Who is the Orthodox Servant?

On Novem­ber 29, 2009, ser­vants of the churches in the south­ern region of the Dio­cese gath­ered at St. Mary and St. Ver­ena Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church in Ana­heim for a Servants’ Meeting.

His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion opened the meet­ing with a prayer fol­lowed by a lec­ture enti­tled “Who is the Ortho­dox Ser­vant?” This lec­ture addressed stereo­types con­cern­ing prac­tices and atti­tudes in the ser­vice that are con­sid­ered Ortho­dox and not Ortho­dox. His Grace taught the gath­er­ing that the true Ortho­dox ser­vant is the one who adopts the Mind of Christ in both word and deed. The Mind of Christ is some­thing that is learned from the Church, which is the Body of the Christ and which stands on three pil­lars of Liv­ing Tra­di­tion: the Holy Scrip­tures, the Patris­tic her­itage, and the Divine Liturgy. His Grace also encour­aged ser­vants in today’s mod­ern soci­ety to reach out to peo­ple who embrace the Ortho­dox Faith from other nation­al­i­ties, eth­nic­i­ties, and cul­tural back­grounds. His Grace described this mis­sion­ary work as one of the chal­lenges in the mod­ern ser­vice. Also, His Grace empha­sized the impor­tance of the Liv­ing Tra­di­tion of the Church.

After His Grace’s lec­ture, the ser­vants enjoyed a break and agape meal in the church hall, fol­lowed by dis­cus­sion groups for each level of ser­vice (i.e., col­lege, high school, etc.) Par­tic­i­pants then entered the church for a Q&A ses­sion with His Grace con­cern­ing issues in the service.

We thank God for this spir­i­tual and edi­fy­ing gath­er­ing to enrich ser­vants in the Dio­cese through the teach­ings of the Church from the mouth of our beloved bishop.

Audio

Who is the Ortho­dox Ser­vant? by Bishop Ser­a­pion 

Video

Who is the Ortho­dox Ser­vant? from Cop­tic Dio­cese of Los Ange­les on Vimeo.

St. John Chrysostom and Carrying our Cross

Last week, as mil­lions of Amer­i­cans around the world gave thanks dur­ing the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day, the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church com­mem­o­rated the exem­plary life and depar­ture of one of the most influ­en­tial fig­ures in the Holy, Catholic, and Apos­tolic Church: St. John Chrysos­tom (the “Golden-Mouthed”). St. John was one of the most elo­quent preach­ers of Christ’s Gospel as well as an ascetic and great teacher. His love for our Lord Jesus Christ was great, as was his love for the poor. Fol­low­ing the exam­ple of our Lord, the Good Shep­herd, he guided his flock in right­eous­ness until the time of his departure.

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St. John Chrysos­tom was born around 347 A.D. in the great city of Anti­och, which was one of the cen­ters of Chris­tian­ity in the Roman Empire after Rome and Alexan­dria. His father departed this world while St. John was young. Nonethe­less, his mother, St. Anthusa, ded­i­cated her life to rais­ing St. John and his sis­ter. He was edu­cated in the best schools of Anti­och and ulti­mately became a stu­dent of the famous pagan rhetori­cian, Liba­n­ius. When he was twenty years of age, he was pre­sented to Meletius, Bishop of Anti­och. Aban­don­ing his sec­u­lar edu­ca­tion under non­be­liev­ers, he ded­i­cated his life to spir­i­tual learn­ing. He stud­ied the Holy Scrip­tures and prac­ticed dis­ci­ple­ship under Bishop Meletius. Three years later, he was ordained a Reader-Deacon. Imme­di­ately after­wards, he fled to a cave and lived as a her­mit, prac­tic­ing strict asceti­cism. After two years, his health began to dete­ri­o­rate and he returned to Anti­och. After resum­ing his spir­i­tual stud­ies for sev­eral years, Bishop Meletius ordained him a Dea­con shortly before trav­el­ing to the Sec­ond Ecu­meni­cal Coun­cil at Con­stan­tino­ple in 381. After Bishop Meletius’s depar­ture, St. John was ordained Pres­byter by Meletius’s suc­ces­sor, Fla­vian. Dur­ing this time, the peo­ple of Anti­och rioted against the Roman Emperor Theo­do­sius and destroyed stat­ues of him and his fam­ily, a crime that demanded severe pun­ish­ment. St. John deliv­ered a series of hom­i­lies enti­tled On the Stat­ues that helped calm both the emperor and the peo­ple of Anti­och. For almost a decade, St. John ded­i­cated him­self to his flock and deliv­ered sev­eral exeget­i­cal hom­i­lies on the Holy Scrip­tures, many of which sur­vive to the present day. These hom­i­lies became famous through­out the Roman Empire and beyond for their the­o­log­i­cal insight and spirituality.

