St. Nikolaj Zhichki: love for God and fear of God

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Reflection in today’s Prologue from Ochrid:

It is a great art for anyone to unite love for God and to have fear of God. Many other Holy Fathers whenever they speak about love for God, at the same time, also mention fear of God, and vice-versa. In his homily: “On Perfect Love,” St. John Chrysostom speaks about suffering and the pains of Hell at the same time. Why? Because the great love of man toward God without fear, imperceptibly crosses over into pride and then, again, a great fear of God without love leads to despair.

Sunday of the Paralytic

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Sunday of the Paralytic. [Acts 9:32–42; John 5:1–15]

Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee (John 5:14). Sin does not strike only the soul, but the body as well. In some cases this is exceedingly obvious; in others, although not so clearly, the truth remains that the illnesses of the body always stem from sins. A sin is committed in the soul and directly makes it sick; but since the life of the body comes from the soul, then the life coming from a sick soul is of course not healthy. The mere fact that sin brings darkness and sorrow must unfavourably act on the blood, in which lies the basis of bodily health. But when you remember that it separates man from God, the Source of life, and places man in disharmony with all laws acting in himself and in nature, then one must marvel how a sinner remains alive after sinning. This is the mercy of God, Who awaits repentance and conversion. Consequently, a sick person must rush first of all to be cleansed of sins and make peace with God in his conscience. This paves the way for the beneficial action of medicine. They say that there was one distinguished doctor who would not begin treatment until the patient had confessed and received the holy Mysteries; and the more serious the disease, the more urgently he insisted upon this.

(source: Thoughts for Each Day of the Year according to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God by St. Theophan the Recluse)

Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women

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[Acts 6:1–7; Mark 15:43–16:8]

The tireless women! They would not give sleep to their eyes nor slumber to their eyelids (cf. Ps. 132) until they found their Beloved! But the men as if dragged their feet: they went to the tomb, saw it empty, and remained in confusion about what it could mean because they did not see Him. But does this mean that they had less love than the women? No, here was a reasoning love which feared making a mistake due to the high price of this love and its object. When they too saw and touched Him, then each of them, not with his tongue, like Thomas, but with his heart confessed: my Lord and my God (John 20:28), and already nothing could separate them from the Lord. The myrrh-bearers and the Apostles are an image of the two sides of our life: feeling and reasoning. Without feeling life is not life; without reasoning life is blind, offers little sound fruit and much is wasted. We must combine both. Let feeling go forward and arouse; let reason determine the time, place, method and generally the practical arrangement of what the heart suggests for us to do. Within, the heart comes first, but in practical application, reason comes first. When the feelings become educated in discerning good and evil, then perhaps it will be possible to rely on the heart alone. Just as shoots, flowers and fruits grow naturally from a living tree, so does goodness alone emerge from the heart, rationally mingling into the course our life.

(source: Thoughts for Each Day of the Year according to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God by St. Theophan the Recluse)

Thomas’ Sunday

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[Acts 5:12–20; John 20:19–31]

My Lord and my God! (John 20:28) cried the holy apostle Thomas. Do you feel the strength with which he has grasped the Lord, and how tightly he is holding onto Him? A drowning man grasps the plank on which he hopes to be saved in the same way. We will add that whoever does not have the Lord like this for himself and does not keep himself this way in relation to the Lord, does not yet believe in the Lord as he should. We say: “Saviour and Lord,” meaning that He is the Saviour of all; but Thomas says: “my Saviour and Lord.” He who says: “my Saviour,” feels his own salvation proceeding from Him. The feeling of salvation lies adjacent to the feeling of perishing, out of which the Saviour pulls whomever He saves. The feeling of perishing, for a man who is life-loving by nature and who knows that he cannot save himself, forces him to seek the Saviour. When he finds Him and feels the power of salvation proceeding from Him, he grasps Him tightly and does not want to be torn from Him, though he be deprived for this of life itself. Such a nature of events in the spiritual life of a Christian are not only imagined in the mind, but are experienced in deed. Then, both his faith and his union with Christ become firm, like life and death. Only such a person can sincerely cry: Who shall separate me! (cf. Rom. 8:35).

