4th Sunday of Great Fast Veneration of John of the Ladder
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever!
4th Sunday of Great Lent: St John of the Ladder
March 30, 2025
Sat 3/29/25 4:00pm Vigil Divine Liturgy +Nancy Zavacky by Bob, Betsy and Jenn Sychak
Sun 3/30/25 9:30am Divine Liturgy +Dan Moniot by Drew Moniot
Wed 4/2/25 7:00pm Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts + Mary
Fri 4/4/25 7:00pm Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts + Mary
Sat 4/5/25 4:00pm Vigil Divine Liturgy +Helen Uram by Maria Ligas
Sun 4/6/25 9:30am Divine Liturgy +Karen Bohin by Andy Bohin and Family
Variable Parts - Tone 4 - Pages 141 — 142; St. John Pgs - 226 - 227 The Beatitudes- During Lent the 3rd Antiphon of the Liturgy will be Beatitudes. on pg 23 of the Green Divine Liturgy book
Epistle Hebrews 6:13-20
Gospel Mark 9:17-31
Memorial Candle Request - No Candle Request
Epistle Readers 29-Mar John Baycura/Mary Motko 30-Mar Shari Allen 5-Apr Mary Troyan 6-Apr Eva Babick
Please Pray for: Ole J. Bergh, Erik Bergh, Liz Moyta, Fr. Michael Huszti, Fr. Laska, Susie Curcio, Teresa Milkovich, Robert Saper, Anna Habil, Martha Sapar, Mike Dancisin, Karen Smaretsky Vavro, Diane Sotak, Anna Pocchiari, Larry Hamil, Beverly Jones, Marilyn Book, Maryann Russin Schyvers, Nick Russin, Ken Konchan, Beverly Zavacky
Attendance: Attendance data will be included in next week's bulletin. Collection: $2050.85
Food Prep - Help Needed: We will be baking Easter bread on April 10th and 11th. If you are available, please help. The starting time is 9am.
Paska Bread: Orders will be taken through March 30th. $10.00 per loaf and $12.00 for round. Order forms are on the bulletin board, or you may call 412-837-9446. Pickup is 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.
John Climacus (born 525 AD) was the abbot of one of the most ancient monasteries At St. Catherine monatery in Sinai. An austere ascetic, he wrote what may be the classic work of our spiritual tradition: The Ladder of Divine Ascent. It is a work, that has nurtured endless generations of Christian believers seeking to deepen their relationship with God in and through Christ. The form of John's text, with its thirty sections or steps, was suggested by the biblical image of the ladder that Patriarch Jacob saw reaching up to Heaven, with angels ascending and descending. The text has had immense influence on the formation of Eastern Christian monasticism. It is read in the monasteries during Lent and it is frequently depicted in icons, frescoes, and manuscripts. The spiritual father (oftentimes John himself) ushers monks to the foot of the ladder. As they ascend, good angels assist them and evil angels try to pull them off and drop them into the gaping jaws of hell. (Abba John's proper name, Climacus, comes from the Greek word for ladder.)
The Ladder of Divine Ascent is composed with great subtlety and art, a rhythmic prose approaching poetry, yet there is an apparent abruptness about the text. John uses short, sharp sentences, pithy definitions, and paradoxical aphorisms. .Purity makes of a disciple someone who can speak of God, and he can move on to a knowledge of the Trinity. •He who loves the Lord has first loved his brother, for the latter is proof of the former. John enters upon his climb without any introduction. The first three steps concern themselves with the break from the world: renunciation, detachment, and exile. This may seem very negative, but there is a strong positive element in John's understanding of it. "All this is done by those who willingly turn from the things of this life, either for the sake of the coming kingdom, or because of the number of their sins, or on account of their love of God." The body retains its role in the monastic life.The monk has a body made holy, a tongue purified, a mind enlightened. Asleep or awake, the monk is a soul pained by the constant remembrance of death. Withdrawal from the world is a willing hatred of all that is materially prized, a denial of nature for the sake of what is above nature.When the monk has reached this third step he is well on the way; he "should look neither to right nor left" The next twenty-three steps devote themselves to the cultivation of the virtues and the extirpation of the vices, what the Fathers called the active life.
The most fundamental of the virtues for John is that of obedience. He found in the desert three forms of monastic life: All monastic life may be said to take one of three forms. There is the road of withdrawal and solitude for the spiritual athlete, there is the life of stillness [hesychia—contemplation] shared with one or two brothers; and there is the practice of living patiently in community.
St John's succinct definition of what it means to be a Christian embraces both those "in the world," and those who practice withdrawal "from the world." A Christian is "an imitator of Christ in thought, word and deed, as far as this is humanly possible, and he believes rightly and blamelessly in the Holy Trinity,".
Contrary to many "self-help" writers today, who may prove to be less than insightful about the rebellion of our sinful minds and bodies, Saint John is very sober and realistic about the challenges for the honest seeker of God and insists that pathway to heaven in narrow and hard: "Violence [Cf: Matthew 11:12] and unending pain are the lot of those who aim to ascend to heaven with the body, and this especially at the early stages of the enterprise, when our pleasure-loving disposition and our unfeeling hearts must travel through overwhelming grief toward the love of God and holiness. It is hard, truly hard". The main section of The Ladder is made up of the Steps in which St John lists and analyzes the most prominent and troubling of the "passions," so as to offer guidance as to how to overcome them and replace them with a corresponding virtue.
The "passions" listed: 1 gluttony. "Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach. Filled, it moans about scarcity; stuffed, and crammed, it wails about hunger". 2 lust. "This demon is especially on the lookout for our weak moments and will viciously assail us when we are physically unable to pray against it". 3 avarice. "Anger and gloom never leave the miserly". 4. anger. "Anger is an indication of concealed hatred, of grievance nursed. Anger is the wish to harm someone who has provoked you". 5. malice. "Worms thrive in a rotten tree; malice thrives in the deceptively meek and silent". 6. slander. "Slander is the offspring of hatred, a subtle and yet crass disease, a leech in hiding and escaping notice, wasting and draining away the lifeblood of love". 7. talkativeness. "It is hard to keep water in without a dike. But it is harder still to hold in one's tongue". 8. falsehood. "Lying is the destruction of charity, and perjury the very denial of God". 9. despondency. "Tedium is a paralysis of the soul, a slackness of mind, a neglect of religious exercises... a laziness in the singing of psalms, a weakness in prayer". 10. insensitivity. "Detachment he praises, and he shamelessly fights over a rag.... He looks people in the eye with passion and talks about chastity". 11 fear. "Fear is danger tasted in advance, a quiver as the heart takes flight before unnamed calamity. Fear is a loss of assurance" 12. vainglory. "A vainglorious person is a believer—and an idolator. Apparently honoring God, he actually is out to please not God, but men" 13. pride. "Most of the proud never really discover their true selves. They think they have conquered their passions and they find out how poor they really are only after they die".
