Strength

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.
I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."

~ Mother Teresa

The Twelve Great Feasts

Easter is our greatest feast.
In addition to this there are 12 feasts - 8 in the honour of Jesus and 4 in the honour of Mary.

The twelve great feasts

1) November 21
The Presentation of the Theotokos

2) December 25
The Nativity of Christ -- Christmas (Yaldo)

3) January 6
The Baptism of Christ -- Epiphany (Denaha Perunal)

4) February 2
The Presentation of Christ

5) March 25
The Annunciation (Vachanippu Perunal)

6) The Sunday before Easter
Palm Sunday (Osana)

7) Forty Days after Easter
The Ascension of Christ (Swargarohanam)

8) Fifty Days after Easter
Pentecost (Penthicosthi)

9) August 6
The Transfiguration (Koodara Perunal)

10) August 15
The Dormition of the Theotokos (Vangippu Perunal)

11) September 8
The Nativity of the Theotokos

12) September 14
The Elevation of the Holy Cross (Sleeba Perunal)

Koodara Perunal

August 6 - today is koodara perunal. if i were back home in bangalore, i might've been in church this time! i am here , awake on a saturday morning and sitting in front of a comp. church is 120 miles - 3 hrs away. what do i do ? go back to sleep ? no ... i surfed the net. searched for info. any other feast/important day in the month of august ? many i guess - Vangippu Perunal on aug15 for one : what else ?
Got this list from Syriac Orthodox church website. (http://sor.cua.edu/Calendar/2006.pdf)
Most of what is mentioned are applicable to us I guess.

AUGUST 1:
Beginning of 15 day fast of the Mother of God.
Memory of Martyrs Marth Shmuni, her seven children and teacher Mar Eliazar.

AUGUST 6:
The Feast of Transfiguration of our Lord (Koodara Perunnal). Memory of Metropolitan Alexios Mar Theodosios (40-years,Bethany Ahsram, Perunad)

AUGUST 7:
First Sunday after Transfiguration.

AUGUST 14:
Second Sunday after Transfiguration.

AUGUST 15:
SHUNOYO/VANGIPPU PERUNAL: Dormition of St. Mary/THEOTOKOS -YOLDATH ALOHO.
End of 15 day fast.
MEMORY OF H.H. MAR IGNATIUS ABDED MESSIH PATRIARCH(90-years, Kurkuma Dayara, Mardin).
Feast of Catholicate Chapel, Devalokam

AUGUST 16:
Memory of Mar Ivanios Hidayathullah (312-years,Mulamthuruthy Church)

AUGUST 19:
Mar Laby SleehaMemory of Metropolitan Joseph Mar Pachomios (14-years,Mulakkulam Church)

AUGUST 21:
First Sunday after Vangippu

AUGUST 24:
Mar Mathias Sleeha

AUGUST 28:
Second Sunday after Vangippu

AUGUST 29:
The Beheading of Mar Yohannan Mamdana (St. John the Baptist)

AUGUST 31:
Memory of Metropolitan Mathews Mar Ivanios (25-years, Pampadi Mar Kuriakose Dayara)

Fast of the Theotokos

It is the Fast which precedes the Feast of the Dormition of the All-holy Theotokos and begins on August 1 and lasts until the day of the Feast on August 15.

Mark 1:29-31 : A private miracle

After they came out of the synagogue , they went into the house of Simon and Andrew. Peter’s mother-in-law was in bed and had high fever. Jesus took her by hand and raised her up. The fever left her and she began to attend to their daily needs.

Mark 1:23-28 : The first victory over the powers of evil

In synagogue , while Jesus is teaching, a man with evil spirit shouts out ‘What have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazreth ? Have you come to destroy us ? I know who you are.’
Jesus immediately chastises the spirit and orders it to come out of the man. The spirit immediately leaves the man. People are dumbstruck that he has authority over spirits too.

This brings us to the question of ‘how/why do spirits exist ?’. Jews believed that spirits were descendants of angels and humans. The story goes this way. There were 2 angels – Assael and Shemachsai who forsook God and came into earth attracted by beauty of mortal women. After sometime one of them repented and went back to heaven while the other remained here to gratify his lust. Demons are the children he begat and their children. Their main aim is only to do evil. (a note about descendants of heavenly and earthly beings in given in Genesis 6:1-8).
Whatever it is evil spirits did/do exist. Probably it is another way of telling about an MPD(Multiple personality disorder). But since the victim believes that it is real , the cure is to make the person believe that spirit is gone out of him in the reality even if it means to just clear his thoughts.