On Feb­ru­ary 26, 398, St. John was con­se­crated as the Arch­bishop of the rel­a­tively new impe­r­ial cap­i­tal of Con­stan­tino­ple. Imme­di­ately after his con­se­cra­tion, St. John made sweep­ing changes to the archiepis­co­pal office and the local church gen­er­ally. He stripped the archbishop’s res­i­dence of lux­u­ri­ous items, which he then sold for the ben­e­fit of the city’s poor. Despite his posi­tion as the Arch­bishop of the new impe­r­ial cap­i­tal, St. John con­tin­ued to live like a monk. He preached against excess and the opu­lence of the rich in the face of wide­spread poverty. More than once dur­ing his life, there was con­tro­versy over his sell­ing of the church’s golden uten­sils to raise money for the poor. His love for the poor made him a cham­pion of the com­mon peo­ple, but an enemy of the rich. The Empress Eudoxia became increas­ingly angered by his teach­ings against the rich. Through her influ­ence and that of many rich patrons in the city, St. John was deposed and exiled. When the peo­ple heard about this, riots broke out and a great earth­quake struck the city. Eudoxia and the rich quickly returned St. John to his posi­tion. How­ever, none of this affected St. John’s mes­sage against the rich; he con­tin­ued to preach just as he had before. Finally, on June 24, 404, he was exiled to the bor­ders of Arme­nia and later, even fur­ther, to Pithyos near the shores of the North Sea. His exile was very dif­fi­cult, as the sol­diers who accom­pa­nied him were cruel and ruth­less. St. John was made to walk in the worst con­di­tions to his place of exile. Finally, while trav­el­ing to Pithyos, St. John Chrysos­tom reposed in the Lord. His famous last words before depart­ing this world were “Glory to God for all things!” Thirty years after his depar­ture, his relics were taken back to Con­stan­tino­ple with great honor. In 1204, the relics were taken by the Cru­saders to Rome. On Novem­ber 27, 2004, Pope John Paul II of Rome returned his relics to the Ortho­dox Church. They are now kept in Mount Athos, Greece, where they are a source of miraculous healing.

Writ­ings

St. John Chrysos­tom left behind many impor­tant hom­i­lies and exeget­i­cal works on the Holy Scrip­tures. Among them are 59 hom­i­lies on the Psalms, 67 hom­i­lies on the Book of Gen­e­sis, 90 hom­i­lies on the Gospel accord­ing to St. Matthew, 88 hom­i­lies on the Gospel accord­ing to St. John, 55 hom­i­lies on the Book of Acts, and many hom­i­lies on all of St. Paul’s let­ters. The East­ern Ortho­dox Church cel­e­brates a Divine Liturgy that bears his name just as the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church cel­e­brates a Divine Liturgy bear­ing the name of another great Father of the Church, St. Cyril of Alexandria.

St. John Chrysos­tom and Car­ry­ing the Cross

We see from St. John’s biog­ra­phy that he bore the cross and fol­lowed our Sav­iour, as the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church will remind Her believ­ers this Sun­day with a pas­sage from Luke 14:25–35. This is espe­cially clear in St. John’s last days, when he was exiled to the edge of the known world in harsh con­di­tions. He did not com­plain nor did he escape or pray to the Lord to take the afflic­tion away from him. Rather, he uttered the pow­er­ful words of faith “Glory to God for all things!” In doing so, we see St. John as a good shep­herd fol­low­ing the advice he rou­tinely gave to his flock. For exam­ple, in Homily 33 on St. Paul’s Epis­tle to the Eph­esians, he said:

Let us bear all things thank­fully, be it poverty, be it dis­ease, be it any­thing else what­ever: for He alone knows the things expe­di­ent for us…Are we in poverty? Let us give thanks. Are we in sick­ness? Let us give thanks. Are we falsely accused? Let us give thanks. When we suf­fer afflic­tion, let us give thanks.

…Afflic­tion is a great good. “Nar­row is the way,” so that afflic­tion thrusts us into the nar­row way. He who is not pressed by afflic­tion can­not enter. For he who afflicts him­self in the nar­row is he who also enjoys ease, but he that spreads him­self out does not enter in and suf­fers from being, so to say, wedged in. See how Paul enters into this nar­row way? He “keeps under” his body so as to be able to enter. There­fore, in all his afflic­tions, he con­tin­ued giv­ing thanks to God. Have you lost any prop­erty? This has light­ened you of most of your wide­ness. Have you fallen from glory? This is another sort of wide­ness. Have you been falsely accused? Have the things said against you, of which you are not con­scious, been believed [by oth­ers?] “Rejoice and leap for joy.” For “blessed are you,” [says the Lord], “when men reproach you and say all man­ner of evil against you, falsely, for My sake. Rejoice and be exceed­ingly glad, for great is your reward in Heaven.”

