Clergy: Rt. Rev Arch Mark Melone Protodn. Bryan McNeil Dn. John Fleshman Dn. Ziad Layous Dn. Michael Macoul Saturday Vespers 5:00pm Sunday Liturgy Schedule: Orthros 8:30am Divine Liturgy 9:00am Divine Liturgy 11:00am Weddings Minimum six months' notice Pre-Cana required Baptisms Minimum one month notice. Pre-baptismal Catechesis is required St Joseph Guild 7:00pm, 2nd Monday of each month The Publicans Prayer Group Mtg.: 12:00 Noon 1st Monday of each month St. Joseph Melkite Church 241 Hampshire St., Lawrence, MA 01841 Tel (978)682-8152 www.StJosephMelkiteCatholicChurch.org February 15, 2015 Cheese Fare - Forgiveness Sunday Saint Eusebius the Hermit lived in the fourth century and lived in asceticism on a mountain near the village of Asicha in Syria. He led a very strict life under the open sky, patiently enduring the summer heat and winter cold. He wore skins for clothing, and nourished himself on the pods of peas and beans. Though he was elderly and infirm, he ate only fifteen figs during the Great Forty day Fast. When many people began to flock to St Eusebius, he went to a nearby monastery, built a small enclosure at the monastery walls and lived in it until his death. St Eusebius died at the age of ninety, sometime after the year 400. Sunday February 15 2015 Cheese Fare Sunday 10:00am + Chakib Bourjeilli by his family in America and Lebanon. Sunday February 22 2015 9:00am For our Community & Friends 11:00am +Shiraz Zalaket (1st Anniversary) + Mounir Zalaket (1st Anniversary) requested by the family. LENTEN SERVICES THIS WEEK Monday 7:00pm Vespers Wednesday 7:00pm Presanctified Liturgy Friday 7:00pm Akathist Hymn and Blessing of St. Theodore’s Wheat Due to the snow storm the Cheese Fare brunch has be cancelled. The 25th Anniversary Celebration for Protodeacon Bryan is postponed to a future date Due to the many snowstorms, the last two weeks of collection was not counted. Next week we will publish all three. Thank you for your patience. Let us all pray for all Parishioners and Friends who are sick, or homebound especially: Anthony Scione, Josephine Bourjeili, Samia Hashem, Souad Haj Nasr, Joel Habib Helen Dehni, Yvonne Delpozzo, George Skeirik Joseph Ulbin, Monira Elia, Adele Saba, Lorraine Saba, Josephine Morway, Phillip Battey, Rita Melone, Lidia Motta, Emanuele Moscuzza, Jean Habeeb, Mildred Moniz, Grace Batal Busta, Ida Dimarca, Joseph Clark, Walter Fishwick, Theresa Morrisette, Cole Pasqualicci, Christopher Boshar, Annie Mulrooney, Salim Semaan, Carissa Sarkis, Samira Sarkis, Maria Kovacs, Mary Ellen Beshara Religious Education Dates In 2015 our Sunday School will focus on the way we as Melkites worship and why we worship the way we do. Our activities will include studying our Liturgy and rich traditions through icons and music, as well as developing a Sunday School Choir. Our children will find joy in giving God their time, their attention and their voices. Sunday February 22th - 1st Sunday of Great Lent and Sunday of Orthodoxy. Please join us while all of our children take part in carrying icons during the first procession of Liturgy. Have your children bring their favorite icon or we will gladly have one for them to carry. If you wish to discuss these events, you may contact Bob Kfoury 978-685-9332 or Father Mark at 978-682-8152. Please make every effort to have your child attend, so he or she may participate in these events. Troparion of the Resurrection 3rd Tone O Creator of the Universe, You fashioned Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be Adam from the dust of the earth. You infused glad! For the Lord has done a wondrous him with a breath of life. You gave him dodeed by his arm: He has crushed Death by minion over the earth. By the enticement of his death, becoming the first to rise from the Serpent he rebelled against Your Commandments and fell. You therefore exiled him the dead. He has delivered us from the mouth of Hades and bestowed great mercy from Paradise. But your Only-begotten Son was incarnate, endured Passion and restored us upon the world. Antiphon Prayer to the Garden of Eden which we had lost. We therefore implore You, at the threshold of Holy and Great Lent, to make us worthy of a sincere repentance, so that we may avoid even the shadow of evil and abstain from carnal pleasure in order to gain You, Divine River of Paradise that quenches the thirst of our souls. Thus, having lived according to your commandments, we may share the glory of the Resurrection of Christ, our God and Savior. For You are long-suffering, most compassionate and You call all people to salvation; and to You we render glory, honor and worship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever. ___________________________ The Most Reverend Francis Kalabat, Bishop of St. Thomas Chaldean Diocese, asks all Dioceses in the U.S., both Eastern and Western, to join the Chaldean Church and their Patriarch in Baghdad, to pray to the Mother of God for the difficult and horrific situation of Christians in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria. Many have been forced out of their homes, and many were martyred for their faith. Bishop Francis has composed this prayer. Mother of God, Virgin Mary, be for us a safeguard from all illnesses and hardships. Through the great love you have for Christ, ask and beseech Him to be merciful to us, to give healing to our ailments, to console the downtrodden, to reunite those who are scattered, and to forgive us. Most Holy Theotokos, save us! Troparion of St Joseph, 2nd Tone O Joseph, proclaim to David, the ancestor of Christ our God the great miracles you have witnessed. You have seen the virgin with a Child, given praise with the Shepherd, adored with the wise men, and the Angel of the Lord has appeared to you. Intercede with Christ God that he may save our souls. Kondakion of Cheese Fare 6th Tone O You who guide men towards wisdom, and give them intelligence and understanding, Instructor of the ignorant and helper of the poor, strengthen and enlighten my heart, O Lord, give me word, O Word of the Father, for behold I will not refrain my lips from crying out to You: O Merciful One, have mercy on me who have fallen. Hymn to the Theotokos 3rd Tone It is truly right to call you Blessed O Theotokos. You are ever-blessed and allblameless and the Mother of our God. Higher in honor than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, you gave birth to God the Word in virginity, you are truly Mother of God: you do we exalt Prokimenon: Sing praise to our God, sing praise!, Sing praise to our King, sing praise! Stichon: All you peoples, clap your hands! Shout to God with cries of gladness. Reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans 13:11-14:4 Brethren, now our salvation is nearer than when we came to believe. The night is far advanced: the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us walk becomingly as in daytime, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and as for the flesh, pay no attention to its lusts. But whoever is weak in faith, receive him without arguing about opinion. For one believes he may eat all things but another who is weak, let him eat vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who does not; and let not the one who does not eat judge the one who does, for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls but he will stand, for God is able to make him stand. Alleluia: In you, O lord, I have hoped: let me never be put to shame. In your Justice, save me and deliver me. Stichon: Be for me a protecting God, a sheltering house to save me. Cheese Fare Sunday Forgiveness & Fasting Gospel of Saint Matthew the Evangelist 6: 14-21 The Lord said, “If you forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men there offenses, neither will your Father forgive you your offenses. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, who disfigure their faces in order to appear to men as fasting. Amen I say to you they have had their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not be seen by men to fast, but by your Father, who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where worm and rodent consume, and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither worm nor rodent consumes, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.”