From the
Office: Subscriptions are pouring in!
Food for the
Soul: The Meeting of our Lord
An Orthodox
Look: Castaway
In the News:
SCOBA Re-institutes
Inter-Orthodox Campus Ministry Effort
On the
Calendar: Orthodox Young Adults Invited to Speak
with SCOBA Hierarchs
Real
Questions, Real Answers: In the tomb
three days?
Readers
Write: Send in your thoughts.
Well, here is your first full
issue in the new millennium just in time for Great Lent! Since we announced that
YO-Mail was back at the end of January we have received approximately 100 new
members to our on-line community. They range from all over North America and as
far away as Bulgaria, China, Japan, and Australia. Of course, a number of the
old e-mail addresses we had came up as "address unknown." We've been spending
the past few weeks weeding through them and coming up with our "active" members.
Hopefully, we won't get a lot of "bounced" YO-Mails this time!
At
present YO-Mail has about 700 "active" members and new subscriptions are coming
in every day. Our goal is to reach 1,000 members by summer. If you like what you
read, tell a friend (and us - grin)!
So
here it is! We have already been receiving e-mails with questions, etc. Remember
to send us your thoughts and ideas about things for upcoming issues.
Next
Issue: Next week look
for a special issue on the Sundays of Great Lent!
Then Simeon blessed
them, and said to Mary His mother, "Behold, this Child is destined for the fall
and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against.that
the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. (Luke
2:34-35)
On February 2, the fortieth day after the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church celebrates His entrance into the Temple where He "met" with His people (the faithful of Israel) for the first time. Simeon the Prophet was among them. He was a devout man to whom the Lord had promised that he would meet the Messiah before he died. To the marvelous surprise of Joseph and Mary, Simeon identified Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One of God and Savior of the faithful. He also pointed out that the coming of the Messiah would not be something peaceful and easy for the whole world to accept.
Throughout the centuries of the Church,
the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been filled with both dramatic
resistance and amazing transformation of human hearts. Beginning with "Israel"
the remnant of the faithful in Judah, the coming of Christ caused quite a stir.
There were positive and negative responses. As Simeon foretold, many would fall
and many would rise. Even today, many fall into doubt and even into outright
rejection of Christ, while many rise in faith and acceptance and are lifted up
to God.
At the heart of this struggle of faith
and doubt is that "sign which will be spoken against"-the sign of the Cross. As
St. Paul says, The message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor.
1:18). Indeed, the Cross and all it signifies - God's immense love for us and
His willingness to humble Himself even to death and humiliation for us - is a
spiritual litmus test for all who encounter it. Whenever we are faced with the
truth of the Cross, we cannot help but feel the inner state of our hearts. The
Cross reveals the content of our hearts and our feelings towards
God.
In
the Church we often make the sign of the Cross, many times throughout worship
and ideally throughout the day, regardless of where we might be. If we pay any
attention to ourselves as we do this we are given an insight into the condition
of our hearts toward God. We can ask ourselves:
·
Do I feel
embarrassed or ashamed? Do I feel foolish?
·
Do I feel
awkward and disconnected from faith in the Lord?
·
Do I feel
renewed in faith and protected by the power of God?
·
Do I make
the sign of the Cross sincerely or out of careless habit or even
jokingly?
Making the sign of the Cross is like
putting a mirror to our souls. Often it is difficult because we realize
something about ourselves that we don't want to know. However, we can rejoice
for this is a gift from God: our conscience that God gave us. And let us be
careful not to put too much stock in our own "insights," but go to our
elders-the priests (from the word presbyter, which literally means
"elder")-that we can learn from them just as Mary and Joseph received the
blessings and insights from the elder Simeon.
Prayer
of St. Simeon:
Now, master, you can let your servant
depart in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen the salvation
which you have prepared for all the nations to see: a light to enlighten the
gentiles, and the glory of your people, Israel.
For more information on this feast go to http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Feasts-and-Saints/Feb-02.html.
Tom Hanks
latest movie, Castaway, is an exploration of the value of the human being
in the Information Age. A brilliant piece of film making with incredible
performances by both Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt, [even "Wilson" brings people to
tears (G)] there is little question as to why it was nominated for Best
Picture.
On the up
side:
On the down
side:
It is amazing
how we, as a society, do not think twice about people living together without
being married and how we often even encourage it. It would be interesting to
know if the audience would have believed the depth of the characters' love for
each other if they had only been dating and were not living
together.
To clarify a
rumor going around, at present Tom Hanks is not an Orthodox Christian. His
wife, however, is and they both are regular attendants at St.
Sophia's Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles, CA.
If you know of
a movie, TV show, CD, etc. that you would like us to take "an Orthodox Look" at,
let us know at youth@oca.org.