The com­mem­o­ra­tion of St. John Chrysos­tom is highly appro­pri­ate as we con­clude the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day in the United States and approach the read­ings for the Divine Liturgy of the third week of Hatour, because St. John exem­pli­fies how we should carry our cross and give thanks to God for all things. We often­times pray to God to remove afflic­tion from us, for­get­ting St. John’s teach­ing that “afflic­tion is a great good.” The blessed mother of the desert, Amma Syn­clet­ica, also taught that we should not ask God to take away afflic­tion, but rather, grant us the power to endure it. God always answers our prayers, even though He may not answer them in the spe­cific way we have in mind. He answers our prayers accord­ing to what is good for us and our spir­i­tual growth, not what is best for our worldly con­cerns. Car­ry­ing the cross is endur­ing afflic­tion with patience and com­plete faith in God, just as our father, St. John Chrysostom, did.

May God grant us the strength to endure all afflic­tion so that we may be ever thank­ful and pro­claim with our father, St. John Chrysos­tom, “Glory to God for all things!”

May He also remem­ber the peace of the One, Only, Holy, Catholic, and Apos­tolic Church and pre­serve the lives of our hon­ored father, His Holi­ness Pope Shenouda III and his part­ner in the apos­tolic min­istry, our bishop, His Grace Bishop Serapion, Amen.

Diocese Newlywed & Marital Enrichment Retreat — December 4, 2009

Through the bless­ings and prayers of our beloved father H.G. Bishop Ser­a­pion, the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Dio­cese of Los Ange­les joy­ously presents its bian­nual Mar­i­tal Enrichment Retreat.

This retreat is designed specif­i­cally for cou­ples who have been mar­ried less than seven years. Speak­ers include Dr. Yousry Arman­ious and Dr. Nabil N. Soli­man. Babysit­ting will be pro­vided dur­ing all lec­tures. For more infor­ma­tion, please see this attached flyer.

A Sower Went Out to Sow

On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great mul­ti­tudes were gath­ered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole mul­ti­tude stood on the shore. Then He spoke many things to them in para­bles, say­ing: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the way­side; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they imme­di­ately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they with­ered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But oth­ers fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hun­dred­fold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matthew 13:1–9)

The pas­sage above, with which the Church nour­ishes her believ­ers on the sec­ond Sun­day of Hatour, is known as the Para­ble of the Sower, the very first para­ble our Lord gave to His dis­ci­ples. Indeed, this para­ble is known as “the para­ble of para­bles,” because it reveals “the mys­ter­ies of the king­dom of God” (Mt. 13:11, Luke 8:10, cf. Lk. 4:10). Although this Sunday’s read­ing was from Matthew 13, the Para­ble of the Sower appears in the other two syn­op­tic Gospels, as well. Our Church, in Her wis­dom, offered this para­ble twice in her read­ings for the first Sun­day of Hatour: the para­ble from Mark 4 in the Ves­pers ser­vice and from Luke 8 in the Divine Liturgy.

We will strive to under­stand the mean­ing of this para­ble and apply it to our own spir­i­tual lives through the writ­ings of the early Church Fathers.

The Boat as the Holy Church

Before our Lord spoke this para­ble, we read in Matthew 13:1 that He entered into a boat and taught the mul­ti­tude which remained stand­ing on the shore. The Fathers of the Church teach us that the boat is a sym­bol of the Church. This sym­bol is some­thing we saw a few weeks ago in the read­ings of the first Sun­day of Paopi from Luke 5. Our Lord was sur­rounded by a great mul­ti­tude when He saw two boats on the lake of Gen­nesaret. He entered one of the boats, the one belong­ing to Simon Peter, but the other boat was left empty and des­o­late at the shore. St. Ambrose of Milan teaches that the boat our Lord entered is the Church, the “boat of Christ.” The other boat is the boat of the unbe­liev­ers, those who rejected Christ. On the one hand, the “boat of Christ” is called into “the deep,” a sym­bol of the mys­ter­ies of God (c.f. Rom. 11:33) while the other boat remains idle and in shal­low waters, sym­bol­iz­ing the absence of faith.

Thus, the boat from which the Lord spoke this para­ble is a sym­bol of the Church and how our Lord teaches us through the Church.

A Sower Went Out to Sow

The para­ble begins with the words “a sower went out to sow.” A sower is one who scat­ters seeds so that they may grow and be har­vested later. In this para­ble, the sower is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man (Mt. 13:37), and the seed is the Word of God. The sower of the Divine Word is God Him­self. St. Paul teaches us,

As it is writ­ten: ‘He has dis­persed abroad, He has given to the poor; His right­eous­ness endures for­ever.’ Now may He who sup­plies seed to the sower, and bread for food, sup­ply and mul­ti­ply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your right­eous­ness, while you are enriched in every­thing for all lib­er­al­ity, which causes thanks­giv­ing through us to God. For the admin­is­tra­tion of this ser­vice not only sup­plies the needs of the saints, but also is abound­ing through many thanks­giv­ings to God… (2 Corinthians 9:9–12).

