May 24, 2026 A. D.
Saturday, May 23 PENTECOST SUNDAY (Myrovania)
4:00 PM Michael Sirak- Michaelene Ostrum
Sunday, May 24 PENTECOST SUNDAY(Myrovania)
8:30 AM God’s Blessings & Good Health For All Parishioners
2:00 PM Panachyda Sts. Peter & Paul Cemetery
Blessing of Graves
3:30 PM Panachyda Saint Vladimir Cemtery
Blessing of Graves
Monday, May 25 MEMORIAL DAY
****9:00 AM Transfiguration of Our Lord Church****
Saturday, May 30 SUNDAY OF ALL SAINTS
4:00 PM God’s Blessings & Good Health For All Parishioners
Sunday, May 31 SUNDAY OF ALL SAINTS
8:30 AM Jewel Johnstone- Mr. & Mrs. Rossi
Please remember in your prayers all of our brave service men and women who bravely served our country.
FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!
PENTECOST QUESTIONS….
In the prayer, ‘Heavenly King’, we ask for salvation. But surely only Christ, and not the Holy Spirit, is our Saviour?
We use many short, and long, prayers, asking for salvation. For example: ‘Most Holy Trinity, save us’. ‘Most Holy Mother of God, save us’. And yet, as you say, there is only one Savior, Christ our God. So how then can we be saved by the Holy Trinity? Answer: Through the Savior, through Christ, sent down to us by the Holy Trinity. How can we be saved by the Mother of God? Surely, she cannot save us? Yes, she can – through her mother’s prayers to the Savior. Christ saves us through others. So too, Christ the Savior saves us through the Holy Spirit, or, if you like, the Holy Spirit saves us through Christ. After all, it was only through the Savior, that we received the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. It was only through the Mother of God that the Savior became one of us, only without sin.
What does the word Pentecost mean?
First of all, I should say that the most common name for this feast is ‘Trinity Day’, rather than the more formal ‘Pentecost’. This is because this feast is the revelation of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the revelation of the fullness of the Holy Trinity, for until today, we had only known the Father and the Son. The Son had promised us the ‘Comforter’ and today He is here, in fulfilment of that promise. Pentecost is simply the Greek word for fifty. Pentecost comes 50 days after Easter. The significance of this is that even in the Old Testament (Leviticus 25), the number 50 was special. This is because seven is the number of fullness, and eight (7+1) is the number of completion (God rested on the seventh day, after the six days of Creation). 7 x 7 is therefore a particular sign of fullness and 50 is of course 7 x 7 + 1, fullness. Therefore, in the Old Testament, every fiftieth year was called a Jubilee year. The Jubilee year was not only the end of the old Jubilee period, but also the beginning of the new one. Thus, there were forty-nine years between each Jubilee year.
By adding one to seven, we reach eight. Eight is seen as the number of what is beyond the fullness of this world, beyond Creation, beyond the physical world, what is part of the age to come, ‘the eighth day’. Thus, Pentecost, the Descent of the Holy Spirit to earth, is the fullness of the revelation of the Holy Trinity. This is why it is called Trinity Day. The Descent of the Holy Spirit from heaven is the sign of the other world, the age to come, ‘the eighth day’, penetrating into this world. That is why baptisteries were, and still are, octagonal. They symbolize the person baptized entering into the other world, becoming a citizen of the Kingdom to come, ‘the eighth day’.
The Sanctuary Light for the week ending 5/17 was requested by Anna Magill IMO her sister Irene Frisbee.
This week ending 5/24, the Sanctuary Light is requested by Michaelene Ostrum IMO her father Michael Sirak.
PLYMOUTH 250th ANNIVERSARY OF OUR NATION PARADE IN PLYMOUTH: The Auspice of Maria will participate in the parade from; St. Mary’s, St. Stephan’s & St. Vincent’s Catholic Church and welcomes parishioners of Saint Peter & Paul Church to participate. If you are interested please call Nancy Restraino at 570-239-3363. There is a flyer in the back of the church and they will be parking at St. Peter & Paul Church and assembling at the Family Dollar at 10:30 am.
