UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC C HURCH

Blessed Vasyl Velychkovsky, CSsR -

Served by the Ukrainian Catholic Redemptorists

ST. JOSEPH’S PARISH OFFICE & MONASTERY 250 Jefferson Avenue Winnipeg, Manitoba R2V 0M6 DECEMBER 9, 2018

HOURS 9:30 am – 12:00 pm 1:00 pm – 4:30 pm

PHONE Office: 204-339-4512 Hall: 204-339-0061

EMAIL & WEBSITE [email protected] www.stjosephukrwinnipeg.ca

PASTOR Fr. Dmytro Dnistrian, CSsR

ASSISTANTS Fr. John Sianchuk, CSsR Fr. Frank Szadiak, CSsR

OFFICE MANAGER Anastasia Tertigka

BLESSED VASYL VELYCHKOVSKY, CSsR SHRINE

Shrine │ Museum │ Gift Shop Open Sunday after Divine Liturgies Closed Monday Tues– Fri 10:00 am–5:00 pm Saturday 10:00 am–1:00 pm

PHONE Sunday Divine Liturgy Schedule Saturday 5:00 PM │ Sunday 8:30 AM (UKR) & 11:00 AM (ENG) 204-338-7321 Daily Divine Liturgy EMAIL & WEBSITE [email protected] Please see Divine Liturgy Intention Schedule www.bvmartyrshrine.com Vespers Saturday 4:15 PM Blessed Vasyl Devotions Wednesday 7:00 PM

Слава Ісусу Христу! Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Don’t forget to connect the dots

Dear Parishioners,

All of us, at one time have played the game “Connect the Dots”. It is a puzzle game that involves drawing lines between numbered dots. Once properly completed, the outline of a picture can be seen.

This past Friday, I encountered a “connect the dots” moment. The Gospel at Divine Liturgy was from Luke. At first glance, it seem a strange choice. It dealt with the upcoming betrayal of Jesus by Judas. Some would say that this reading fits better during Holy Week and not at this time leading up to Christmas. On the contrary, it fits very well, if the dots are properly connected. The reading was a good reminder that in order to have a proper understanding of Christmas, it must always be connected with the events of Holy Week and Easter.

As we get closer to the feast of the Nativity of Our Saviour, pray for the grace to always be able to “connect the dots”. By doing so, a new picture, a new image, a new experience of the Lord’s great love for us will be seen.

As many of you know, during this past year, there were many needed repairs done to our church building. To say it plainly, it was an expensive year. In addition, to our parish financial expenses, there is this year’s donation of $7000 towards a room that our parish is sponsoring at Holy Family Home. Also, recently our parish’s annual assessment for support of the seminary was received. The amount is $11,808. As you plan your offerings before the end of this calendar year, please remember the above mentioned financial needs of our parish.

I want to let everyone know that the data obtained from the special parish meeting held on October 21st and a November 4th meeting which involved catechism teachers and parents have has been compiled. The data will be available soon.

Last Monday, a crew of 23 parishioners gathered to clean and shine our church for Christmas. A sincere thank you to one and all. This week, there is also a great need for volunteers to come our on Tuesday and Wednesday to participate in our next perogy bee. If you can come, please do. A sincere thank you is extended to St. Joseph’s Seniors for their most recent donation of $10,000 from the perogy project. Thank you to all for your dedication and support of our parish.

Peace and Prayers, Fr. Dmytro Христос посеред нас! Christ is among us!

The Redemptorists and parishioners of St. Joseph’s extend a warm welcome to all our guests. Thank you for worshipping with us today.

Upcoming Events at St. Joseph’s

Saturday December 8 5:00 pm K of C Light Up For Christmas Sunday December 9 10:00 am Catechism Monday December 10 7:00 pm K of C Meeting Tuesday December 11 9:00 am Perogy Preparation 7:00 pm Unlocking the Mysteries of the Bible Wednesday December 12 9:00 am Perogy Bee 7:00 pm Blessed Vasyl Devotions Sunday December 16 11:00 am Children’s Liturgy & St. Nicholas Celebration Monday December 17 7:00 pm Parish Council Meeting

Need a Ride to Church For Saturday Evening or Sunday Divine Liturgy please call Rudy Macsymach, 204.694.8763. There is always a need for more drivers. If interested and for more information, please phone the number above.

