Below is a post I wrote two years ago, just before the start of Holy Week 2016. As we near the start of another Holy Week, I thought this would be the perfect message for today. I hope you enjoy it and I pray that you all have a fruitful and blessed week as we prepare to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Holy Week Hymns in English
Just wanted to let you all know that I'll be offline till the end of Holy Week and the celebration of Easter on April 16. But if you're looking for a way to get yourself ready for Holy Week, check out the HYMNS OF HOLY WEEK in English.
Learning the hymns of the Pascha services is one of the best ways to transform your worship experience and go from a passive bystander to an active participant. Highly recommend it to all!
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On Christ’s Suffering and Death
The Lenten Season – which concluded last Sunday as we celebrated Christ’s resurrection from the dead – is usually seen as one of the most sacred times of the year for us Christians. This season is at the core of our dogma and our faith, and epitomizes the beautiful story of Christianity, establishing hope for the eternal joy and peace as opposed to the earthly pain and distress. Because of its literally life-changing nature, we are called to engage in more intense daily exercises during Lent, both physically and spiritually
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Why Did They Want to Kill Lazarus?
Has anyone tried to kill you recently? I certainly hope not.
As Fr. Anthony wrote about earlier this week, we in the Coptic Orthodox Church are now preparing to enter Holy Week. Believe it or not, it actually begins tomorrow with Lazarus Saturday. After that is Palm Sunday, then the events of Holy Week through Covenant Thursday, Good Friday, Bright Saturday, and what many church fathers call the ‘Feast of Feasts’, the Holy Resurrection
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Christ is risen...so now what???
The day we’ve been dreading has finally arrived. It’s here and we don’t know what to do with it. Do we run and hide? Or do we succumb to its pressure and surrender? What to do, what to do, what to do... What day is it?
It’s the day when LIFE GOES BACK TO NORMAL AFTER HOLY WEEK!
(insert dramatic pause)
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Discovering the Power of Pascha Week
While most of the country prepares to celebrate Easter this weekend, we in the Orthodox Church appear a little behind once again. Our calendar has Easter falling on April 12 this year. That means that this coming weekend is the weekend of Palm Sunday and the kickoff of Holy Week, or Pascha week as it is more properly known.
Therefore, I thought it would be fun to start off with some Holy Week trivia for you.
Read MoreOffline for Holy Week
It has officially begun - the most beautiful/sacred time of the year. Pascha Week (aka Holy Week) is upon us. Because of that, I won't be blogging this week. But I didn't want to leave my faithful blog followers high and dry so below is a message I shared one year which talks about HOW TO PREPARE FOR HOLY WEEK.
Have a great week and hopefully I'll see you all back online next week.
How Valuable is This One Week to You?
Here we go. It’s that time of year. We’ve been going through Lent for almost 7 weeks and that means that HOLY WEEK is almost here. As soon as I mention the coming of Holy Week (more traditionally known as Pascha Week), there are two responses that might come forth
a) (church people) YES! It’s Holy Week. Services every day. More prayers, more hymns, more readings…MORE CHURCH! YES!!!
b) (non-church people) Oh no! It’s Holy Week. Services every day. More prayers, more hymns, more readings…MORE CHURCH! NO!!!
Same event, completely different responses. Why is that? Why do some people approach Holy Week like a kid on Christmas, while others approach it like a turkey on Thanksgiving? How can that be? How can they be talking about the same thing?
Read MorePascha Week is Here
Just wanted to let my faithful readers know that I won’t be blogging at all this week because this is the week that we in the Orthodox church celebrate Pascha Week (aka Holy Week).
And during Pascha week we have pretty intense schedule of services so therefore I’ll be offline till next week. However, I wanted to share a message which I delivered last night (the first night of Pascha week) over at St. Mark’s church. Something important to keep in mind throughout this week…
It’s Time to Launch Out into the Deep
“Launch out into the deep.” Those were the words that the Lord Jesus spoke to Peter after a long night of work (see Luke 5), during which Peter labored and toiled to catch fish but had come up empty. After that night of frustration, Jesus commands Peter to go back out into the deep waters and let down his nets and try one more time to find what he was looking for.
You probably know how the story ends [Peter catches more fish than he knows what to do with], that isn’t the point of the story.
Read MorePreparing for Holy Week (sermon video)
I'm back online! Sorry for being out of touch all last week. We were getting our house ready to be put on the market for sale - so I was wrapped up with that all day, every day, last week.
But now, thanks be to God, we're done and I am back and more pumped than ever! Lots of stuff I can't wait to share with everyone out there in the blogosphere so stay tuned... But for today, I wanted to share the video of the message that I delivered yesterday: PREPARING FOR HOLY WEEK.
NOTE: if you're not Orthodox and you're wondering why we're preparing for Holy Week now, it's because we are on a different calendar than you. You celebrated Easter a few weeks ago; but we don't get to it till May. So you can look at it as we are a month behind the rest of the Christian world, or as I prefer to see it, we are about 11 months ahead. :)
Either way, check out the video and hopefully this helps get you in the right frame of mind - regardless of when you celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord.