Today the Church remembers St. Matthias, Apostle and Martyr.
Ora pro nobis.
St. Matthias (died c. 80 AD) was, according to the Acts of the Apostles, the apostle chosen by lot to replace Judas Iscariot following Judas' betrayal of Jesus and his subsequent death. His calling as an apostle is unique, in that his appointment was not made personally by Jesus, who had already ascended into heaven, and it was also made before the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the early Church.
According to the canonical Book of Acts, Matthias (so called to avoid confusion with the other Apostle St. Matthew) had been with Jesus from his baptism by John until his Ascension. In the days following, Peter proposed that the assembled disciples, who numbered about one hundred-twenty, nominate two men to replace Judas. They chose Joseph called Barsabas (whose surname was Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, "Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all people, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place." [Acts 1:24–25] Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
The tradition of the Greeks says that St. Matthias planted the faith about Cappadocia and on the coasts of the Caspian Sea, residing chiefly near the port Issus.
According to Nicephorus, Matthias first preached the Gospel in Judaea, then in the region of Colchis, now in modern-day Georgia, and was there stoned to death. It should be noted that modern Georgia is almost entirely Christian, a testament to the faithful preaching of the true Gospel of Jesus there by Matthias.
Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy Apostle martyr Matthias who proclaimed the Godpel of Jesus in many lands and who triumphed over suffering and was faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember him in thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Amen.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian season of Lent. Historically, Lent was the period of preparation for those new disciples of Jesus Christ who were seeking to become part of his Body in baptism. The season of Lent is set aside for self-examination for all of his disciples, certainly; but even more importantly Lent is a time set aside for us to re-open our hearts and lives to receiving the wondrous message of love, redemption, and renewal in Jesus Christ. This begins with the reminder that, for all the complexity of life, our successes and failures, our wealth or poverty….no matter who we are, we are formed from the dust of the earth and we will return to being dust. It is an appropriately sober, and reorienting, realization.
As we prayerfully and intentionally contemplate his great love for us as revealed in the Holy Scriptures and the the Holy Eucharist for the 40 days of Lent, we will discover those places in our lives where we have shut ourselves off from the source of our aliveness, hope, and faith. This is where we are invited to seek the help of the Holy Spirit to remove all those things in our lives that choke off the fullness of the life of Jesus in us, and to renew our first love with Jesus.
My prayer for all of us who are the Body of Christ is that we will be renewed in our commitments as disciples of Jesus, filled anew with hope and joy, and discover just how much aliveness and grace he has to offer to us as we embrace his great love for us.
Our worship liturgies begin with the Great Litany, a series of prayers and petitions sung back and forth between the congregation, choir, and the priest, prayers that come down to us from the early first centuries of the Church.
We all know that language changes over time, and that the meanings of words shift. I invite us all to bear in mind as we pray "Lord have mercy" that the word "mercy" also means "lovingkindness", and is descriptive of a parent holding their child in love. When we pray "Lord have mercy", we are not just asking for God to turn aside his wrath; we are also turning to the Lord, our loving Father, asking him to sweep us up into his arms as a mother gathers up her child who runs to her for comfort and assurance of love.
"Gather us up into the arms of your lovingkindness, O Lord".
Fr. Troy+
Ora pro nobis.
Saint Simeon was the son of Cleophas, otherwise called Alpheus, who was father also of Saint James the Just, the first bishop of Jerusalem, of Saint Jude the Apostle, and of another son named Joseph. Alpheus, according to tradition, was Saint Joseph’s brother, and his wife was the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus. Thus Saint Simeon was the nephew of Saint Joseph and Mary, and so the first cousin cousin of Jesus.
He was one of the 72 disciples, was present at the Ascension of Jesus, and among those gathered on the day of Pentecost and who certainly received the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, with the Mary and the Apostles. In his Church History Eusebius of Caesarea gives the list of these bishops. According to tradition the first bishop of Jerusalem was James the Just, the "brother of the Lord", who according to Eusebius said that he was appointed bishop by the apostles Peter, James (whom Eusebius identifies with James, son of Zebedee), and John. When the Jerusalem aristocracy and Temple hierarchy martyred Saint James the Just, his brother Simeon reproached them for their atrocious cruelty. After this first bishop of Jerusalem had been put to death in the year 62 AD, that is, twenty-nine years after Our Savior’s Resurrection, the Apostles and disciples met at Jerusalem to appoint a successor, and unanimously chose Saint Simeon, who had already assisted his brother in the government of community of disciples in Jerusalem for many years.
In the year 66 or 67 AD, in the reign of Nero, during which Saints Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom at Rome, war broke out in Israel as the Jewish people began to fight for their independence, thus beginning the First Jewish War. The Christians of Jerusalem were warned by God of the impending destruction of that city and the Temple in 70 AD. With Saint Simeon at their head, they therefore left it in that year and settled on the eastern side of the Jordan River in a small city called Pella, before Vespasian, Nero’s General, later Roman Emperor, entered Judea.
(After the capture and burning of Jerusalem, the Christians returned and settled among the ruins until the Emperor Hadrian afterwards entirely razed it and built the Roman city Aelia Capitolina on its ruins and a temple to Jupiter on the site of the ancient Jewish Temple in 129/130 AD, which sparked the Third (and last) Jewish War.)