Tax Receipts for 2018 As the year 2018 quickly comes to a close, please keep in mind that to be eligible for a tax receipt for 2018, all offerings must be given and deposited into our church account before the end of December.

The Welcome Home Wednesday mornings are very busy at The Welcome Home. Food Hampers and Sandwiches are given to the many people who come to our doors on this day. These gestures of kindness also build friendships. There is a great need to strengthen Wednesday mornings. Please help by way of donations of Blankets, Socks and Gift Cards $5 or $10 (McDonald’s, Tim Hortons, KFC, Subway, etc). Financial donations may be dropped in the collection in envelopes clearly marked THE WELCOME HOME, with your name and address for tax recipients. Other Donations may be dropped off at the vestibule of St. Joseph’s or you may bring them to The Welcome Home. Thank you for your generosity. The Welcome Home, 188 Euclid Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R2W 2X4, Phone: (204) 946-5352 , Email: [email protected] Website: thewelcomehome.ca St Nicholas Celebration Following 11:00 am Divine Liturgy Sunday December 16

2019 Offering Envelopes and Calendars.

Offering envelopes for the year of 2019 are now available at the back of the church. Please pick up your box today! Also available are liturgical calendars for 2019. On the front of each month is the saint of the day and/or feast day is highlighted. On the back are the Epistle and Gospel readings of the day. Gratitude is extended to Korban Funeral Chapel for their financial assistance in the printing of the calendars.

“Mary’s Angels” Panahyda (Панахида) for those remembered through “Mary’s Angels” will be celebrated after the 5:00 pm Divine Liturgy on Saturday Dec. 22nd. Need wheat for Kutia? Consider purchasing organic wheat and at the same time support the ministries of the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate. The Red Fife wheat is local and comes from Zeevalley Organic Farm. Price: $6 /400 grams feeding approximately 6. A portion of each sale supports the local Sisters ministers through Lubov SSMI Foundation Inc. To purchase call 204-942-0443 or visit 1085 Main Street – Winnipeg or email your request to [email protected]

December 8 & 9 December 15 & 16 Born to Serve! A young adult advent retreat hosted by the Ukrainian Catholic Redemptorist's will be held Sunday December 16 at Epistle Readers Epistle Readers 1:00pm—Supper at Holy Family Home in collaboration with the Saturday 5:00 pm Saturday 5:00 pm Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate. All young adults 17-35 are D. Sumka S. Sumka Sunday 8:30 am Sunday 8:30 am invited to participate. RSVP to Liz Artymko 431-999-8969 or Parish Choir H. Stockburn [email protected] (by Dec 12th). Potluck Supper - please bring Sunday 11:00 am Sunday 11:00 am something to share with everyone. P. Krasnowski Children’s Liturgy

Ushers Ushers Unlocking the Mystery of the Bible is a DVD based study that Saturday 5:00 pm Saturday 5:00 pm D.Sumka M. Gwozd helps you uncover the story woven throughout Scripture, so that you S.Sumka P.Gwozd can get the “big picture” of the Bible and understand what it’s all Sunday 8:30 am Sunday 8:30 am about. Time: 7:00 PM December 11. Future Dates To be announced S. Prokop Z.Hudyma Place: St. Joseph’s Parish Hall. H. Stockburn L. Hudyma Sunday 11:00 am Sunday 11:00 am Sunday Collection - December 2, 2018 G. Fallis P. Samorodny H. Stockburn B. Wowczuk 155 Envelopes $3,785 Open Collection $15 Vigil Lamps Vigil Lamps Vigil Lamps $105.10 Outreach $690 Nov 26 - Dec 9 Dec 10 - Dec 23 Christmas Offerings $40 M. Gwozd F. Blanchard Flowers $1,072 O. Szutiak E. Kuzenko Redemptorists Solidarity Fund $786 Conception of St. Anne Immaculate Conception - December 9

In the fullness of time God sent His Son, born of a virgin in a miraculous way. But long before the birth of Jesus, God prepared the way by making the Mother of God’s birth miraculous as well. Anne, Mary’s mother, was barren and advanced in years. The Feast of the Conception of Anne is the day in the Church calendar when we remember how God intervened in the course of human relationships to create the perfect vessel to contain the Word of God — the New Ark of the Covenant, if you will.