(source: Thoughts for Each Day of the Year by St. Theophan the Recluse)

Schedule of Divine Services for Easter Holidays 2010

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  • Thursday April 1, 2010 – Great Thursday – Divine Liturgy at  10 am
  • Thursday April 1, 2010 – Great Thursday – Passions of Christ at 6 pm
  • Friday April 2, 2010 – Great Friday – Vespers – Procession of the Holy Shroud at 6 pm
  • Saturday April 3, 2010 – Great Saturday – Divine Liturgy at 10 am
  • Saturday April 3, 2010 – Great Saturday – Midnight service at midnight
  • Sunday April 4, 2010 –  RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST – PASCHA – Divine Liturgy at 10 am. After the service will be served holiday dinner

Easter Celebration

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CSO St. Simeon, SD Serbia and SKUD “Frula” organize Easter celebration to promote serbian religion, culture, folk dance, sport and music.

On Saturday April 10, 2010 at 6:30pm at Bowness Sportsplex (7904-43 Avenue NW)

Tickets: adults (over 25) $40, youth (16-25 yo) $20, and kids (under 16) free.

You will enjoy excellent serbian cuisine, deserts and drinks, raffle for adults and kids, live music starts at 8:30 with band “Stari Zvuci”

For more info click on the poster image.

EASTER EPISTLE OF HIS GRACE GEORGIJE BISHOP OF CANADA

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“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up!” (Jn. 2:19)
Thus says the Lord to those who turned the temple into a place of business and he drove them out!

For the God’s Church is a holy place, and not a place for commerce nor “business”, which is
unfortunatly, often ascribed to the Church. Our great Ivo Andric said: “People are not as bad as bad people think they are”.The bad see everything as bad.

The Lord Jesus Christ founded His Church in three days of suffering and pain on the Cross, and by his glorious Resurrection. This is a lesson for us from the Creator Himself for suffering and misfortune awaits us. ” In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” For this reason we pray for peace in the whole world and for the protection of God’s holy churches, and the stability of God’s holy churches and the union of all”.

It is for us to do, but it is for God to perform miracles. We must abide by what Church has prescribed and not to involve ourselves in what Church has forbidden. It is for us to be witnesses even at the cost of sacrifice, for it is only then that we are pillars of Church which God has founded. And when we have done everything, it remains for us, together with St. Basil to pray and recite that wonderful prayer after Communion: “Completed and perfected, so far as is in our power, O Christ our God, is all the mystery of thy dispensation, for we have had the memorial of thy death, we have seen the type of thy Resurrection, we have been filled with thine unending life, we have enjoyed thine inexhaustible bounty, which is also in the age to come be pleased to vouchsafe us all, through the grace of thy Father, who is without beginning, and of thy holy, and good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”

At the Mystical Supper, prior to His suffering, Christ the Lord informed his disciples, and through them to us, to do acts of love in His memory. Then He said: “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandaments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kindom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). How much of an effort do we make to be great in the Kingdom? Little, very little.

If we comprehend the Holy Liturgy as it has remained from St. Basil the Great, we will know to watch out for those who would like to change it according to their intellect.

In these days preceding the Resurrection, we should reflect on this great gift from God. If we perceive Christ in His suffering, then we will easily rejoice in Him in the glory of the Heavenly Father. With the prayers of our Most Holy Patriarch Irinej, and our prayers that he leads us in a Christ-like manner in the Serbian Church of Saint Sava, we have send the Paschal greeting: CHRIST IS RISEN!

Your Intercessor before the Resurrected Lord,

Bishop Georgije of Canada

Lazarus Saturday

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On Saturday March 27, 2010, our Holy Orthodox Church marks Lazarus Saturday.

Lazarus Saturday is the day before Palm Sunday (the feast of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem). This Saturday and Sunday are the connection between Great Lent and Holy Week. On the eve of the celebration of the Resurrection of Lazarus, the forty days of Great Lent are formally brought to an end at Vespers. These two days are the unique and paradoxical days before the Lord’s Passion.

Troparion (Tone 1)

By raising Lazarus from the dead before Your passion,
You did confirm the universal Resurrection, O Christ God!
Like the children with the palms of victory,
We cry out to You, O Vanquisher of death;
Hosanna in the Highest!
Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord!

Kontakion (Tone 2)

Christ the Joy, the Truth and the Light of all,
The Life of the World and the Resurrection
Has appeared in His goodness to those on earth.
He has become the Image of our Resurrection,
Granting divine forgiveness to all!

fr. Obrad will serve Divine Liturgy at 10am