St. John Chrysos­tom explains that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sec­ond Per­son of the Holy Trin­ity, came to us “in the robe of our own bod­ies,” even though He is every­where and uncir­cum­scrib­able. St. John teaches us that humankind was expelled from the pres­ence of the True King through the Fall. For gen­er­a­tions, He spoke to us out of the King­dom, but in the “full­ness of time,” when humankind was ready, He “goes out” to bring them back to God’s presence.

He more­over says,

“He did not go out to a cer­tain site. He rather declares a life and pro­vi­sion that con­cern our sal­va­tion. He became close to us by tak­ing on our own phys­i­cal shape and form. Since we were unable to enter due to our iniq­uity, He him­self came out to us. Whey did he do so? Is it to destroy the land that begot this­tles? No, He actu­ally came out to take care of the land, and sow the ender word. He calls his teach­ings ‘the seeds,’ and the people’s souls he calls ‘a fruit­ful field,’ and he calls him­self ‘The Sower.’

The Bad Soils

As the sower was work­ing, His seed fell on four dif­fer­ent types of soil.

The first type of soil described in the para­ble is the soil that is part of a path or a way­side. An anony­mous early Chris­t­ian writer wrote that the path rep­re­sents the world, because our life here in this world is sim­ply a path to eter­nal life. Our goal is not this world; there is noth­ing in this world we should want. Our desire should be focused on the King­dom of Heaven and eter­nal life with God. Some of the seed fell along this path and the birds of heaven came and devoured them. The prob­lem with the soil along this path is the fact that it was hard and com­pacted, because peo­ple tram­pled along this path. The seed was not able to take root because of the activ­ity along the path. St. Cyril of Alexan­dria speaks of the wayside saying,

The road is always solid, trod­den on by all the passers by, and this is why the sees are not sowed there. Like­wise are those who have vio­lent thoughts that are unyield­ing. The word of God, so divine, does not enter into them, and does not sup­port them so as to be blessed with the joy­ful fruit of virtue. Such peo­ple are like the way­side trod­den upon by the defiled spir­its, and tram­pled upon by Satan him­self. They there­fore, do not bring forth any sanc­ti­fied fruits because of their stub­born and hard hearts.

Instead, the birds of the air devoured it. St. Cyril of Alexan­dria teaches us to be care­ful in under­stand­ing what the birds of the air are in this para­ble; they are not birds, but rather, evil spir­its. These evil spir­its destroy the seed of the Word of God in peo­ple who are more con­cerned with the world than with their eter­nal lives. They become so focused on the world and the busi­ness of life that the Word of God has no chance to take root in them, and evil spir­its ulti­mately come and destroy the seed in these people’s hearts.

The sec­ond type of soil is called “rocky ground” in the para­ble. The seed grew quickly in this rocky ground, but ulti­mately, because there was not enough soil, the sun quickly burned what­ever grew from these seeds. This refers to peo­ple who yield a quick ini­tial response to the Word of God, but lack depth in spir­i­tual life. They have no roots, but rather, only an exter­nal image of growth. St Cyril of Alexan­dria says about them,

There are oth­ers who have the faith but they do not care much about it in their hearts; this is just words to them. Their reli­gion has no roots in them. They enter the church, and are glad to see big num­bers assem­bled there, all ready to share in the holy sacra­ments. But they do not do this as a seri­ous goal and a sub­lime will power. When they are out of the church, they instantly for­get the holy edi­fi­ca­tion. When the Chris­tians are in peace they keep the faith, but when per­se­cu­tion is waged, they think of run­ning away ask­ing for safety. Jere­miah speaks to such peo­ple, say­ing, “Order the buck­ler and shield, and draw near to bat­tle!” (Jer. 46:3) For the Lord’s hand that defends you can never be defeated. St. Paul, the knowl­edge­able one, says, “But God is faith­ful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temp­ta­tion will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” (1 Cor. 10:13)

The third type of soil is described as hav­ing thorns. The seed of the Word of God fell on this soil and grew. How­ever, some­thing else fell on this soil, as well – the thorns – and choked the seed. The thorns rep­re­sent the “the cares of this world and the deceit­ful­ness of riches choke the word” (Matt. 13:22). St. Clement of Alexan­dria writes about these thorns, say­ing, “We should not blame the money, but rather the mis­us­ing of it. It is also not a virtue for man to be poor, but the virtue is in prac­tic­ing the meek­ness of the spirit, which is not cling to money.” St. Cyril of Alexandria says,