God had sanctified Mary at the moment of her conception in His foreknowledge that the Blessed Virgin would consent to bear Christ. In other words, she too had been redeemed—her redemption had simply been accomplished at the moment of her conception, rather than (as with all other Christians) in baptism. According to Tradition, the names of Mary’s parents were Joachim and Anne. They were a devout, childless couple. Both these facts did not escape the attention of those around them, since infertility at that time was regarded as divine judgment. Most especially, they did not escape the attention of the Almighty.

When St. Anne conceived an infant, Joachim and Anne’s joy was so great that they immediately dedicated the child to the service of God in the Temple. The child they had prayed and longed for all those years, with great spiritual courage they returned to God.

St. Anne had a remarkable job to do. It was her task to raise the woman who would become the Theotokos, the God-bearer. And hers was the task of relinquishing, little by little, all mothers hold most dear. At the age of three, Mary was brought to live in the Temple. A few years later, she returned home to prepare for her adult life … and was soon found to be pregnant. No doubt this caused many a sleepless night for Mary’s parents, just as it did for Mary’s betrothed. And yet, ultimately they held on to the fact that they had offered Mary to God when she was young; whatever happened, she belonged to Him just as she belonged to them.

Mary is of the created earth, but she is the perfect vessel of creation. We link her to the temple, God’s dwelling place, since she carried God in her womb. The Church sees creation gone wrong in Adam and Eve while Jesus becomes the new Adam and Mary the new Eve to show us the way to God’s salvation. The Virgin Mary was always filled with every blessing and gift of the Holy Spirit in whose grace she certainly grew throughout her life. Though born without original sin, according to the view of the Eastern Fathers, she was not made exempt from the temporal penalties of Adam — from sorrow, bodily infirmities, and death.

And so, on this day when we remember Mary’s beginnings, we offer a prayer for our own children as well. No matter how our children came to us — through birth or adoption, or through simple association — they are not ours to possess. We are to take care of them and guide them as best we can for as long as they are with us. Ultimately they belong to God. St. Anne, patroness of small miracles, pray for us. Pope Francis: To pray, begin with humility Catholic News Service

ROME - Learning to pray well is a continual process, but should always start from a place of humility, as Jesus demonstrated in the Gospels, Pope Francis said Wednesday. “Even if we have been praying for so many years, we must always learn!” the pope said Dec. 5. “The prayer of man, this yearning that is born so naturally from his soul, is perhaps one of the most impenetrable mysteries of the universe.”

And the first step, he continued, is humility. “Go to the Father … go to the Madonna, say: Look at me, I am a sinner, I am a debtor, I am disobedient… But begin with humility!” This is in contrast to the prayer of the Pharisee, as told by Jesus in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the Gospel of Luke, Francis said. The Pharisee prayed from a place of pride, thanking God that he was “not like the rest of humanity.”

On the other hand, the tax collector, “would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’” According to Jesus, “only the latter, the tax collector, returns home from the temple justified,” the pope noted.In his catechesis for the weekly general audience, Pope Francis spoke about prayer - and the fact that Jesus himself was a man of prayer - as the first part in a new series on the ‘Our Father.’

He noted that despite the urgency of Jesus’ earthly mission and the demands on him by the many people around him, Jesus would still take the time to pray. Like it says in the first chapter of Mark: “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.”

This scene, the pope explained, takes place when Jesus was in Capernaum, after he had been preaching and healing the sick. “Here is the essential point,” he said, “Jesus prayed. Jesus prayed intensely in public moments, sharing the liturgy of his people, but he also sought collected places, separate from the spin of the world, places that allowed him to descend into the secret of his soul. “But though many people pray, the way Jesus prayed “also contained a mystery,” he continued, “something that certainly did not escape the eyes of his disciples, as we find in the gospels that simple and immediate supplication: ‘Lord, teach us to pray,’” he said. Jesus, of course, teaches his disciples, and all his children, to pray. “He came precisely to introduce us into this relationship [with] the Father,” Francis said, urging everyone to ask the Lord to teach them to pray.

