December 17, 2011
Howell, NJ: Bishop
George celebrated the Divine Liturgy in St. George’s Church
On
Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th of December, His Grace,
Eastern American Diocese Vicar Bishop George of Mayfield, visited
Howell, NJ. On Saturday night, Bishop George prayed at the All-Night
Vigil in
St. George’s Church, and celebrated the Divine Liturgy the
following morning. His Grace was co-served by Protopresbyter Valery
Lukianov (Dean of New Jersey), Archpriest Joseph Lickwar (Rector of
Sts. Peter & Paul Church in Jersey City, NJ), rector Archpriest
Serge Lukianov, Archpriest E. George Tosi (Secretary of the Orthodox
Church in America), and parish Deacon Leonid Roschko.
Before the start of Liturgy, Bishop George
ordained parishioners Readers Michael Wengrin and Nektary Lukianov
subdeacons. In his sermon upon completion of the Liturgy, His Grace
spoke on the Gospel, calling on all to remember the story of the
afflicted woman whom Christ healed:
In the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
Today
we heard in the Gospel reading, we heard about the
woman was bent over for 18 years, and Christ came to the synagogue
on that day and saw her affliction and healed her. He came up to
her, touched her, and healed her. And the leader of the synagogue
was angry because of this. Not necessarily because our Lord broke
the Sabbath, although the high priest used this excuse, but he was
angry, upset, and envious of our Savior, and he used this as an
excuse to oppose him, to slander Him, and to accuse Him of breaking
the Law of Moses. But our Savior gave an example of a person helping
his livestock, letting them out of their confinement in order to eat
on the Sabbath day, and He openly declared that this leader of the
synagogue was a hypocrite, chastising him for his hypocrisy for
doing and saying these things.
Some of the Fathers say that this woman was being punished for her
sins; others say that perhaps she was just stricken like this in
order to show the glory of God. I think that both cases show the
glory of God, but since our Savior said that she was bound by Satan,
I think that we can assume that she was somehow stricken because of
her sins. It often happens with people that it is not a case of them
being abandoned by God, but that they have abandoned God. They have
moved away from Him, and they have pushed God out of their lives,
and they have openly and happily welcomed Satan into their lives,
sometimes without realizing it! They move away from the Church, move
away from God, and start enjoying, so they say, the pleasures of
this life. But we all know where the pleasures of this life lead!
Sometimes, they seem to be real pleasures at first: we have freedom,
we have enjoyment of many things which were forbidden us by the
Church; but little by little, we begin to realize that we have come
into bondage. Instead of having this great freedom that we thought
we had, we become slaves to sin: slaves to the devil. And this woman
became bound to Satan for 18 years. When our Lord came to the
synagogue, He touched and healed her, and she was able to straighten
up again, and glorified God.
How many of us has this happened to, where we moved away from God
for some period of time in our life, and became enslaved to the
passions, enslaved to sin? Then, like the Prodigal Son, who was in a
faraway land and suddenly came to himself and realized what he had
done, what he had lost, and what he had in return, suddenly woke up
and decided to return to his father, many of us likewise wake up one
day and decide to return: sometimes it takes a long time for this to
happen. Because of the situation we were in, perhaps we have to
overcome many obstacles in order to throw off the shackles with
which Satan has bound us, and slowly but steadily we move back to
the Church, back to our Savior. Sometimes it happens perhaps
momentarily, a day or week or month, we do something and we sense
that we have suddenly lost the Holy Spirit, we’ve lost faith.
Perhaps from becoming angry with someone, we become so angry that we
are thrown into confusion and realize that we’re in a faraway land
now and we have to repent and return. And sometimes it happens
within a day, and sometimes within a week, in order to reacquire the
Grace we have lost to our falling into this sin. Sometimes it
happens that people will fall into more serious sins, and it will
take them months or years to come to themselves. But, glory be to
God, we have the Church, we have the services, we have the Grace of
God always calling us back with open arms. We do not have the stern
and angry Father punishing us, we have the open arms of the Father
who welcomes us with an embrace, and brings us back into the Church.
Just as this woman was touched and healed, so we have the Holy
Mysteries, which are for our healing of soul and body. We have
confession, where we can come and be relieved of our sins: where we
can come confess and be forgiven; then we can receive the Divine
Grace and be temples of the Holy Spirit once again and receive the
Holy Mysteries. Let us not ignore this, let us not take all this for
granted – sometimes we come to church for years at a time, singing
the same services over and over again, and little by little they
don’t mean anything to us – we become cold, we don’t delve into the
meaning of the prayers anymore.
Let us not let this happen to us. Let us try to force ourselves to
penetrate the prayers each time we hear them. Let us ask God to open
our hearts and minds, so that we can understand the prayers we read.
Let us truly ask God’s forgiveness for the sins we have committed.
Let us pray to love our neighbors and forgive them; and let us try
especially today to really thank God (especially those of us who
received Holy Communion) with a sincere heart. Let us listen to the
prayers of thanksgiving after Communion, and really appreciate what
God has done for us, how He has come to heal us of our sins, heal us
of soul and body. Amen.
His Grace then instructed the new
subdeacons to faithfully and meekly fulfill their duties before the
Church, and congratulated the rector on the worthy additions to the
parish clergy.
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