June 7, 2026
Saturday, June 6 SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
4:00 PM Fred & Olga Yuhas – Michalene Ostrum
Sunday, June 7 SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
8:30 AM God’s Blessings & Good Health For All Parishioners
Saturday, June 13 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
4:00 PM Olga Morgenfruh- Parishioners of St. Vladimir’s Church
Sunday, June 14 THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
8:30 AM God’s Blessings & Good Health For All Parishioners
If you have not yet become mightily inflamed with the Holy Spirit, avoid listening to the thoughts of others, that what you hear might not arouse passions not yet dead and pervert your soul. If you are an ardent reader, seek not brilliant and erudite texts; otherwise the demon of haughtiness will strike your heart. But like a wise bee that gathers honey from flowers, through your reading obtain also healing for your soul.
Blessed is he who preaches virtue by means of his deeds. But if you say something that pertains to virtue, but do the opposite, this will not save you. When you see people dissipated in acts of unclean love, look not at them in amazement, that you might not be seduced by rosy skin which will soon turn to dust. Rather sigh to yourself and cry out: Remember, O Lord, that we are dust — and God’s grace will prevent you from becoming a prisoner of the Evil One. Pray diligently to the Lord, that He might grant you the spirit of perfect chastity, that even as you dream at night you might evade the wiles of the Evil One as a person runs when he sees a wild beast chasing after him; or as a man whose pursuer carries a burning torch runs from room to room, that the fire might not burn him. Just as one cannot buy education or artistic skills for any price without working at it, so one cannot attain the habit of exercising the virtues without zeal and diligence.
Just as your head takes priority over all other members of your body, and if a stone, stick or sword is aimed at you, you raise other members of your body to deflect the blow from your head, knowing that you cannot live in this life without your head — so may you give priority over all things to faith in the Holy Trinity Which is One in essence, for without this faith no one can live the true life. With all your heart hope on the Lord, and you will easily evade the wiles of the wicked one, for the Lord does not forsake those who work for Him. Excerpt from A Spiritual Psalter or Reflections on God, compiled from the works of Saint Ephraim the Syrian
Blessed is he who has found a treasure hidden in a field, and cast aside all, and acquired this one piece of land.
Blessed is he who ceaselessly remembers the day of his departure and strives to be ready and fearless in that hour.
Blessed is he who finds boldness in the hour of his leave-taking, when the soul with fear and trembling bids farewell to the body, for the angels shall come to take his soul, to separate it from the body and place it before the throne at the immortal and terrible judgement place.
– 14th Kathisma Excerpt from the First Stasis of Saint Ephraim the SyrianPetitions & Prayers for Our Parishioners: 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.
ASK FATHER A QUESTION? Father, the world seems hopeless. Sometimes I feel- “Where is God in the world?” Why are many of the things happening allowed? I try to keep “my own house in order – meaning my soul” but often I lose hope. Maybe I fail to see God in the world. Can you offer me any reading or advice? I believe that the world seems hopeless to you because everything surrounding you in world: the media, television, radio, newspaper, magazines, books, movie, theater and much stuff on the internet – the people providing these things are not offering you God. These people are trying to lead you astray and this has been going on in the world since the time of Adam & Eve. All these things you are encountering in your daily lives today are identical to what was happening in Russia and Ukraine 100-150 years ago. Where is God in the world? God is everywhere. You may feel that God is not doing anything, but God is always at work in His providence, if HE were not, total chaos would be reigning this very second. The fact that we can openly pray as Church tells us that chaos is not reigning, that God is at work providing for His faithful ones. Despair is a sin and the devil loves to lead people there. Why are things allowed to happen? Because God is always calling all men to Him. When men choose to stay away from God, God “PERMITS” them to have the desires of their fancy which destroys themselves, with the intent that as they destroy themselves they come to their senses like the Prodigal (sinful) Son. Seeing that they are destroying themselves they recognize that all good things came from God, so they recognize that they should return to God. God is indeed at work today in His Providence as He always has, read 1Kings and 2Kings and notice how God works in the world.