“Therefore, beginning this cycle of catechesis on the prayer of Jesus, the most beautiful and fair thing that we all have to do is to repeat the invocation of the disciples, ” he said: “‘Teacher, teach us to pray!’ It would be nice at this time, to repeat it: Lord, teach me to pray!” St. Joseph’s Ukrainian

Divine Liturgy Schedule

Monday December 24, 2018 Sunday December 30, 2018 Sunday after Christmas Nativity of Our Lord - Christmas Eve

Divine Liturgy (Eng) 5:00 pm Divine Liturgy (Sat Eve) 5:00 pm Divine Liturgy (Ukr) 8:30 am Great Compline (Ukr) 10:00 pm Divine Liturgy (Eng) 11:00 am Divine Liturgy (Ukr) 10:30 pm

Tuesday December 25, 2018 Tuesday January 1, 2019 Nativity of Our Lord - Christmas Day Circumcision of Our Lord - St Basil Divine Liturgy (Eng) 10:00 am Divine Liturgy 11:00 am

Wednesday December 26, 2018 Sunday January 6, 2019 Sobor of the Mother of God Baptism of Our Lord

Divine Liturgy 8:30 am Theophany (Epiphany) Divine Liturgy 7:00 pm Divine Liturgy (Sat Eve) 5:00 pm

Solemn Blessing of Water Thursday December 27, 2018 St Stephen Divine Liturgy (Ukr) 8:30 am

Divine Liturgy 8:30 am Divine Liturgy (Eng) 11:00 am Divine Liturgy 7:00 pm Solemn Blessing of Water

Nativity of Our Lord

New Year’s – Baptism of Our Lord Divine Liturgy Intentions December 9 - 16 Sun. Dec. 9 29 Sun Pentecost Immaculate Conception Col. 3:4-11 Luke 17:12-19 5:00 pm (Sat) St. Joseph’s Church God’s Blessings & Health Kyle Ted & Elizabeth Klym 8:30 am St. Joseph’s Church +Stefania Tarasiuk Lukie-Tarasiuk Family 10:00 am Holy Family Home Special Intention NN 11:00 am St. Joseph’s Church For Our Parishioners Mon. Dec. 10 Martyr Mennas Hebrews 8:7-13 Mark 8:11-21 8:00 am St. Joseph’s Church Special Intention NN 11:00 am Bethany Home +Alexander Blake NN Tues. Dec. 11 Ven. Daniel Heb 9:8-10,15-23 Mark 8:22-26 8:00 am St. Joseph’s Church +Brian Huff Martha Baluta 11:00 am Bethany Home +Peter Jodi Wed. Dec. 12 Ven. Spiridon Hebrews 10:1-18 Mark 8:30-34 8:00 am St. Joseph’s Church Health & God’s Blessings Marlene Lukie Joanne & Henry 10:00 am Holy Family Home +Walter Lukie Helen Hruska & Family Thur. Dec. 13 Martyr Eustratius Eph.6:10-17 Luke 21:12-28 8:00 am St. Joseph’s Church Health & God's Blessings Members St. Joseph’s UCWLC 11:00 am Bethany Home God’s Blessings Sr. Oresta Svorak SSMI Fri. Dec. 14 Martyr Thyrcas & Others Heb. 11:8,11-16 Mark 9:33-41 8:00 am St. Joseph’s Church Special Intention Norm & Sandy Dobson 11:00 am Bethany Home + Fr. Jean Pierre Denise Sat. Dec. 15 Priest Martyr Eleutherius Ephesians 5:1-8 Luke 14:1-11 8:30 am St. Joseph’s Church Health Frank Ted & Elizabeth Klym Sun. Dec. 16 Sunday of the Holy Fore-Fathers Col. 3:4-11 Luke 14:16-24 5:00 pm (Sat) St. Joseph’s Church +Bishop Michael Hrynchyshyn (6 yrs) Dolores Daniels 8:30 am St. Joseph’s Church +Nykola Melnyk Roxolana Kurjewicz 10:00 am Holy Family Home Special Intention NN 11:00 am St. Joseph’s Church For Our Parishioners Gift Wrapping Bee We need your help! TODAY Sunday, December 9 at 3 PM. St Andrew’s church basement. 168 Euclid Ave. Please use Maple Street entrance. Gifts will be distributed at The Welcome Home children’s Christmas party. Please bring wrapping paper, tape, scissors, etc. Supper is provided. Contact Liz at [email protected] or call/text 431-999-8969. Bethlehem Peace Light

Sunday December 16

St. Vladimir and Olga Cathedral - 9:00 am

The Bethlehem Peace Light will arrive at St. Joseph’s for the 11:00 am Divine Liturgy.