July 30, 2010

Weep for Your Sins While You Can

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The monks of Nitria sent a peti­tion to St. Macar­ius the Great ask­ing if he would come to them rather than they all come to him. Macar­ius obeyed and came to them.

All the monks gath­ered around St. Macar­ius and begged him for a word of instruc­tion. Macar­ius began to weep and through his tears said: “Brethren, let tears flow from your eyes before you go over there where our tears will fry our bodies.”

Then all the brethren began to weep.

Mahragan Al Keraza Adult Competition 2010

The Diocese of Los Angeles - Mahragan Al Keraza 2010 is pleased to announce it’s First 

Adult Competition. 

The competition will be composed of two components:  Spiritual and Sports.

The Sports’ competition will have two categories: chess and Table Tennis.

  1. ALL Participants MUST PARTICIPATE in THE SPIRITUAL COMPETETION but you can choose to participate in either chess or table tennis or both. Below is the link to the Arabic material.  The link for the English material will be sent to you very shortly.

http://www.thecopticleague.org/documents/Soccer%20League/2010/Adult%20Competition.pdf 


2 - All registration will be communicated via email:

  •  For Registration, or if you have any questions, please contact Sherif Toma at sheriftoma@yahoo.com regarding the chess tournament.
  •  For Registration, or if you have any questions, please contact Maged Gerges at haidy0226@yahoo.com regarding the table tennis tournament.

 3 - Team registration will commence as soon as you receive this email and will close on Sunday, July 25th 2010.To register a team, just send an email and please include: 

  •  Church’s name
  •  Contact person’s name, email, and phone number
  • Participants’ names, emails, and phone numbers

4- Tournament schedule and where the games will be played will be announced shortly after the end of the registration period.

5- For further questions and concerns please contact:

Furthermore, please find the attached Chess Tournament rules and The Table Tennis rules so you can review them before signing up your team.

Thank you for your efforts and may God reward your services.  We look forward to a wonderful and beneficial Competition
 
God Bless,
Mahragan Al Keraza 2010

The Strong Saint Abba Moses Book Now Available for Ordering

With great joy and enthusiasm, the Diocese announces the availability of its new publication The Strong Saint Abba Moses for online ordering. This book is a compilation of original writings about and sayings from St. Moses the Ethiopian, one of the great desert fathers of Egypt whose story of repentance and asceticism is an inspiration to all of us.

From the Preface of His Grace Bishop Serapion:

The story of the life of the Strong Saint Abba Moses is a joyful story. I am pleased to present you, dear readers, this valuable book about the life of Saint Moses the Ethiopian. I pray that Divine Grace may guide you through this joyful story to help you in your spiritual life.

His most profound life gives to each one of us joy and hope, shows us the power of repentance, teaches us that repentance is a struggle of our life, and warns us not to depend on ourselves, but to depend on Divine Grace to grant us the gift of victorious life under the direction of our father of confession.

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless this book for the glory of His Name through the intercession of Saint Moses the Ethiopian.

This book is part of the Saints of the Church Series published by the St. Paul Brotherhood.

ORDER NOW

Divine Liturgy by Fr. Mina Wahba Youssef (10/20/2001)

The Divine Liturgy by Fr. Mina Wahba Youssef cel­e­brated on Octo­ber 20, 2001 at the church.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Holy Liturgy by Fr. Mina Youssef on 10/20/01

Adulterous Passion is Death

St. Mary of Egypt

Not one pas­sion is con­quered with­out a great strug­gle. The Holy Fathers have referred to adul­ter­ous pas­sion as death. When the adul­terer is saved from an adul­ter­ous pas­sion it is as though he res­ur­rected from the dead. For those who live in the world the pas­sion of adul­tery is inflamed prin­ci­pally by see­ing and for those who live a life of asceti­cism in the wilder­ness that pas­sion is inflamed by thoughts and by imag­i­na­tion.

Amma Sarah, a great female ascetic, was tor­tured by the insane pas­sion of adul­tery for thirty years. She always defeated it by prayer and drove it away from her. At one time, the foul insan­ity of adul­tery came to her in bod­ily form and said to her: “Sarah, you have defeated me!” Sarah humbly answered: “I have not defeated you but the Lord Christ has defeated you.” From that time on, the thought of adul­tery left her forever.

When Saint Pimen was asked how can a man strug­gle against the adul­ter­ous insan­ity, he replied: “If man sur­presses his stom­ach and tongue then he will be able to rule over himself.”

St. Anthony said that there exists three kinds of move­ments in the body: “First, the nat­ural move­ment, sec­ond, unre­strained in food, and third, from the demons.”

Again, oth­ers have said that the vice of adul­tery is strength­ened by anger and pride. How­ever, all agree that along with man’s sobri­ety and effort the help of God is nec­es­sary in order that this repul­sive pas­sion be uprooted com­pletely. And that it is pos­si­ble for man to pre­serve him­self in purity, wit­ness, among many oth­ers, St. Moses of Urgin, who lived fifty years in the world and ten years in the monastery, alto­gether a total of sixty years in com­pletely vir­ginal purity.

– Bishop Niko­lai Velimirovich