Mark 1:14-22

Mark 1:14-15 : The Message of the Good News

After John is imprisoned, Jesus reaches out to people saying “Repent and believe in the good news”.
What he brings to people is
1) good news
a. good news of truth
b. good news of hope
c. good news of peace
d. good news of promise
e. good news of immortality
f. good news of salvation
2) importance of repentance
3) importance of belief

Mark 1:16-20 : Jesus chooses his friends

He did not chose his disciples from aristocrats , nor from scholars , nor from the wealthy. He chose humble fishermen. These verses tell about 4 people becoming his followers. Simon , his brother Andrew are the first to be called. Then James and his brother John are the next. When Jesus called they were busy with their daily work. What is to be noticed is that Jesus just said “Follow me” and they just left whatever they were doing and followed him. There was no kind of justification/explanation about the good news or his preaching. He just said “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men”. The call of God is like falling in love. You forget reason, you have only faith – blind faith; nothing more.

Mark 1:21-22 : Jesus begins his campaign

They went to Capernaum and on the Sabbath, he went to the synagogue and began to teach. They were very astonished to hear him teach since they way he taught and what he taught was different from what the scholars taught.
The question is how could Jesus just go to the synagogue and teach? What was a synagogue? Weren’t there people to manage?
A synagogue is a place of teaching, a place where Jews gather to listen to learned men talking about Torah, especially about the Pentateuch (the first 5 books by Moses). It was not a Temple. A temple is a place of worship and sacrifice and there was only one temple whereas there were many synagogues. As the law says there was one synagogue for every 10 Jewish families. A synagogue had people to manage but the structure was that anybody who had a message could talk. Jesus was a man with a message.
The people were used to being taught the laws and rules from the scriptures and hence were surprised to hear something different from Jesus.

Mark 1:12-13 : The Testing Time

For 40 days Jesus was in wilderness and here he was tested by Satan. Unlike Mathew, Mark does not elaborate on the three tests that Jesus underwent, he just stresses on the fact that immediately after the holy spirit came unto him , he was driven into wilderness and was tested.

No one can escape the assault of temptations. They are not meant to weaken us or dissuade us from pursuing the good things that we ought to, but to strengthen us, ennoble us and to empower us.

While God was telling “take my love to the people, love them till you die for them”, Satan was telling , “bring them to your ways by your power” . Jesus did not yield to the temptation of the Devil.

What is the significance of 40 ? where else do we see this ? Moses was in the mountain with God for 40 days. Just after the period of drought , Elijah walked 40 days to Mount Sinai in the strength of the meal that angel had given him.

In the wilderness , beasts were his companions and angles helped him. This is very similar to the situation in the garden of Eden. When there was no sin , man was friendly with the beasts . This is perhaps a glimpse of heaven that Mark gives us.

Mark 1:9-11 : The day of decision

“To every man there openeth
A way and ways and a way;
The high soul treads the high way,
And the low soul gropes the low,
And in between on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.”
- John Oxenham
(if one doesn’t take a decision when one ought to take , it could bring the person to ruins.)

Baptism of Jesus (Denaha perunal)

John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. Why did Jesus come to john to get baptized?
Not much for purification (since God incarnate cannot be anything but pure) , but for other reasons.
For Jesus baptism was
1) the moment of decision
2) the moment of identification
3) the moment of approval
4) the moment of equipment

For 30 years he had stayed in Nazareth and might have been conscious that he might have to at some point of time go and reach out to people. He might have seen emergence of John as a sign. Then he took the decision to go to Jordan.

Jesus identified himself with the movement to bring back people to the ways of God.

It was a moment when God himself approved of Jesus’ decision. (A voice from the heaven said “Thou art my beloved Son”).

It was a moment when Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus. He was equipped to the arduous task that he was going to perform .

