promises: "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you... And I will put my spirit within you" (Ez 36:26-27). For our heart resembles that deserted, dark abyss of the first verses of Genesis. Opposed feelings and desires stir within it: those of the flesh and those of the spirit. We are all, in a sense, that kingdom "divided against itself' that Jesus talks about in the Gospel (Mk 3:24). We can say that there is an external chaos around us - social chaos, political chaos;. wars, poverty, social injustices. This is the external chaos. But there is also an internal chaos: internal to each of us. The former cannot be healed unless we begin to heal the latter! Let us do a good job of making our internal confusion a clarity of the Holy Spirit. It is the power of God that does this, and we open our hearts so that he can do it. May this reflection stir in us the desire to experience the Creator spirit. Pope Francis catechesis