We are told by St. Epiphanius and by Eusebius that the church there flourished greatly with the return on the disciples of Jesus in the early 70s AD, and that many of the returning refugees of Jerusalem were converted by the miracles wrought by the saints. The emperors Vespasian and Domitian had commanded all Jews to be put to death, but Saint Simeon escaped their searches. When Trajan renewed the same decree, however, certain heretics who desired to control the Jerusalem Church and Jewish zealots who condemned the Jerusalem Christians for escaping to Pella rather than staying to fight, accused the Saint before the Roman governor in Palestine, as being both a Jew and a Christian.
The holy bishop was condemned to death, was tortured, and just like his cousin our Savior Jesus, he was crucified in the year 107 AD outside the walls of Jerusalem. He suffered these torments, though he was an extraordinary one hundred and twenty years old, with so much patience that he won universal admiration. He had governed the Church of Jerusalem for about forty-three years.
Almighty God, who gave to your servant Simeon boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Almighty God, who gave to your servant Simeon boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Today the Church remembers Saint Onesimus, Bishop.
Ora pro nobis.
Saint Onesimus was a slave of Philemon, a person of note of the city of Colossae in Phrygia who had been converted to the Faith by St. Paul. Having robbed his master, and being obliged to flee, he met with St. Paul, then a prisoner for the Faith at Rome, who converted and baptized him, and entrusted him with his canonical letter of recommendation to Philemon.
By him, it seems, Onesimus was pardoned, set at liberty and sent back to his spiritual father, whom he afterwards faithfully served, for apparently St. Paul made him, with Tychicus, the bearer of his epistle to the Colossians, and afterwards, as St. Jerome and other Early Church Fathers witness, a preacher of the gospel and a bishop.
It is he who succeeded Saint Timothy as bishop of Ephesus.
He was cruelly tortured in Rome for eighteen days, by a governor of that city, infuriated by his preaching on the merit of celibacy. His legs and thighs were broken with bludgeons, and he was then stoned to death. His martyrdom occurred under the reign of Emperor Domitian during the persecution of Christians under Trajan in the year AD 95.
We thank you, Lord Jesus, for faithful witnesses like Onesimus who were willing to give their lives as living witnesses of the Faith. We pray, Lord, that St. Onesimus and St. Paul and all the saints in heaven will pray for us that we also may be strong in the Faith and by your Holy Spirit be able to stand firm as witnesses.
Amen.
Today, the Church remembers these 21 brave modern martyrs, 20 Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christians men and one Orthodox Christian man from Ghana, whose murder by Muslim militiamen for their refusal to renounce Jesus on a beach in Libya on this date in 2015 was recorded and broadcast as an act of terror.
Orate pro nobis.
Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyrs triumphed over suffering and were faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember them in thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with them the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
The Presentation of Jesus at (or in) the Temple is an early episode in the life of Jesus, describing his presentation at the Temple in Jerusalem in order to officially induct him into Judaism, that is celebrated by many Christian Churches on the holiday of Candlemas. It is described in the Gospel of Luke of the New Testament in the Christian Bible. Within the account, "Luke's narration of the Presentation in the Temple combines the purification rite with the Jewish ceremony of the redemption of the firstborn (Luke 2:23–24)."
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Presentation of Jesus at the temple is celebrated as one of the twelve Great Feasts, and is sometimes called Hypapante (Ὑπαπαντή, = "Meeting" in Greek). In Western Christianity, the additional name for the Service the day, Candlemas, is added. This Feast-day is also known as the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin or the Meeting of the Lord. In some liturgical churches, Vespers (or Compline) on the Feast of the Presentation marks the end of the Epiphany season. In the Church of England, the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple is a Principal Feast celebrated either on 2 February or on the Sunday between 28 January and 3 February. In the Catholic Church, especially since the time of Pope Gelasius I (492-496) who in the fifth century contributed to its expansion, the Presentation is celebrated on 2 February and is the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary.
The event is described in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 2:22–40). According to the gospel, Mary and Joseph took the Infant Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days (inclusive) after his birth to complete Mary's ritual purification after childbirth, and to perform the redemption of the firstborn son, in obedience to the Torah (Leviticus 12, Exodus 13:12–15, etc.). Luke explicitly says that Joseph and Mary take the option provided for poor people (those who could not afford a lamb; Leviticus 12:8), sacrificing "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons." Leviticus 12:1–4 indicates that this event should take place forty days after birth for a male child, hence the Presentation is celebrated forty days after Christmas.
Upon bringing Jesus into the temple, they encountered Simeon. The Gospel records that Simeon had been promised that "he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ" (Luke 2:26). Simeon then uttered the prayer that would become known as the Nunc Dimittis, or Canticle of Simeon, which prophesied the redemption of the world by Jesus:
“Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29–32).
Simeon then prophesied to Mary: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed. (Luke 2:34–35).
The elderly prophetess Anna was also in the Temple, and offered prayers and praise to God for Jesus, and spoke to everyone there of His importance to redemption in Jerusalem (Luke 2:36–38).
Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.