The Redeemer sow the seeds, and these face hearts that appar­ently seem strong and fruit­ful. But after a short while the cares and hard­ships in life choke it. The seeds then wither and fade. As Hosea the prophet says, “They sow the wind, and reap the whirl­wind. The stalk has no bind; it shall never pro­duce meal. If it should pro­duce, aliens would swal­low it up.” (Hos. 8:7) Let us be smart sow­ers. Let us not dis­trib­ute the seeds except after clean­ing the earth of its thorns, so we could say with the psalmist, “He who con­tin­u­ally goes forth weep­ing, bear­ing seed for sow­ing, shall doubt­less come again with rejoic­ing, bring­ing his heaves with him.” (Psalm 126:6) Every­one who sows seeds on an earth pro­duc­ing thorns and this­tles is exposed to two losses: the seeds that become ruined, and the great effort. Let us know well, the divine seeds can never flour­ish unless we uproot from our minds the worldly cares, and rip off from our­selves the proud and vain riches, “For we brought noth­ing into this world, and it is cer­tain we can carry not­ing out.” (1 Tim 6:7) Of what use is our pos­ses­sion of the vain fleet­ing things? “The Lord will not allow the right­eous soul to fam­ish, but he casts away the desire of the wicked.” (Prov. 10:3) Have you not noticed that the cor­rupt evil, such as greed, cov­etous­ness, wicked­ness, drunk­en­ness, friv­o­lity and pride, all of these choke us? As the Redeemer’s apos­tle says, “For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is pass­ing away, and the lust of it; but the who does the will of God abides for­ever” (1 John 2:16).

In a sense, the trap of this type of soil is one of pri­or­i­ties. The Word of God can grow in us, but through mis­placed pri­or­i­ties in the things of this world, such as riches, the lusts of the flesh, and pride, we allow thorns to grow, as well. Over time, as we begin to favor the things of the world over the things of God, the thorns will choke the seed of the Word of God in us.

The Good Soil

In con­trast with the three soils men­tioned above, the good soils are those souls “who, hav­ing heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience” (Lk. 8:15), the one who “under­stands” the word that he receives (Mt. 13:23) and trea­sures it in his heart. The Gospel likens such a man to a sower him­self: “He who sows spar­ingly will also reap spar­ingly, and he who sows boun­ti­fully will also reap boun­ti­fully” (2 Cor. 9:6). The book of Proverbs is replete with such images of sow­ing good and evil:

1. “The wicked man does decep­tive work, But he who sows right­eous­ness will have a sure reward.” (Proverbs 11:18);
2. “A per­verse man sows strife, And a whis­perer sep­a­rates the best of friends” (Proverbs 16:28)
3. “He who sows iniq­uity will reap sor­row, And the rod of his anger will fail.” (Proverbs 22:8)

As St. Paul writes, “What­ever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap cor­rup­tion, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap ever­last­ing life.” (Gala­tians 6:7–8). So the good soil reflects the good man who also sows the seed of Scrip­ture in his heart. St. Cyril writes about this good soil:

It is a rich ground, fruit­ful and pro­duces a hun­dred­fold! Good and fruit­ful are those souls that receive the word in depth and keep it, and take care of it. It is said about those souls what the Lord said by one of the prophets “And all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delight­ful land’ says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 3:12). When the Divine Word of God falls on a soul that is pure, it pro­duces deep roots and brings forth wheatears car­ry­ing increasing fruits.

May the Lord grant us all to hear the Word of God and trea­sure It in our hearts, to bring forth fruit one hun­dred fold, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Community Service Day a Blessed Success

With God’s grace and through your prayers, a Com­mu­nity Ser­vice Spir­i­tual Day for the col­lege youth on Novem­ber 21, 2009 was a blessed suc­cess. The pur­pose of this day was to help the less for­tu­nate all around us in the form of a spir­i­tual day of ser­vice and fel­low­ship.
The youth of the church, includ­ing many stu­dents from the […]

Register Now for the College Winter Retreat

The Dio­cese joy­fully announces its annual Col­lege Win­ter Retreat Mon­day, Decem­ber 28 through Wednes­day, Decem­ber 30. From the promotional material:

It’s about that time of year again for the 2009 Col­lege Win­ter Retreat. This year’s retreat will cover a topic which is guar­an­teed to be close to the hearts of all Chris­tians seek­ing to reach greater depth in their rela­tion­ship with their Sav­ior. The topic that we will cover is con­cern­ing how we can deepen our prayer life. The retreat has been designed with an entirely new style unlike that of past years; there­fore, you surely do not want to miss this oppor­tu­nity to go to the 2009 Winter Retreat.

 This year, the Dio­cese is pleased to offer online reg­is­tra­tion and pay­ment via PayPal.

For more infor­ma­tion, please visit this infor­ma­tion and reg­is­tra­tion page.

