Holy Angels Byzantine

Christ is Baptized! In the Jordan!

The Baptism of our Lord in the Jordan

January 5, 2020

Sunday before Theophany The Holy Martyrs Theopemptus, bishop of Nicomedia and Theonas; Our Venerable Mother Syncletica of Alexandria January 5, 2020 Schedule of services for the week of January 5 - January 12 Sunday, January 5 5:00 PM – Great Vespers Monday,January6 – Holy Theophany of our Lord and God and Savior Christ 9:00 AM – Divine Liturgy with Great Blessing of Water; For all parishioners Saturday, January 11 – Our Venerable Father Theodosius the Coenobiarch, founder of the Common Life 9:00 AM – Divine Liturgy 5:00 PM – Great Vespers Sunday, January 12 – Sunday after Theophany; The Holy Martyr Tatiana, deaconess 8:40 AM – Third Hour 9:00 AM – Divine Liturgy For all parishioners

We welcome all visitors and guests. Please join us in our hall for refreshments and fellowship after the Divine Liturgy! Congratulations to the Chambers family on the occasion of the Chrismation of Gianna, Luke, Eliza and Levi as well as the first communion for Eliza and Levi. May God grant them many blessed years! House Blessings It is the custom among many Eastern Christians to have their homes blessed with the holy water sanctifed on Theophany (the feast which commemorates the Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan River). If you would like your home blessed, please put your name on the sign-up sheet in the Narthex. Calendar The parish was unable to secure sponsorship of the 2020 Calendars. We ordered them anyway and will have to pay for them ourselves. To help defray the cost, a free-will donation will be appreciated.

