ST JOSEPH THE
BETROTHED
Melkite-Greek
Catholic CHURCH
725 W. Mt. Hope
Ave, Lansing, MI 48910 517-575-6264
FMailing Address: 921 Westover Circle, Lansing, MI 48917E
Rev. Father James
K. Graham, Pastor frjamie@earthlink.net
Rev. Protodeacon
Joseph Daratony
248-719-5169
Phone or
email Fr James with items for the bulletin by Thursday night.
Troparion of The
Holy Cross (Tone 1)
O Lord, save your people and bless your
inheritance, grant victory to our country
over its enemies, and preserve your community by
the power of your Cross.
23 March 2014—3rd
Sunday of Great Lent (Veneration of the Holy Cross). Holy Martyrs Nikon & His 200 Pupils. (Tone 3)
Readings Apostolos: Hebrews 4:14-5:6 Gospel: Mark 8:34-9:1
10:30 am Orthros (Morning Prayer)
11 am Divine Liturgy of St Basil the Great for the health &
salvation of Griffin Barna, David
Georges, Elias Atallah, Ralph Farhat, Robert Kuri, Nick Nakfoor, Isaac Salim, Louise
Hajj, Iva Butler, Michel Badawi, Kelsey Andrews, Elaine & Eva-Genevieve
Scarborough, Michael Maslowski, Clay Thomas, Michael Harmuth, Elias Haggar, Deacon
Joe Daratony, Fr John Leonard, Fr James Babcock; in memory of Tony Rahme (1 year by the
Rahme Family), Raymon Rahall (31 years by His Family), John Rashid (by Bob Abraham), Abraham Saba (by Emile Indraous), Julia Axmacher and Jack Lysaght (by Fr James). Procession with the Holy Cross.
30 March 2014— 4th
Sunday of Great Lent (St John Klimakos).
(Tone 4)
Readings Apostolos: Hebrews 6:13-20 Gospel: Mark 9:17-31
10:30 am Orthros (Morning Prayer)
11 am Divine Liturgy of St Basil the Great in
memory of Louis Zarka, Abraham Saba (by Iskandar Andraous), John
Rashid (by Marie Albert), and Fred
Doelker (by Fr James).
We Sing First Typika Psalm Instead of Antiphons Today
Instead of singing the usual three Antiphons in today’s
Liturgy, we will sing instead the first of the Typika (Psalm 102) on page 10 of
the Liturgikon.
Troparia and Kontakion for Today
- Troparion of the Resurrection, in Tone 3, Liturgikon, page 185.
- Troparion of the Holy Cross, in Tone 1, page 204.
- Troparion of St Joseph, in Tone 4, page 30A.
- Kontakion of the Annunciation in Tone 4, page 32.
Our Offerings to the Lord
The collection taken in the Liturgy is part of our
worship. We offer the Lord our lives,
our prayers, our gifts of bread and wine, and our financial gifts. Last Sunday, about 90 people attended the Liturgy. Our offering totalled $1587 in the ordinary
collection, $25 for liturgies, and $27 for candles.
Teens’ Lenten Lunch Was a Great Success
Thanks to everyone who made our NAMY group’s Lenten Lasagna Lunch last Sunday
such a success. Our teens made a profit
of $408 and will donate ten percent to The Shepherd’s Care Lenten charity.
Memory Eternal: Louis Zarka
The servant of God Louis Zarka slept in the Lord at the age of 94 on 20
March 2014. May God have mercy on his
soul and may his memory be eternal!
Visitation at Palmer, Bush & Jensen Funeral Home tonight, with
Trisagion Prayers at 7 pm. Funeral
tomorrow, Monday 24 March, at St Joseph Church at 11 am, followed by the mercy
meal, then burial at St Joseph Cemetery at 2:30 pm. May God give comfort and strength to his
family.
Great Vespers for the Annunciation Monday at
6 PM
On Monday 24 March at 6 pm we will celebrate Great Vespers for the
feast of the Annunciation (25 March).