Mark 1:5-8 : The herald of the king

“Education does not consist in telling people new things; it consists in extracting from their memories what they already know” – Plato

John’s words caught like wildfire among people. From Judea , from Jerusalem , people flocked to river Jordan to be baptized by John. Jews had not had a prophet for 300 years and they always had it in their mind that their society was going astray – away from Jehovah. In John they heard the authentic word of God that they wanted to hear.
But still why did people just believe him ? There are more reasons – He lived what he preached. His life was really really simple. He wore garment made of camel’s skin , he lived in the desert , his food was very simple. (It was news to me that Elijah too wore camel’s skin! I’d always picturised him as a royal priest taken up by heavenly chariots & horses) What really struck the chord with people was John’s humility. Him telling that he was not even fit to untie the sandals of the one who was to come, touched everyone. Him telling that his baptism was only of water but the one who was to come would baptize them with holy spirit , evoked awe in people.

Mark 1:1-4 : The beginning of the story

"In youth, because I could not be a singer,
I did not even try to write a song;
I set no little trees along the roadside,
Because I knew their growth would take so long.

But now from wisdom that the years have brought me,
I know that it may be a blessed thing
To plant a tree for someone else to water,
Or make a song for someone else to sing."

Mark says John is the person who planted trees for Jesus to water. The book starts with a verse - “I will send my messenger before you and he will prepare road for you” (Malachi 3:1) . In the original context, the messenger is to come to purify, to cleanse the holy place before the anointed one came.
Barclay goes on to say that wherever the Christian message is spread, that place is cleansed. He cites two examples, one about Bruce Barton, a journalist who wanted to write articles to expose the evangelist Billy Sunday and the other about the happenings in ‘The Mutiny on the Bounty’. In the former case, Barton followed Sunday to several places and found that the moral structure of the place had changed after Sunday's preaching. The society was more peaceful and there was less quarrelling. In the latter, Smith, the only mutineer who had survived, read a bible and preached to the natives. Twenty years down the line, an American ship which chanced upon the island found a peaceful community and not a bunch of savages.

John came announcing baptism. During those days baptism was only for gentiles who were being converted to Jewish faith. Each had to undergo the following
1) Circumcision (mark of covenant)
2) Sacrifice (atonement could only be by blood)
3) Baptism (cleansing )
John preached that Jews has gone so astray from the true faith that they also had to be baptized.
Baptism was accompanied by confession. Confession is complete when a person confesses to 3 people.
1) To himself
2) To those whom he wronged
3) To God
in the same order

The Essential Gospel : Introduction
I have started reading Barclay’s study guide - On the Gospel of St.Mark.

This Gopspel is one among the synoptic gospels and the most important amongst them.

Why ? - Only because the other gospels were written from this and theologians have it that this is earliest account of Jesus that survives now.

But how? How did they deduce that Mark was the first of the Gospels? Barclay explains this in great detail. But I’ll just pen down the vital statements.

St.Mark’s Gospel can be divided into 105 sections.
Of these 93 occur in St.Mathew’s gospel and 81 in St.Luke’s.

St.Mark’s gospel has 661 verses.
Of these St.Mathew reproduces 606, St.Luke reproduces 320.

There are only 24 verses in St.Mark’s gospel that do not occur anywhere in the others.

A close examination of the order of events depicted in the other gospels tells us that they had St.Mark’s gospel before them when they wrote.


Who was Mark ?

(Much as I hate to refer to the apostle with his first name, I’ll continue the writing using that. Partly because all these years I’ve been referring to him as Mark and not St.Mark. Have you noticed that we never call our thirumenis or bava thirumeni by their first name but we refer to Jesus , Mary and the apostles with their first names. Why ?)

He was the son of a well-to-do lady in Jerusalem and his house was the meeting place of early church. He was also the nephew of Barnabas (Barnabas and Paul had set out on missionary journey). It is said that Mark founded the church in Alexandria (Egyptian Orthodox?).
Mark was very close to Peter and his gospel is nothing more than the preaching material of Peter. The picturisation is vivid; very clear, as a reader we would feel as though things are just happening before us. This is because it is almost an eye-witness account of Jesus’s life.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Isn’t it easy to leave everything and follow religion?
Or is it ?
To stand and fight life or to leave it all and help others fight it?

If the sole purpose of life is to understand God and if religion is the only way to God, why shouldn’t all of us be following the seemingly easier path?

Whatever..
this blog is to just log important events in church throughout the year and may be some thoughts that might strike a chord from time to time.

~robin