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BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST: The Mystery of Initiation & Identity of the People of God by What if Church was your Fr. Deacon Daniel Dozier. Wednesdays January 8, 15, & 22 @5:00-6:00 pm PST New Year’s Resolution? Chrismation Adapted from orthodoxwiki.org/Chrismation Chrismation (sometimes called confirmation)isthe prerequisite for chrismation. Sometimes an Eastern holy mystery by which a baptized person is granted Catholic may not have been chrismated for some the gift of the Holy Spirit through anointing with oil. reason (e.g. Military families abroad, etc...) in this As baptism is a personal participation in the death case Chrismation is celebrated apart from Baptism. and Resurrection of Christ, so chrismation is a Chrismation is required before marriage and personal participation in the coming of the Holy Spirit ordination. at Pentecost. Apostolic foundations Theology and practice Although some non-Orthodox Christians level the Unlike in the Western churches (e.g., Roman charge that the sacraments other than baptism and Catholic and Anglican), where confirmation is Eucharist are not Biblically based, but rather human typically reserved to those of “the age of reason,” traditions, this is not so. The sacrament of chrismation in the Orthodox Church (as well as the chrismation can be observed in the New Testament. Eastern Catholic Churches) is normally administered immediately after baptism and The Acts of the Apostles show us that a sort of immediately (or at least shortly) before one’s first confirmation was going on even in the early reception of Holy Communion. Church. As the Christian community expanded both numerically and geographically into many locations Chrismation is practiced by anointing the new both within and outside of the Jewish world, the Christian with chrism, which is holy oil (Gk. myron). Apostles were soon not the only ones preaching the The myron is a “mixture of forty sweet-smelling Gospel and Baptizing people into Christ. substances and pure olive oil” (Gialopsos, 35). The Christian is anointed with this oil in the sign of the St. Paul's work in Ephesus is recounted in Acts Cross on his forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears, 19.1-12. Here we see that some who had been chest, hands and feet. Each time, the priest baptized with the "baptism of John (the Baptist)" administering the sacrament says, “The Seal and were eager to accept Christ. Gift of the Holy Spirit.” When they had heard this, they were baptized in The sacrament of chrismation is an extension of the the name of the Lord Jesus. (Verse 5, NAB) day of Pentecost, on which the Holy Spirit was After this, we see that Paul "laid [his] hands on them" poured out on the Apostles. It is by Chrismation that and the "Holy Spirit came upon them" (verse 6) a person becomes a layperson—a member of the Another instance of confirmation in the early laos, the people of God. Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Church is seen in Acts 8: Diokleia explains: Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Through Chrismation every member of the Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Church becomes a prophet, and receives a share them Peter and John, who went down and prayed in the royal priesthood of Christ; all Christians for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, alike, because they are chrismated, are called to for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had act as conscious witnesses to the Truth. ‘You only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. have an anointing (chrisma)fromtheHolyOne, Then they laid hands on them and they received and know all things’ (I John 2:20) (Ware, 279). the Holy Spirit. (Acts 8.14-18, NAB) Although normally administered in conjunction with Fr. Philip Gialopsos explains the further baptism, in some cases chrismation alone may be development of the Sacrament: used to receive converts from another Christian Later on, as began to grow, it was confession who has previously undergone a rite of impossible for the Apostles to be everywhere to baptism in the Trinitarian Formula (“in the Name of the perform the Sacrament by laying on their hands, Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”), but so they gave the authority to their successors to has not received Chrismation. He or she may be administer the Sacrament by anointing the received into the Church through the sacrament of baptized with Myrrh (Myron Oil). (Gialopsos, 35) chrismation, after which the Holy Eucharist is received. If, however, a convert comes from a Works cited Christian confession that baptizes in the Name of Gialopsos, Philip G. The Seven Sacraments of the "Jesus only" (such as some Pentecostal churches) or Greek Orthodox Church. 1997 from one that does not practice baptism at all (such as Ware, Timothy (Kallistos). The Orthodox Church. Quakers and the Salvation Army), baptism is a New York: Penguin, 1997. January 6 - Te Holy Teophany of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Te Cross stands while the world turns - Fr. John Behr Today Christ descends into the waters of bringing light to all things by his epiphany, so Jordan, and this is the culmination of the that those who sit in darkness can leap for cycle of feast days that we have been joy, now that the great light has appeared to celebrating over the past days, the heart of them. our Winter Pascha. Andf nally, we have sung about how Te one who was born of an Christ has appeared in the Jordan to unwedded virgin is revealed to be the sanctify the waters, so that the earth is Son of God, with the Spirit of God sanctifed, the waters blessed, and the resting upon him and the Father himself heavens enlightened. proclaiming his sonship to all. The waters, the basic element upon which Te one who was concealed in the the earth rests, have become the lair of depth of the earth in a cave begins his dragons and demons. public ministry, openly proclaiming the Te waters, created by God to sustain life, gospel to all. continually threaten to wash away life, and And the one who appeared as a weak tragically still do so. infant is revealed to be the Lord of Te waters, out of which our bodies are creation. mostly composed, are the element in which By descending into the Jordan, Christ we cannot live. has made known the true knowledge of Yet these same waters, by the action of God – as Father, revealed by his Son and Christ, become once again, as we will say in known in the Spirit – the whom the blessing of the waters, a fountain of we worship. incorruption, a gif of sanctifcation, the By descending into the Jordan, Christ destruction of demons. has brought illumination to the world, All this Christ does by descending into so that we may all live in the light of His the Jordan. One of the Trinity bowed his gospel. head, in humility and condescension, and By descending into the Jordan, Christ received baptism from the hands of a man. has transfgured the waters and all Te amazement that this should evoke in us creation, so that we also may be is placed into the mouth of John the Baptist transformed, reborn in the same waters by the hymnography: to live in his Kingdom. How shall the lamp illuminate the light? How Tese three themes – manifestation, shall the servant set his hand upon the master? illumination, and transformation – are the O Savior who takes away the sin of the world, heart of this feast of Teophany: the sanctify both me and the waters!” revelation of God or Epiphany, the As a human being, Christ approaches the appearance of Christ desired by all those Baptist, and, in this act of condescension, is who have faith in him. revealed to be God, recreating creation by We have sung repeatedly, and will the transforming power of his divinity. continue to do so, of how the worship of the Christ does this as a human being so that Trinity was made manifest in this event. it is possible for us to enter into this We have also sung of how Christ has mystery: he doesn’t trample on creation by appeared and enlightened the world, as a humanly-conceived “divine “Light from light, Christ our God has shone omnipotence”; rather, he manifests his upon the world, God made manifest,” divinity through his self-emptying, so that we might follow him on this path of If the world has been recreated, we need humility and be baptized in him. We are to enter into this renewed creation, and we carried by him as he descends into the do so by following Christ, through our own Jordan, so that the grace of the Jordan is baptism, which is always a baptism into his extended to each of us through our baptism death and resurrection, requiring our own in him. death to this world, so that we might live Let us never forget that as Christ with him. descends, vertically, into the Jordan another If we drink the blessed waters, we should axis or movement is inscribed in the feast, always have in our minds the cup of his own as we see so clearly in the icon before us. blood that Christ offers to those who follow Tat is the horizontal movement, from this him, and that we will soon receive. world, symbolized by the Baptist, to the We heard from Paul today that the grace next, the angelic host waiting to atend to of God which brings salvation has indeed Christ as he emerges from the waters. appeared, and that it teaches us to abandon Te vertical descent and the horizontal ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live transition impress on our eyes and minds instead in this present world with soberness the ever present reality of the Cross, with and righteousness, in godly lives, all the Christ as the perfectly still center. time looking for the glorious appearing of If the waters, and the whole creation, our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who have been sanctifed through the baptism of gave himself for us, redeeming us from all Christ, it is not simply as the addition of a iniquity, purifying us to be his own religious veneer to the world as we presently particular people, a people zealous for good experience it, validating the world as it is. works, giving us the washing of Christ’s baptism enables us instead to pass regeneration, and renewing us in the Holy through this world, as Israel passed through Spirit. the Red Sea without being submerged, or as Let us pray that we have the strength to Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha passed through pass baptismally through the waters of this the Jordan without geting wet. world, our own river Jordan, that we may By his own passage through the Jordan, also appear like Christ when he appears (1 Christ sanctifies creation so that the whole John 3:2). world is now for us the river Jordan, as we pass through our lives desiring the appearance of Christ, This is the mark of Christianity – however much a man toils, and however many righteous deeds he performs, to feel that he has done nothing… and so say, “I am only just beginning to struggle for the Lord and to practice His ways.” And even if he is righteous before God, he should say, “I am not righteous, not I; I do not struggle enough, and each day I only make a beginning in the Christian life.” ” – St. Macarius the Great House Blessing: The Purpose The blessing of homes is a custom of special beauty and significance. We ask Christ to enter into our homes and bless our lives. We ask Him to be with us, as we desire to be with Him. We ask that by the sprinkling of blessed water, the Holy Spirit renew us, our families and our lives in our homes. As Christ brought salvation to the house of Zacchaeus; we ask for the same for all dwelling in our homes. House Blessing: The Order The house being cleaned and ready, we dress in an honorable manner (as we would for church). On a small table before icons, a small bowl full of newly blessed water is placed. Together with a list of names of those who reside in the home, a lighted candle and censor (if you have one) are also placed on the table. These items are arranged prior to the arrival of the priest. When the priest arrives, we greet him at the door, having turned off any radio, TV, or other noise based element. Animals that may cause disruption should be placed out of the way. At the beginning of the service for the blessing of the home, a family member leads the priest throughout the home, carrying the lighted candle. The rest of the household follows and then returns to the table for the final prayer and blessing with water upon those present

The Synaxis Of The Baptist Commemorated January 7th St. John’s greatest role during his life was enacted on the day of Theophany, and because of this the Church has, from the earliest times, dedicated the day following that feast to his memory. This day is also connected with an event involving the hand of the Forerunner. The Evangelist Luke desired to take John’s body from Sebaste, where the great prophet had been beheaded by Herod, to Antioch, his own birthplace. He succeeded, though, in acquiring and taking only one hand, which was kept in Antioch till the tenth century. It was then moved to Constantinople, whence it disappeared during the Turkish occupation. St. John is commemorated several times during the year, but his greatest observance is on this day, January 7th. Among the Gospel figures surrounding the Savior, the person of John the Baptist holds a very special place, by the manner of his birth in this world and his earthly life, by his role of baptizer of men to repentance and his baptism of the Messiah, and, lastly, by the tragic manner of his departure from this world. He was of such moral purity that he indeed deserved the name “angel”, as he was named in the Scriptures, rather than being thought of as just a mortal man. St. John differs from all other prophets in that he had the joy of showing forth to the world the One Whom he had foretold. From the Prologue of Ochrid by St. Nicholas of Zicha “For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails them, of which they are afraid deep down in their souls, from which they shy away. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ. No powerful person dares to approach the manger, and this even includes King Herod. For this is where thrones shake, the mighty fall, the prominent perish, because God is with the lowly. Here the rich come to nothing, because God is with the poor and hungry, but the rich and satisfied he sends away empty. Before Mary, the maid before the manger of Christ, before God in lowliness, the powerful come to naught; they have not right, no hope; they are judged.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer Prayer for the Unknown Lord, You steadied the hand of Peter as he began to sink on the stormy sea. If you are with me, no one can overcome me. Grant the shield of faith and the mighty armor of the Holy Spirit to protect me. Guide me to do Your will. I will follow You as I place my future into Your hands, O Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. “The Christmas message is not that peace will come automatically, because Christ is born in Bethlehem; that birth in Bethlehem was the prelude to His birth in our hearts by grace and faith and love. Peace belongs only to those who will to have it. If there is no peace in the world today, it is not because Christ did not come; it is because we did not let Him in.” – Venerable Fulton Sheen Simple Truths Spend time with your parents, “There are several ways to avoid loving treat them well. Because one God: Deny that you are a sinner. Pretend day, when you look up from that religion is for the ignorant and the your phone they won’t be superstitious, but not for the learned such there anymore. as yourself. Insist that the sole purpose of religion is social service. Judge religion The privileged place for reading and listening to the Word of God by whether or not it is accepted by the is the liturgy, in which, important people of the world. Avoid all celebrating the Word and making contemplation, self-examination, and Christ’s Body present in the Sacrament we actualize the Word inquiry into the moral state of your soul.” in our lives and make it present – Venerable Fulton J. Sheen among us. (God Love You) – Pope Benedict XVI

