Sixth Sunday After Pentecost - Elijah Great Prophet
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever!
The Holy and Glorious Prophet Elijah
July 20, 2025
Sat 7/19/25 4:00pm Vigil Divine Liturgy +Paul and Helen Macko MichaIca by Rebecca Michalco
Sun 7/20/25 9:30am Divine Liturgy +Fr. Sylvan Capatini by Marian Luther
Wed 7/23/25 7:00pm Liturgy for Healing +Karen Bohin by Andy Bohin and Family
Fri 7/25/25 7:00pm Moleben to Mary
Sat 7/26/25 4:00pm Vigil Divine Liturgy +Bob Yohe by Marian Luther
Sun 7/27/25 9:30am Divine Liturgy +John Kavchak by Drew Moniot
Variable Parts Tone 5 - Pgs 146— 147; Elijah - Pgs - 343 - 344
Epistle Romans 12 :6-14 or James 5:10-20
Gospel Matthew 9:1-8 Or Luke 4:22-30
Memorial Candle Request: No Candle Request
Epistle Readers 19-Jul John Baycura/Mary Motko 20-Jul Liz/John Pocchiari 26-Jul Mary Troyan 27-Jul Amanda Stavish
Please Pray for: Louie Pocchiari, Lejen Warner, Sharon King, Ole J. Bergh, Erik Bergh, Liz Moyta, Fr. Michael Huszti, Fr. Laska, Susie Curcio, Teresa Milkovich, Robert Saper, Anna Habil, Martha Sapar, Mike Dancisin, Karen Smaretsky Vavro, Diane Sotak, Anna Pocchiari, Larry Hamil, Beverly Jones, Marilyn Book, Maryann Russin Schyvers, Nick Russin and Ken Konchan, Malala Allen
Attendance: 7/12 — 16 7/13 — 63 Collection: 7/12 and 7/13 - $1,551.00
Blessing of Cars: Father will bless vehicles immediately following each Divine Liturgy this weekend.
Pierogi Help Needed: We will be making pierogi this Wednesday (July 23rd) beginning at 9:00am. If you are available, we could use the help. Thank you.
Upcoming Event Dates: 1. The Church Picnic will be held on Sunday, August 24th at Connoquenessing Park. 2. The Polka Ball will be held Saturday, September 6 at the Highfield Community Center, which is a new venue for this event.
Cycle of Catechesis. Vices and Virtues. Gluttony - What does the Gospel tell us about this? Let us look at Jesus. His first miracle, at the wedding at Cana, reveals his sympathy towards human joys: he is concerned that the feast should end well and gives the bride and groom a large quantity of very good wine. In all his ministry, Jesus appears as a prophet who is very different from the Baptist. While John is remembered for his asceticism — he ate what he found in the desert — Jesus instead is the Messiah whom we often see at table. His behavior causes scandal in some quarters, because not only is he benevolent towards sinners, but he even eats with them; and this gesture demonstrates his readiness for communion and closeness with everyone.
But there is even more. Although Jesus' attitude towards the Jewish precepts reveals his full submission to the Law, he nonetheless shows himself to be sympathetic towards his disciples. When they are found wanting, because they pluck grain out of hunger on the Sabbath, he condones them, recalling that even King David and his companions had taken the sacred bread when they were in need (cf. Mk 2:23-26). And Jesus affirms a new principle: the wedding guests cannot fast when the bridegroom is with them. They will fast when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. By this point everything is relative to Jesus. When he is in our midst, we cannot be in mourning, but at the hour of his passion, then yes, we fast (cf. Mk 2:18-20). Jesus wants us to be joyful in his company — he is like the bridegroom of the Church, but he also wants us to participate in his suffering, which is also the suffering of the small and the poor.
