The Witness Parish Newsletter of the Church of the Holy Ascension 209 S. Lehigh Ave. Frackville, PA 17931 V. Rev. James M. Jadick - Rector - 570.874.3162 Mr. John Malinchok - Council President - 570.590.2669 HAOCA.org May / June 2021 Parish News Parish Education Each week you receive a separate insert with your weekly bulletin. THIS is a very important Parish Council Meetings part of our parish education program. I May, meeting will be on the 16th. sincerely hope that you take the time to read it June, meeting will be on the 13th. and learn something new each week. As All meetings are held after Sunday services. always, if you have any questions regarding what you have read, please feel free to contact Holy Days in May & June me! Also when you are done reading this Ascension - Thursday, June 10 material, please feel free to pass it on to others. Pentecost - Sunday, June 20 SS Peter & Paul - June 29 College Bound - This year Madeline Wittig is graduating from high school - where did the Parish Education time go! After a noteworthy past few years, she Each week you receive a separate insert with is ready to further her education at Marywood your weekly bulletin. THIS is a very important University. We offer our heartfelt prayers for her part of our parish education program. I continued success in all that she pursues! sincerely hope that you take the time to read something new each week. As always, if you Thank You - Below are the most recent have any questions regarding what you have donations that have been so lovingly offered for read, please feel free to contact me! the beautification of our church. To all who donated each set of table covers, we offer our Annual Parish Meeting sincere and heartfelt thanks and prayers for Now that the State and CDC guidelines are your generous support! being relaxed, the parish council and I hope to have our annual parish meeting. As you recall, White Table Covers - Loving Memory of it was only postponed back in January. Please Margaret Jadick from her husband, Michael mark your calendar for the 23rd of May. Please Jadick make every effort to attend. Green Table Covers - Loving Memory of Bulletin & Candle Listing Charles Timko and Family from Vera Timko Please contact Cheryl Ruschak for offerings of weekly bulletins, candles and newsletters at Gold Table Covers - For the Health of Corporal 570-617-3559. Matt Knock & Corporal Mark Knock and all law enforcement officers from Donna Lewis. 1 Blue Table Covers - Heartfelt thanks to the MIRACLES Mother of Our Lord, the Most Holy Theotokos, for her continued prayers and intercession to Webster’s definition of a miracle – “An event or her Son, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ - effect in the physical world deviating from from Tom & Barbara Wilson the known laws of nature; or transcending our knowledge of these laws; and Red Table Covers - Loving Memory of Nicholas extraordinary, anomalous, or abnormal and Margaret Tatusko from Midge Paulonis event brought about by a super human agency.” Purple Covers - Loving Memory of parents Theresa & Michael Kasmer; Grandparents Anna What are Miracles? “Acts, which can be done & Anthony Chrin; Alice & Michael Kasmer Sr. by no power or act of man, but only by the from Elaine Kasmer, Michael Kasmer and Almighty power of God; for example, to raise Theresa Butler. the dead.” (ABC’s of Orthodoxy, by Father William G. Gaines, page 272) July “Mini Food Festival” The council has approved a “Food Sale” for the “Miracles may be defined as extraordinary month of July = date to be determined. This is events above the customary order of going to be a smaller scale of our large food physical phenomena and beyond the results sale usually held in the fall. We are planning to of the intervention of God for the purpose of make pierogies, halupki and halushkie! So be enlightening, teaching, or benefiting man.” ready to come and pinch and boil and stir and (A Dictionary of Greek Orthodoxy, by Rev Nicon roll and cook and freeze and fry and sell and D Patrinacos, page 254) enjoy this with your friends! A paraphrased definition of miracles: Something Blessing of Parish Cemetery that happens in our world that breaks the laws The parish cemetery will be blessed on of nature; something that happens that cannot Pentecost, the 20th of June. We will hold the be explained by human understanding; service, as we have in the past, at 12 noon. something that happens that no human being The weather will be just fine! can cause unless the power is given to him or her by God. Coffee Hour - We will hold a brief coffee hour on the