Serve Part-Time as an English Teacher in Upper Egypt

El Quosia is a province of Assiut in Upper Egypt which lies 325 km south of Cairo. It is a poverty-stricken province where employ­ment, clean water, elec­tric­ity, good edu­ca­tion, and health care are scarce. Approx­i­mately more than three quar­ters of the pop­u­la­tion live with an income that places them at or below the poverty line. (The poverty line rep­re­sents an income of 200 L.E. per month, roughly $40 U.S. Dollars)

Since His Grace Bishop Thomas came to El Quosia in 1988, he has had a vision to advance the com­mu­nity and peo­ple through edu­ca­tion and the devel­op­ment of skills. Besides ongo­ing spir­i­tual activ­i­ties, His Grace has imple­mented many skills train­ing pro­grams for youth to facil­i­tate their growth aca­d­e­m­i­cally and prac­ti­cally as well. One of His Graces’ many accom­plish­ments is the estab­lish­ment of a pri­vate Cop­tic school called St. Mena Lan­guage School. This school opened in 1994 in an effort to pro­vide a higher stan­dard of edu­ca­tion for all the chil­dren of Quosia. He is also a strong advo­cate for girls’ edu­ca­tion. He recently founded ‘Axia’ (mean­ing ‘wor­thy’) which is a pro­gram with the mis­sion of empow­er­ing girls through edu­ca­tion and skills training.

Ser­vice Opportunity

Under the joint aus­pices of His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion and His Grace Bishop Thomas, St. Mena Lan­guage School is invit­ing vol­un­teers to teach Eng­lish or other sub­jects in the Eng­lish lan­guage for one or more semes­ters. Ser­vants can either be expe­ri­enced teach­ers or col­lege youth with min­i­mal expe­ri­ence work­ing with chil­dren. All sub­jects except Ara­bic and Reli­gion at St. Mena School are taught in Eng­lish. Poten­tial teach­ers will be able to choose their subject(s) of inter­est and will work along­side the cur­rent teach­ers. The aca­d­e­mic year sched­ule for 2009–2010 is as fol­lows: first semes­ter, Sept.27^th –Feb.10^th and the sec­ond semes­ter, Feb.25^th –May 20^th. Vol­un­teers will have full accom­mo­da­tion (room and board) at the Dio­cese guest house. This will be a new expe­ri­ence where you can offer your ser­vice to oth­ers and spend a blessed time in the land where your Cop­tic Ortho­dox faith originated.

• There will also be an oppor­tu­nity to teach in our adult Eng­lish courses.Interested vol­un­teers should email H.G. Bishop Thomas one rec­om­men­da­tion let­ter from his/her father of con­fes­sion and one rec­om­men­da­tion let­ter from H.G. Bishop Serapion.
• Please con­tact His Grace Bishop Thomas with any fur­ther ques­tions: bishopthomasofquosia@gmail.com

Our Response to God’s Love

The Church recently cel­e­brated the 29^th day of the Cop­tic month of Paopi. The 29^th day of cer­tain months in the Cop­tic cal­en­dar is very spe­cial, because the Church, in Her wis­dom, com­mem­o­rates the Feasts of the Annun­ci­a­tion, Nativ­ity, and Res­ur­rec­tion of our Lord Jesus Christ on these days. We have this com­mem­o­ra­tion on the 29^th of every Cop­tic month with the excep­tion of two months, Tuba and Meshir.

When we think about these three great feasts–the Annun­ci­a­tion, Nativ­ity, and Resurrection–we see in them God’s divine plan for our sal­va­tion. In the Annun­ci­a­tion, we cel­e­brate how God sent the Archangel Gabriel to the Holy Vir­gin Mary to announce that the Word, the Sec­ond Per­son of the Holy Trin­ity, would take flesh from her. The Archangel Gabriel affirmed to the Holy Vir­gin Mary that the One born of her “will be great, and will be called the Son of the High­est; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob for­ever, and of His king­dom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32–33). In the Feast of the Nativ­ity, we cel­e­brate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the com­ing of the Mes­siah to save His peo­ple. Finally, in the Feast of the Res­ur­rec­tion, we cel­e­brate our Lord’s vic­tory over death and its power over us through His life-giving death and res­ur­rec­tion. All of these feasts com­mem­o­rate events that were part of God’s divine plan of sal­va­tion for us.

How was it pos­si­ble for God to take flesh, sub­mit to death, and raise Him­self from the dead? These events are won­drous and above all knowl­edge. They are above human under­stand­ing and above the under­stand­ing of the angels in heaven. And though we can never truly under­stand these won­drous events, we are recip­i­ents of divine grace through them. St. Paul teaches us in Eph­esians 4: “But to each one of us grace was given accord­ing to the mea­sure of Christ’s gift.” (Eph­esians 4:7–8) All of us today have a mea­sure of grace from Christ. What, then, is left?

What is left is for us to strive towards a per­fect Chris­t­ian life. The grace God has given us through His plan of sal­va­tion is a divine gift. But what pur­pose does this divine gift have if it is not con­verted into a life that is pleas­ing to God?

Our Church, in Her wis­dom, gives us prac­ti­cal instruc­tions for liv­ing this per­fect Chris­t­ian life every morn­ing. In the First Hour of the Agpeya, we read this pas­sage from Eph­esians 4: “I, there­fore, the pris­oner of the Lord, beseech you to walk wor­thy of the call­ing with which you were called, with all low­li­ness and gen­tle­ness, with long­suf­fer­ing, bear­ing with one another in love, endeav­or­ing to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph­esians 4:1–3). This is the plan of the Chris­t­ian life that should be our response to the divine gift of grace God has given us.