The service will include Old Testament readings, the Epistle, the
Gospel, and Artoklasia (blessing of bread, wheat, wine and oil) with anointing.
Presanctified Liturgy, Great Compline on
Weds. & Friday
During Great Lent we should intensify our prayer life. To help us do this, the Church offers special
services on the weekdays of the Great Fast.
You can find announcements of our Lenten services on our Facebook page. This week Presanctified Liturgy will be
celebrated at 6 pm on Wednesday and Great Compline on Friday at 6 pm. Great Vespers will be served on Saturdays at 5
pm. Please attend as many of these
services as you can.
Get Your Easter Cookies Now
The Ladies Society is selling ma’amoul with date
or walnut stuffing for only $10 a dozen.
Contact Lamia Haddad (517-323-0819) to order yours now.
Join in the Parish Clean-Up Day, 29 March
We need everyone’s help on Saturday 29 March, starting at 10 am, for
spring cleaning at the church, inside and out.
Put on your jeans and sweatshirt and gloves and come to scrub, dust,
dig, sweep, polish, chop, etc.
Parish Lenten Mission Set for 1-3 April
Fr Michael Skrocki will come to St Joseph’s to
give our Lenten Retreat at 7 pm on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 1-3
April. On Tuesday, he will speak mainly
to the junior high and high school students.
On Wednesday his talk will follow our 6 pm celebration of Great
Compline.
Upcoming Meetings
Parish Pastoral Council meets Wednesday 26 March at 7 pm in the hall.
The
Gnostic Gospels and Gnosticism
By
Nimer Haddad, Chair of St Joseph Evangelization Committee
Gnosis is a
Greek word that means “knowledge”. The
Gnostic Gospels are a collection of about 52 ancient texts found at Nag Hamadi
in Northern Egypt in 1945. They were
written from the 2nd to the 4th century AD. These Gospels
are not part of the standard biblical canon of any Christian denomination. They are part of what is called the New
Testament apocrypha (the doubtful or
rejected N.T. books). They are
forgeries.
After the first century of Christianity,
two Christian divisions developed the
Orthodox and the Gnostics. The Orthodox
Christians held to books we now have in the Bible. They believed that Jesus was fully man and
fully God and that his human and divine natures were both present and necessary
to provide a suitable sacrifice for humanity’s sin. The Orthodox Christians taught that salvation
is available to everyone, not just a special few, and that it comes from faith
in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9), and not from study or works. The Apostles condemned the Gnostic teachings.
The Gnostic teaching is traced
by historians to Simon Magus, a magician in Samaria. He is said to have written the Gnostic work
entitled “The Great Revelation” in which Simon, not Jesus, is the Messiah. He preached that those who followed him would
not die, and that instead of Jesus being crucified it was Magus. Other historians believe that Gnosticism was
built on Greek philosophy that taught matter was evil and the spirit was good.
The Gnostics held a different
view of the Bible, of Jesus Christ, and of salvation, and emphasized an
individual’s relationship with God. They
believed that self-knowledge was the key to understanding God. The Gnostics rejected the death and
resurrection of Jesus. They claimed secret
knowledge about God and spirituality that separated them from Orthodox
Christians. They did not have any
writings by the apostles to give legitimacy to their beliefs.
The
Gnostics attached the names of famous Christians to their writings, calling
them the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel
of the Lord, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Judas, etc. There are countless contradictions between the
Gnostic Gospels and the true Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Gnostics believed that God of the Old
Testament is evil, not the same as the God of the New Testament, who is the
God of love, as Jesus and the Apostles taught (1 John 4:8).
Modern debate is split between
those who see Gnosticism as a pre-Christian form of “theosophy” (knowledge of
divine things) and those who see it as a post-Christian counter movement.
The Gnostic Gospels were referred to in
the 2003 best-selling novel The Da Vinci
Code, which uses them as part of its backstory.
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