Sending the Holy Apostles to preach, the Lord commanded them to call everyone, saying, The Kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 10:7). That is, the Kingdom has come—go toward it. What ought we to preach? We should cry to all, “ Sons of the Kingdom! Don’t run from the Kingdom into bondage and slavery”—for they are in fact running. Some are captivated by freedom of mind. They say, “We don’t want the bonds of faith and the oppression of authority, even Divine authority’ We’ll figure things out and make up our minds for ourselves.” So they have made up their minds. They have built fables in which there is more childishness than in the mythology of the Greeks—and they magnify themselves… Others are enticed by the broad path of the passions. They say, “We don’t want to know positive commandments or the demands of conscience—this is all abstract: We need tangible naturalness.” And they have gone after it. What has come of it? They have bowed down before dung beasts. Has not the [idea] that man originated from animals originated from this moral fall? This is where they have gone! And everyone runs from the Lord, everyone …
-St. Theoophan the Recluse
There are no requests for the Sanctuary Light this week.
SYMPATHY: Please remember in your prayers the soul of John Ostrum who fell asleep in the Lord on Wednesday, June 3rd, he will be sorely missed. May Our Lord grant him rest in the bosom of Abraham, may he be numbered among the saints, and may his memory be eternal, Vichnaya Pamyat. Our deepest sympathies are extended to the Ostrum & Schappert Families. Visitation is Monday, June 8th from 5-7PM at Grontkowski Funeral home. Parastatas will be at 7:00PM. The Funeral Liturgy is Tuesday at 10:30AM.
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……….
LASAGNA DINNER: Saints Peter & Paul Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, (WB) will hold a Lasagna Dinner on Wednesday, June 10, 2026 in their school hall on the corner of North River and West Chestnut Streets, near the General Hospital Parkade in Wilkes-Barre. This dinner will be Take-Out Only and Pre-Orders are strongly encouraged. Dinners will be $15 and will include; a generous portion of two-meat lasagna, garden salad, bread and dessert. Place your order by calling the School Hall Kitchen (570) 829-3051. Pick-Ups will be from 4:00 to 7:00pm. Tickets will also be sold for a Basket Raffle. Remember…When Baba Cooks, Everybody’s Happy!”
ASK FATHER A QUESTION? Father, what is a Tropar and a Kondak? A troparion (plural troparia; Slavonic tropar, tropari) is a stanza of liturgical poetry. In the Byzantine Church, the troparion began as a repeated refrain during the singing of psalms. Over time it developed a life of its own, to become the troparion of today. Troparia are sung at most liturgical services. The most important is the troparion of the day, which is sung: at Vespers, just before the dismissal – hence the alternate name dismissal troparion (Greek: apolytikion); at Matins, at the beginning and the end of the service; (on great feasts) at the Divine Liturgy, as a refrain after each verse of the Third Antiphon – an echo of the troparion’s original role in the liturgy; at the Divine Liturgy, at the Little Entrance; at each of the Hours. The troparion of the day thus serves as a “thread” that links the different services on a particular day. If several commemorations coincide (for example, when a feast falls on a Sunday), there may be several troparia “of the day”; the Typikon provides rules for such combinations. Like stichera, troparion may be given special names based on their content, such as:
• theotokion – a troparion in honor of the Mother of God
• stavrotheotokion – a troparion commemorating the suffering of the Mother of God at the Cross
• triadikon – a troparion in honor of the Holy Trinity.
The “middle” stanzas of each ode of a canon (following the irmos) are also called troparia. Kontakion comes to us from fifth or sixth century Constantinople, where popular preachers were well-known for their festival sermons – orations or homilies which recounted in detail the events of a feast or saint whose day was being kept. These sermons were considered examples of rhetorical art in God’s service – icons for the ear rather than the eye. The original kontakia were essentially festival sermons in poetic form, set to music. They consisted of an initial stanza called a proemium or “prelude”, and up to twenty-four additional stanzas or oikoi (oikos is the Greek word for “house”), having the same meter and all ending with the same final line as the proemium.The proemium served as an introduction, establishing the topic to be presented. The oikoi developed this topic, sometimes in story form, using dialog or contrast. The repeated final line served as a refrain, tying the entire hymn together. In many kontakia, the initial letters of the oikoi formed an acrostic. For example, they might spell out the letter of the alphabet (in Greek), or give the name of the poet who wrote the kontakion. Kontakia were sung by skilled soloists, who stood at the ambo – not the solea or raised area before the iconstasis as we have it today, but a raised pulpit in the middle of the church. Due to their length, kontakia were written on scrolls, and unrolled as they were sung. The scrolls were wrapped around a pole (kontax), and the hymn was said to be sung “from the pole”. (This is the origin of the word “kontakion”, whch dates from the ninth century.) The singer was often a deacon, and there is some evidence that the choir or even the entire body of the faithful joined in singing the refrain which concluded each stanza. Unfortunately, the music used to sing kontakia has been lost.
SS Peter & Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church 