The first item in this plan of per­fect Chris­t­ian life is love. When St. Paul intro­duces him­self as the “pris­oner of the Lord,” he is express­ing his stead­fast love for our Lord Jesus Christ. He would rather be a “pris­oner of the Lord” than a free man liv­ing with the honor of the rulers of this world. This stead­fast love for our Lord Jesus Christ leads to the devel­op­ment of other virtues, as St. Jerome said, “From love is born all that is good.” When we love our Lord Jesus Christ, this love will nat­u­rally flow to those around us. We see this prin­ci­ple in a famous med­i­ta­tion on the Cross where the ver­ti­cal beam rep­re­sents our love for God and the hor­i­zon­tal beam rep­re­sents our love for one another.

The sec­ond item in this plan is low­li­ness or humil­ity. When we think of these three great feasts, we see our Lord’s unfath­omable humil­ity in all of them. In the Feasts of the Annun­ci­a­tion and Nativ­ity, for exam­ple, we see how our Lord, Who is seated upon the Cheru­bim and wor­shipped by the Seraphim, con­de­scended and assumed human flesh in order to save us. What can be more hum­ble than this real­ity of the Omnipo­tent God tak­ing the weak form of His own cre­ation for their sal­va­tion? The Lord’s humil­ity did not stop at His incar­na­tion and birth, but rather, con­tin­ued through­out His min­istry on earth. He gave us the per­fect exam­ple of humil­ity and asked us to fol­low this exam­ple in Matthew 11 when He said, “Learn from Me, for I am gen­tle and lowly in heart.” St. John Chrysos­tom focused on these words “lowly in heart” when he teaches us that we can­not be hum­ble sim­ply in our words or exter­nal deeds. Rather, we must be hum­ble from within and “lowly in heart.” Also, humil­ity can­not be man­i­fested to some peo­ple and not oth­ers. True humil­ity from the heart is uni­ver­sal and man­i­fested to every­one, whether a friend or enemy, whether great or small.

The third item in this plan of per­fect Chris­t­ian life is gen­tle­ness. You will remem­ber that gen­tle­ness is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit described by St. Paul in Gala­tians 5:22. Notice in the pas­sage from Matthew 11 above that gen­tle­ness and humil­ity accom­pany each other: “Learn from Me, for I am gen­tle and lowly in heart.” A per­son who is full of pride often­times exalts him­self over oth­ers in an abu­sive way. This mal­treat­ment of oth­ers comes from lack of humil­ity and self-pride. How­ever, when a per­son is truly “lowly in heart,” he sees him­self as less than every­one around him. He there­fore treats every­one gen­tly, acknowl­edg­ing they are greater than him. As with many virtues, there are var­i­ous degrees of gen­tle­ness. The first degree is when a per­son does not repay evil with evil, as St. Paul said, “Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men” (Romans 12:17). How­ever, although some­one may have good self-control in not repay­ing evil for evil in word or deed, he may nonethe­less lose his inner peace. This is the sec­ond degree of gen­tle­ness: to avoid repay­ing evil for evil while main­tain­ing inner peace. Finally, the third degree of gen­tle­ness is when a per­son avoids repay­ing evil for evil, main­tains inner peace, and is gen­uinely grieved that he caused the other per­son to sin.

The fourth item in this plan is patience. Chris­tians who learn the virtues of humil­ity and faith learn not to be afraid of evil and suf­fer­ing. The virtue of patience, on the other hand, teaches us how to deal with evil and suf­fer­ing when we are afflicted. St. Cyril of Alexan­dria taught us that “patience is the sup­plier and win­ner of all good to us.” 1 Patience is nec­es­sary in light of inevitable tribu­la­tion, as the Holy Scrip­tures teach us: “My child, when you come to serve the Lord,  prepare your soul for tribu­la­tion. Set your heart aright and be stead­fast and endure” (Sirach 2:1). Thus, it is for us, through faith and humil­ity, not to fear tribu­la­tion and, through patience, to endure tribu­la­tion with stead­fast hope in our Lord and His abil­ity to deliver us. Patience is con­cerned not only with endur­ing tribu­la­tion, but also wait­ing for the Lord to deliver us at the right time. We see an exam­ple of this in God’s divine plan for us. St. Paul teaches us that Christ was incar­nate in the “full­ness of the time,” which means He came in the per­fect time for our sal­va­tion (Gala­tians 4:4). Pope Alexan­der of Alexan­dria teaches us this is what was meant by the Lord when He said, “I have held My peace a long time, I have been still and restrained Myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor, I will pant and gasp at once” (Isa­iah 42:14). Thus, we must be patient in our lives, endur­ing all things and wait­ing for the Lord to deliver us at the right time.