NEW YORK, NY -- The Standing Conference
of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), at its meeting on
December 14, 2000, officially adopted the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF)
movement as the official campus ministry effort under its auspices. A proposal
was submitted by the Department of Campus Ministry of the Antiochian Orthodox
Christian Archdiocese, the Departments of Youth and Young Adult Ministries of
the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and the Orthodox Church in America, to the
hierarchs and was unanimously and enthusiastically
approved.
The first visible result of this
decision will be the establishment of a North American office for OCF, offering
support, resources and coordination for the 150 campus-based OCF's currently in
existence. The office will be initially located at the Patriarch Athenagoras
Orthodox Institute (PAOI), located at the University of California in Berkeley,
and will begin operations in early February. The Institute has received a
three-year grant from the Leadership 100 Foundation of the Greek Orthodox
Archdiocese of America to create and develop inter-Orthodox resources for
national campus ministry.
The major responsibilities of the OCF
office will include the following:
.Coordinating and supporting the
established OCF chapters
.Helping to establish new OCF chapters
where local interest, support and resources are present
.Facilitating inter-campus interaction
through regional and North American conferences, retreats, as well as
philanthropic and social activities
.Maintaining the OCF mailing list,
publishment of a official OCF newsletter and maintaining an up-to-date
website
.The development of long-term funding
through foundations, private donations and the support of OCF
alumni
SCOBA will oversee OCF through
the reestablishment of the Campus Commission, a SCOBA committee comprised of
representatives from each SCOBA jurisdiction. The Campus Commission last met in
the early 1970's.
"It's been years since
we've seen this degree of cooperation between all canonical jurisdictions in the
area of youth ministry," said the Reverend Mark Leondis, Director of the
Department of Youth and Young Adult Ministries of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese
of America. "This could have a huge impact on our young people who are
struggling to keep their faith in the spiritually challenging environment of the
modern day college campus. It's an incredibly exciting time and we're thrilled
with the level of support we've received from our
hierarchs."
Contact
Information:
Orthodox Christian
Fellowship
2311 Hearst
Avenue
Berkeley, CA
94709
Tel: (510) 704-8981 Fax: (510)
841-6605
Web-site:
www.ocf.net
If there is
something going on in the news (either Church or non-Church news) that you think
we should report on, let us know at youth@oca.org.
Young adults
in the New York City area are invited to meet with the bishops of SCOBA, the
Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas, on the Sunday
of Orthodoxy, March 4, 2001. This is the second year the ruling bishops of all
the Orthodox jurisdictions in North America have invited youth and young adults
to discuss their hopes and concerns for the Orthodox Church in North America.
Last year's event, gathered close to 200 youth and young adults for a very open
and frank discussion about issues ranging from the place of young adults in the
Church to the importance of a unified Church on this
continent.
People
interested in attending should contact us at youth@oca.org so that we can be sure to reserve
a spot for you. Space is limited.
Where: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral
E 74th ST (between 1st and 2nd Avenues),
NYC
When: The Sunday of Orthodoxy, March 4,
2001 starting with the Divine Liturgy at 10:00 am followed by lunch and the
discussion with the bishops.
Who: All Orthodox Christian young adults
(17-28).
Last year's
discussion was incredible! Don't miss this opportunity to have a genuine
dialogue with the leaders of our Church!
Have an event
that you would like advertised here? E-Mail us at youth@oca.org.
LT from TX
writes:
A. Interesting question!
The truth is Jesus was in the tomb for three days and one and a half
days. When we sing that He was in the tomb for three days we are not singing
about three twenty-four hour periods.
When we go camping or go on a long trip somewhere people sometimes as us,
"How long will you be gone for". We don't
usually think to count exactly how many twenty-four hour periods we will be
gone. We usually tally up the days of the
week from departure to return. This is
what we do with the Christ's death and Resurrection.
It is
not important to believe that Christ was in the tomb for a specific number of
hours in order to fulfill the troparion (hymn) for the feast of Pascha. Rather,
it is important that on the first day of His death He was taken down from the
Cross and placed in a tomb, on the second day, which began shortly after being
placed in the tomb, he descended into hell and loosed the captives there, and on
the third day He rose again. There was
nobody inside the tomb to give us an eyewitness account for the Gospel narrative
of the Resurrection. We did, however,
receive eyewitness accounts of our Lord's most gracious gift of revealing His
tomb to be emptied on day three.
Hope
this helps!
Next full
issue: The Orthodox
view on speaking in tongues.
Got a
question? Send it to youth@oca.org. All
questions are treated anonymously (just a couple letters from your e-mail
address and the state your from) unless you tell us
otherwise.
Have something
you want to say or something you want to ask other readers? Send it in! We'll
put it our next full issue. E-Mail us at youth@oca.org.
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