Feast of Pentecost. Just something to Who can perform miracles? Only God can hold you over until the cemetery blessing. Any perform a miracle. Jesus Christ performed food items will be wrapped for individual many miracles while He walked on earth. God servings. performs miracles through anyone He chooses, usually saints, who are people who lived a life pleasing to God. Miracles of Christ The Gospels are full of miracles performed by Jesus Christ. Many of these miracles were meant to help people while others were to show Christ’s godly power and to help men to understand that He was truly the Son of God. In the Synoptic Gospels, (The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence 2 and in similar or sometimes identical wording. the Synoptic Gospels but not in the Gospel of They stand in contrast to John, whose content John. is largely distinct.) Jesus refuses to give a miraculous sign to prove his authority. In Blind the Gospel of John, Jesus is said to have The canonical Gospels tell a number of stories performed seven miraculous signs that of Jesus healing blind people. The earliest is a characterize his ministry, from changing water story of the healing of a blind man in into wine at the start of his ministry Bethsaida in the Gospel of Mark. to raising Lazarus from the dead at The Mark Gospel also has an the end. account of the healing of a man named Bartimaeus, done as Jesus is Types of Miracles leaving Jericho. The Gospel of In most cases, Christian authors Matthew has a simpler account associate each miracle with specific loosely based on this, with two teachings that reflect the message of unnamed blind men instead of one Jesus. and a slightly different version of the In The Miracles of Jesus, H. story, taking place in Galilee, earlier Van der Loos describes two main in the narrative. The Gospel of categories of miracles attributed to Luke tells the same story of Jesus Jesus: those that affected people, healing an unnamed blind man, but e.g., the Blind Man of Bethsaida and moves the event in the narrative to are called "healings", and those that "controlled when Jesus approaches Jericho. nature", e.g., Walking on Water. The three types The Gospel of John describes an of healings are cures where an ailment is episode in which Jesus heals a man blind from cured, exorcisms where demons are cast away birth , placed during the Festival of Tabernacles, and the resurrection of the dead. Karl Bath said about six months before his crucifixion. Jesus that, among these miracles, the Transfiguration mixes spittle with dirt to make a mud mixture, of Jesus is unique in that the miracle happens which he then places on the man's eyes. He to Jesus himself. asks the man to wash his eyes in the Pool of According to Craig Blomberg, one Siloam. When the man does this, he is able to characteristic shared among all see. When asked by his disciples miracles of Jesus in the Gospel whether the cause of the blindness accounts is that he delivered benefits was the sins of the man's father or freely and never requested or accepted his mother, Jesus states that it was any form of payment for his healing neither. miracles, unlike some high priests of his time who charged those who were Lepers healed. In Matthew 10:8 he advised his A story in which Jesus cures a disciples to heal the sick without l e p e r a p p e a r s i n M a r k payment and stated: "freely ye 1:40-45, Matthew 8:1-4 and Luke received, freely give." 5:12-16. Having cured the man, he instructs him to offer the requisite Cures ritual sacrifices as prescribed by The largest group of miracles mentioned in the Deuteronomic Code and Priestly Code, and the New Testament involve cures. The Gospels not to tell anyone who had healed him; but the give varying amounts of detail for each episode, man disobeyed, increasing Jesus' fame, and sometimes Jesus cures simply by saying a few thereafter Jesus withdrew to deserted places, words, at other times employs material such as but was followed there. spit and mud. Generally they are referred to in 3 In an episode in the Gospel of mother-in-law Luke, Luke 17:11-19, while on his way of Simon Peter when to Jerusalem, Jesus sends ten lepers who he visited Simon's sought his assistance to the priests, and they house were healed as they go, but the only one who in Capernaum, comes back to thank Jesus is a Samaritan. around the time of J e s u s r e c r u i t i n g Paralytics S i m o n a s a n Healing the paralytic at Capernaum appears Apostle (Mark has it in Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12 and Luke just after the calling 5:17-26.