A PRAYER BEFORE A JOURNEY O Lord Jesus Christ our God, the true and living way, be Thou, O Master, my companion, guide and guardian during my journey; deliver and protect me from all danger, misfortune and temptation; that being so defended by Thy divine power, I may have a peaceful and successful journey and arrive safely at my destination. For in Thee I put my trust and hope, and to Thee, together with Thine Eternal Father, and the All-holy Spirit, I ascribe all praise, honor and glory: now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church 2235 Galahad Road San Diego, CA 92123-3931 Fr. James Bankston, Administrator Fr. Deacon Jonathan A. Deane Rectory/Office: 858-277-2511 Social Hall/Ethnic Foods: 858-268-3458 Email: [email protected] Website: www.HolyAngelsSanDiego.com Facebook: Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church

Bless, O Lord, the worship and Stewardship of your faithful servants: Last Sunday: attendance: 72; Adult Tithes: $1285.00; Christmas: $3480.00; Theophany: $10.00; Church Usage: $150.00; Improvement Fund: $50.00; Loose Change: $275.24;Total:$5250.24

Vocation Icon: This week (January 5): The Chase Family Next week (January 12): Michael P. Havens Please sign up in the narthex to host the vocation icon. All those requesting Holy Mysteries must be parishioners for at least six months.

Mysteries of Initiation: Requires Pre-Baptismal instruction. The Mysteries of Initiation are celebrated on Saturdays or Sundays within the Divine Liturgy. At least one sponsor must be a Catholic and the other a practicing Christian. Both sponsors must present documentation that they are in good standing with their church.

Mystery of Crowning: Requires Pre-Marriage instruction. Consult Fr. James at least six months prior to making wedding plans. Marriages cannot be celebrated during the fasting seasons of the Church.

Funerals: Contact Fr. James.

Liturgy, Panachyda and Eternal Lamp Intentions: Schedule with Fr. James. It is “holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead” (2 Maccabees 12:46) especially on the 9th and 40th days, and on the anniversary of their falling asleep in the Lord.

Holy Mystery of Confession: Saturdays from 6PM (following Vespers). Also available before or after all services or by appointment. Confessions end 15 minutes prior to services.

Sick calls / Holy Anointing / Hospital Visits: Requested by parishioner, friend, or family.

Please submit all Bulletin announcements to Fr. James for approval by Wednesday of each week.

Last Sunday’s bulletin is available in the Narthex or on our website.

Office Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday from 10:AM - 5PM. Please call ahead to make sure Fr. James is on-site. Call anytime in case of an emergency.