Another important aspect. Jesus eliminates the distinction between pure and impure foods, which was a distinction made by Jewish law. In reality, Jesus teaches that it is not what enters man that contaminates him, but what comes out of his heart. And by so saying, "he declared all foods clean" (Mk 7:19). This is why Christianity does not consider unclean foods. But the attention we have to have is an interior one: thus one that is not about food per se but about our relationship with it. And with regards to this, Jesus clearly says that what makes something good or bad, let's say about food, is not food in itself but the relationship we have with it. And we see this when a person has a disordered relationship with food; we see how they eat, they eat hastily, as though with the urge to be full but without ever being sated. They do not have a good relationship with food, they are slaves to food. This serene relationship that Jesus established with food should be rediscovered and valued, especially in so-called affluent societies, where many imbalances and many pathologies manifest themselves. One eats too much, or too little. Often one eats in solitude. Eating disorders — anorexia, bulimia, obesity — are spreading. And medicine and psychology are trying to tackle our poor relationship with food. A poor relationship with food produces all these illnesses.
They are illnesses, often extremely painful, that are mostly linked to sufferings of the psyche and the soul. The way we eat is the manifestation of something within: a predisposition to balance or immoderation; the capacity to give thanks or the arrogant presumption of autonomy; the empathy of those who share food with the needy, or the selfishness of those who hoard everything for themselves. This question is so important. Tell me how you eat, and I will tell you what kind of soul you have. In the way we eat, we reveal our inner selves, our habits, our psychological attitudes.
The ancient Fathers gave the vice of gluttony the name "gastrimargia", a term that can be translated as "folly of the belly". Gluttony is a "folly of the belly". There is also this proverb, that we should eat to live, not live to eat. Gluttony is a vice that engages one of our vital needs, such as eating. Let us beware of this.
If we interpret it from a social point of view, gluttony is perhaps the most dangerous vice that is killing the planet. Because the sin of those who succumb before a piece of cake, all things considered, does not cause great damage, but the voracity with which we have been plundering the goods of the planet for some centuries now is compromising the future of all. We have grabbed everything in order to become the masters of all things, whereas everything had been consigned to us for us to protect, not for us to exploit. Here, then, is the great sin, the fury of the belly is a great sin. We have abjured the name of men, to assume another: "consumers". Today we speak like this in social life: consumers. We did not even notice when someone first began to call us by this name. We were made in order to be "Eucharistic" men and women, capable of giving thanks, discreet in the use of the land. And now we are realizing that this form of "gluttony" has done great harm to the world. Let us ask the Lord to help us on the road to sobriety, so that the many forms of gluttony do not take over our life.
The Holy Prophet Ezekiel lived in 6th century BC. He was born in the city of Sarir, and descended from the tribe of Levi; he was a priest and the son of the priest Buzi. Ezekiel was led off to Babylon when he was 25 years old together with King Jechoniah II and many other Jews during 2nd invasion of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The Prophet Ezekiel lived in captivity by the River Chebar. When he was 30 years old, he had a vision of the future of the Hebrew nation and of all mankind. The Prophet Ezekiel announces to the people of Israel, held captive in Babylon, the tribulations it would face for not remaining faithful to God. The prophet also proclaimed a better time for his fellow-countrymen, and he predicted their return from Babylon, and the restoration of the Jerusalem Temple. There are two significant elements in the vision of the prophet:
1. The vision of the temple of the Lord, full of glory (Ez. 44:1-10); 2. and the bones in the valley, to which the Spirit of God gave new life (Ez. 37:1-14). The vision of the temple was a mysterious prefiguring of the race of man freed from the working of the Enemy and the building up of the Church of Christ through the redemptive act of the Son of God, incarnate of the Most Holy Theotokos. Ezekiel's description of the shut gate of the sanctuary, through which the Lord God would enter (Ez. 44:)
2. Is a prophecy of the Virgin giving birth to Christ, yet remaining a virgin. The vision of the dry bones prefigured .the universal resurrection of the dead, and the new eternal life bestowed by the Lord Jesus Christ. The holy Prophet Ezekiel received from the Lord the gift of wonderworking. He, like the Prophet Moses, divided the waters of the river Chebar, and the Hebrews crossed to the opposite shore, escaping the pursuing Chaldeans. During a time of famine the prophet asked God for an increase of food for the hungry. Ezekiel was condemned to execution because he denounced a certain Hebrew prince for idolatry. Bound to wild horses, he was torn to pieces. Pious Hebrews gathered up the torn body of the prophet and buried it upon Maur Field, not far from Baghdad.
