St Ephrem Harp of the Spirit Mission: Bulletin for August 1

Dear Friends,

Please see at bottom our welcome post if you are visiting us the first time.

Regular 11am Holy Qurbana resumes next Sunday, August 1, in the chapel of St. John's Church in Olympia.

As the Sundays of Pentecost carry us forward, we soon encounter the liturgical year's culminating Great Festivals:
(1) the Transfiguration, (2) the Dormition (Assumption of the Theotokos), and ultimately, (3) the Holy Cross.

Our Gospel this "9th Sunday After Pentecost" proclaims our liturgical participation in the ongoing event of the original Pentecost miracle.

The Spirit elevates our gifts and our lives in the very Mysteries of Christ Himself. We are called to rise again in His Beauty, "Stomen Kalos!" We are blessed in the Pentecost fires of God's very own life and love and light.

This blessing and elevation in the faithful's "Stomen Kalos!" is the Christian meaning of time and history.

August 1 begins the preparation fast (lent) for the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God. Through the "exodus" of death, the Theotokos enters the Passover of Christ.

In the Mystery of His Resurrection, body and soul, the Theotokos is assumed into Heaven body and soul. Thus she is the first witness to the Apostle's Creed: she experiences first and firsthand what we profess by our Christian faith in the ultimate resurrection of the body when Christ comes again as the Lord of Glory at the Parousia.

And in the middle of our preparation we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration on August 6. On the way to His Passion in Jerusalem, the Lord revealed His Glory to Peter, James, and John so that the Church would see and know His Victory in the midst of taking up our cross to follow Him.

Hebrew Tradition has Sunday as the original first day of the week: the first day of the Creation, the first day of the Covenant, the first day of the Chosen People, the first day of History.

Consequently, Christian Tradition also places Sunday as the First Day of the week. And so it is the first day of "History, Anno Domini." We add that it is also the New Day of the Lord, the New Day of Resurrection in Christ: and so it is named "the 8th Day," signaling its super-abundant fulfillment of all History, the start of "the New Aeon."

In the same way, the "Church Year" follows a calendar where the end of the year is both a fulfillment and a super-abundant new beginning. Whereas the secular calendar simply finishes on Dec. 31, and then begins brand new on Jan. 1, the Church Year ends and begins anew in the same event (like the 8th Day and the 1st Day of the week) in the Festival of the Holy Cross. In this culminating feast of the passing Church Year we encounter a new "September beginning" for our Christian journey into the next "Year of Graces."

All these extraordinary festival graces are poured into our hearts and lives in every Holy Eucharist, in every Sunday of the Resurrection, in every handing over our very selves to Christ "in whom we live and move and have our being."

And that ordinary handing over and extraordinary "passing over," known by faith and lived in hope, is the reality of the Victory of the Holy Cross.

May the outpouring of His Peace be yours "on earth as it is Heaven!"
Fr. Michael +


Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Aug 1):Before Holy Qurbana Ps 22:1-21, Dt4:1-6, Prv13:1-7, Is24:1-5
Holy Qurbana Acts 28:11-22, ICor 6: 1-11, Lk 14:7-11.


Our Venerable Father Ephrem the Syrian, the Harp of the Spirit
Sermon on the Transfiguration:

6. He led them up the mountain and showed them His Kingship before His Passion, and His Power before His death, and His Glory before His disgrace, and His Honor before His dishonor, so that, when He was arrested and crucified by the Jews, they might know that He was not crucified through weakness, but willingly by His Good Pleasure for the salvation of the world.
7. He led them up the mountain and showed the Glory of His Divinity before the Resurrection, so that when He rose from the dead in the Glory of His Divine Nature, they might know that it was not because of His harsh toil that He accepted glory, as if He lacked it, but it was His before the ages with the Father and together with the Father, as He said as He was coming to His voluntary Passion, ‘Father, glorify Me with the Glory which I had with You before the world existed’.

The Festival of Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor (Aug 6): Before Holy Qurbana Dt 16:13-17, Ex19:14-20:6, Jos 3:1-17, Zec 14:16-19,
Is 60:12-15 & 61:1-3, Ps 24
Holy Qurbana 1Jn 2:23-3:1, 2Pt 1:12-21, Rm 11:25-36, Lk 9:27-36.


First Sunday after the Festival of Transfiguration (Aug 8):
Before Holy Qurbana Dt 25:13-16,Ps 27, 1Sm 2:31-36, Ez 7:1-4,
Holy Qurbana Jm 4:7-5:6, Php 4:8-20, Mt 21:28-32.


St. Ephrem the Syrian, The Harp of the Holy Spirit on the Theotokos:

Awake, my harp, your songs in praise of the Virgin Mary! Lift up your voice and sing the wonderful history of the Virgin, the daughter of David, who gave birth to the Life of the World. (Songs of Praise [A.D. 351]).

The icon of The Dormition captures the scene when her soul departed painlessly from her body. Peter is by her head, and Paul is by her feet. The other apostles surround her, and Jesus with his angels is seen receiving her soul, which is pictured as a newborn baby in swaddling clothes -- i.e., the robes of those newly baptized into the death of Christ.

The Festival of the Ascension of St. Mary the Theotokos (Aug 15): Before Holy Qurbana Ex 3:1-6 & 19:16-23,Jos 4: 4-10, Ez 44:1-3, Is 45:11-19
Holy Qurbana Acts 1:12-14 & 7:44-53, Hb 9:3-12 & 2:14-18, Lk 11:22-28 & Mt 12:46-50 & Jn 19:25-27.