The Borough of Plymouth has asked Parishes to ring their bells at Noon on Saturday, May 30 in celebration of our nation’s 250th Birthday. Any parishioner who is willing to ring the bells, please feel free to come and ring the bells.
FATHER’S DAY REMEMBRANCES: Father’s Day is June 21st, don’t forget to remember your Father at our Father’s Day Divine Liturgy.
WALKING PILGRIMAGE: FOOTSTEPS OF OUR ANCESTORS: Save the date Saturday, June 13. A Seven Mile Walking Pilgrimage from St. Mary’s Church in Mocanaqua through the Pinchot State Forest, Mocanaqua Tract to St. Nicholas Church, Glen Lyon. Divine Liturgy offered and lunch served at the end of the walk. Register by June 6, 2026 at www.tinyurl.com/foapilgrimage26. For more information call/text 570-301-9253 or email foapilgrimage@gmail.com. The faith lives on in Glen Lyon……….
Petitions & Prayers for Our Parishioners: John Ostrum, Donna Winsock, Sonia Dempsey, Catherine Halloway, Charles Hallaway, Louise Hubiack, Frank Udiski, Paul Hoover & James Bencho. Keep them in your prayers. If anyone would like to be included in the prayer list drop a note in the basket, email the church or text Michalene Ostrum at 570-704-7079.
The True Spectacle
By surrendering Jesus to the blood thirsty crowd, Pontius Pilate enacted more than a judicial sentence—he affirmed Romes’s power to define life and death through public spectacle. In the crucifixion, Jesus’ body became an object of scorn, offered up to satisfy the crowd’s appetite for violence. The spectacle invited the multitude to gaze, to judge, and to consume. Yet Christ, in freely offering Himself, inverting the meaning of His death. What Rome staged as humiliation, Christ transformed into a gift. The cross, intended as an imperial spectacle of domination, became the altar of divine love.
The Eucharist is the fulfillment of this transformation. Where spectacle thrives on the objectification of the body, the Eucharist invites communion with the body. In spectacle, the flesh is consumed to satisfy desire; in the Eucharist, Christ offers His flesh to reorient desire. Rather than being passively consumed by the crowd, Jesus gives Himself intentionally to His disciples—Take, Eat; this is My Body.
The Eucharist thus becomes the anti-spectacle: not a performance to observe, but a mystery to enter. In consuming Christ’s body and blood, the believer is united to His death and resurrection. The Eucharist reshapes the soul, drawing it away from the illusion of spectacle and toward the reality of divine communion. In this sacred act, desire is not inflamed and misdirected as in spectacle, but purified and fulfilled. Through this sacrament, believers are formed not into spectators, but into participants in the life of God. -excerpt from Saints of the Apoclalypse, Saint Stephen
Typologically, the rise of the Antichrist will be marked not by overt evil alone, but by a widespread failure to perceive and name the enmity between the true Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, and its counterfeit- the Anti-Church. In such an age, the distinction between truth and falsehood will be deliberately obscured. The ancient conflict between Christ and the Synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9) will be recast as irrelevant, intolerant or obsolete. This spiritual blindness will manifest not only in the silencing of prophetic voices, but in a distorted image of the Church herself. Without the ability—or willingness—to identify spiritual enemies the Church risks becoming lukewarm, accommodating the worlds’ narratives rather than proclaiming the Gospel. The command to love one’s enemies presumes the courage to recognize them—not as objects of hatred, but as those in need of truth and conversion. – excerpt from Saints of the Apoclalypse, Saint Stephen
The True Spectacle
By surrendering Jesus to the blood thirsty crowd, Pontius Pilate enacted more than a judicial sentence—he affirmed Romes’s power to define life and death through public spectacle. In the crucifixion, Jesus’ body became an object of scorn, offered up to satisfy the crowd’s appetite for violence. The spectacle invited the multitude to gaze, to judge, and to consume. Yet Christ, in freely offering Himself, inverting the meaning of His death. What Rome staged as humiliation, Christ transformed into a gift. The cross, intended as an imperial spectacle of domination, became the altar of divine love.