The fifth item in this plan of per­fect Chris­t­ian life is main­tain­ing “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” We are all united together through the Church with Christ as the head. As one Ortho­dox ascetic said, “The Church is Christ, His Body liv­ing in his­tory.” 2 Just as the early Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ties gath­ered around the bishop and/or pres­byter to cel­e­brate the Eucharist, we are like­wise held together by the Mys­tery of the Eucharist in our own parish churches. St. Paul teaches us, “We who are men are one loaf, one body, because we all par­take from the one loaf” (1 Corinthi­ans 10:6). The Eucharist is one of the old­est sym­bols of unity in the Church. In the Didache, for exam­ple, we find the fol­low­ing prayer: “As this bro­ken bread was once scat­tered upon the moun­tains and was then brought together and became one, so may Thy peo­ple be gath­ered from the four cor­ners of the earth into Thy King­dom.” This is an amaz­ing mys­tery that we cel­e­brate in every Divine Liturgy. Through the Mys­tery of the Eucharist, we are bound together in the unity of the Spirit. Thus, our unity is clear, but how do we pre­serve it? We pre­serve it through the “bond of peace,” which is par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Mys­ter­ies of the Church, prayer, rec­on­cil­ing with one another, and the exer­cise of virtues.

God has bestowed upon us a divine gift of grace through His incar­na­tion, birth, and res­ur­rec­tion from the dead. Let us respond by striv­ing to attain the per­fect Chris­t­ian life. It is never too late to begin, for God will strengthen us along the way. St. John Cass­ian tells us that “God, when He sees in us some begin­nings of a good will, at once enlight­ens it and strength­ens it and urges it on towards sal­va­tion, increas­ing that which He Him­self implanted or which He sees to have arisen from our own efforts.” 3

May God remem­ber the peace of the One, Only, Holy, Catholic, and Apos­tolic Church and pre­serve the lives of our hon­ored father, His Holi­ness Pope Shenouda III and his part­ner in the apos­tolic min­istry, our bishop, His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion. May He grant us the strength and wis­dom to strive towards the per­fect Chris­t­ian life that we may live for Him and the glory of His Name, Amen.

1. 1. St. Cyril of Alexan­dria. Homily on the Nurse of Hope: Patience in Tribulations.
2. 2. Archi­man­drite Vasileios, Hymn of Entry (Crest­wood, New York: SVS Press, 1984), 20–21.
3. 3. St. John Cass­ian, Con­fer­ences, No. 13:9. NPNF XI, 427.

Diocese Congratulates His Holiness Pope Shenouda III on the 38^th Anniversary of his Accession to the See of St. Mark

The Christ-loving Dio­cese of Los Ange­les, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, and Hawaii under the pas­toral care of His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion con­grat­u­lates her beloved father, the Shep­herd of Shep­herds, His Holi­ness Pope Shenouda III, Pope of the Great City of Alexan­dria and Patri­arch of the Ancient See of St. Mark and all lands of emi­gra­tion, on the 38^th Anniver­sary of his acces­sion to the Apos­tolic See of St. Mark.

We have been blessed by your pas­toral care and guid­ance through­out the years. You have taught us to fol­low the exam­ple of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Tra­di­tion of the Holy Ortho­dox Church. Through your teach­ings, we are edi­fied and grow in our knowl­edge of per­fect Christian living.

We thank God for the bless­ing of your lead­er­ship and devo­tion to us and all your chil­dren. We pray that the Lord may pre­serve your life for all your peo­ple around the world. We thank God for the bless­ing of His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion and pray that the Lord may pre­serve his life for us through Your Holiness’s prayers and intercessions.

Wish­ing Your Holi­ness a joy­ful anniver­sary and ask­ing for your prayers on our behalf.

Your Holiness’s lov­ing chil­dren
in the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Dio­cese of Los Angeles, Southern Cal­i­for­nia, and Hawaii

Premarital Couples Retreat — December 13, 2009

The Dio­cese joy­fully announces its annual Pre-Marital Cou­ples Retreat from Fri­day, Decem­ber 11 to Sun­day, Decem­ber 13 at the Cop­tic Vil­lage in Big Bear Lake.

This retreat is intended for Chris­t­ian cou­ples seek­ing enrich­ment before their mar­riage and com­prised of a series of lec­tures, dis­cus­sions, and work­shops led by the Hegu­men Father Gawar­gious Kolta. Topics include:

1. The Chris­t­ian Con­cept of Marriage
2. The Engage­ment Period
3. Pre­mar­i­tal Questionnaire
4. Eight Impor­tant Fac­tors in a Strong Marriage
   1. Neces­sity of a Strong Spiritual Life
   2. Under­stand­ing Your Partner
   3. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion
   4. Other rela­tion­ships
   5. Man­ag­ing finances
   6. Roles
   7. Purity
   8. Inti­macy

The reg­is­tra­tion dead­line is Decem­ber 1, 2009. Down­load the attached PDF flyer for more information.