The Eucharist is the fulfillment of this transformation. Where spectacle thrives on the objectification of the body, the Eucharist invites communion with the body. In spectacle, the flesh is consumed to satisfy desire; in the Eucharist, Christ offers His flesh to reorient desire. Rather than being passively consumed by the crowd, Jesus gives Himself intentionally to His disciples—Take, Eat; this is My Body.
The Eucharist thus becomes the anti-spectacle: not a performance to observe, but a mystery to enter. In consuming Christ’s body and blood, the believer is united to His death and resurrection. The Eucharist reshapes the soul, drawing it away from the illusion of spectacle and toward the reality of divine communion. In this sacred act, desire is not inflamed and misdirected as in spectacle, but purified and fulfilled. Through this sacrament, believers are formed not into spectators, but into participants in the life of God. -excerpt from Saints of the Apoclalypse, Saint Stephen
Typologically, the rise of the Antichrist will be marked not by overt evil alone, but by a widespread failure to perceive and name the enmity between the true Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, and its counterfeit- the Anti-Church. In such an age, the distinction between truth and falsehood will be deliberately obscured. The ancient conflict between Christ and the Synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9) will be recast as irrelevant, intolerant or obsolete. This spiritual blindness will manifest not only in the silencing of prophetic voices, but in a distorted image of the Church herself. Without the ability—or willingness—to identify spiritual enemies the Church risks becoming lukewarm, accommodating the worlds’ narratives rather than proclaiming the Gospel. The command to love one’s enemies presumes the courage to recognize them—not as objects of hatred, but as those in need of truth and conversion. – excerpt from Saints of the Apoclalypse, Saint Stephen
The Soul is a Lamp
Saint Symeon the New Theologian declares that God is fire. The Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles at Pentecost in the form of flaming tongues of fire. He compares the soul to a lamp. Just as a lamp must be adorned with a good supply of oil and trimmed wicks in order to produce fire and light, so the soul must be adorned with all virtues, but beyond that it must receive the fire which is the Holy Spirit. God is fire, He says, and through the Holy Spirit searches for material to set on fire with divine love. We are that material. Jesus came to cast fire not on earth, but in our hearts and minds. He came to ignite and illumine the lamp of each person’s soul. We read in Proverbs 20:27, “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.” The spirit of man remains unfulfilled until it is touched by the divine flame. All candles have one thing in common: they must be lit in order to be useful. If not, they may as well be pieces of pottery. God created us in many different, sizes, shapes and colors. Each of us has a special talent. But, like candles, we are just a decoration in the world unless we are lit to shine for Him.
-Sacred Symbols, by Anthony M Coniaris
A Word of Caution
A note of caution here. There are many cults that emphasize the Inner Light. They have good things to say about the inner light and the guidance they receive from it. However, by “inner light” they do not mean what we mean: the presence of the Trinity within us. Inner light to them means their own light that emerges from their own thinking. It has nothing to do with God. It, is in fact, a Godless humanism. As G.K. Chesterton so well said, “That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean the Jones shall worship Jones.”
-Sacred Symbols, by Anthony M Coniaris
PETROVKA (St. Peter & Paul Fast): St. Peter & Paul Fast begins on Sunday evening, June 1 at Vespers with the singing of “O Joyful Light…” after the Sunday of All Saints and continues until Saturday, June 29th. The Apostles’ Fast is not as severe as Lent or the Dormition Fast, but entails fasting from red meat, poultry, meat products, eggs, dairy products, fish, oil, and wine. Fasting also partners with prayer, almsgiving and confession, readying the whole person like an athlete; body, mind, and soul, for an upcoming feast, similar to the way in which orthodox Catholics would hope to be properly prepared for the Second Coming. For this reason, during fasting seasons, no marriages should take place. Another important part of any fasting period is going to Confession. The Feast of Ss. Peter & Paul is Sunday, June 29th.
SS Peter & Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church 