Presentation on Marriage by Fr George Khoury on 12 November
Abouna George Khoury will speak about “Melkite-Byzantine Perspectives on Marriage” on Thursday 12 November at 7:30 pm in St Elias Church. Abouna George brings both personal and professional experience to this topic. Married in 1985, he and his wife Amal have three children, all college students in the United States. He is the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Melkite Catholic priests. Priesthood has been in his family for 165 years. He is also a psychologist and has served as president and judge of the Family Religious Court in Nazareth, Israel.
Abouna George is a priest of the Melkite-Greek Catholic Archdiocese of Akka, Haifa, and All Galilee. Ordained in 1989, he now lives in Marina, CA. He is Assistant Professor of Arabic at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey and Assistant Professor of intercultural communication at the Chapman University Monterey campus. He holds doctoral degrees in Pastoral Theology from the Lateran University in Rome and in Clinical Psychology from the University of Bucharest in Romania, in addition to many other degrees and credentials.
Since Abouna George is so well-qualified and an informative speaker, his talk should be well worth hearing. He will use a PowerPoint slide show to accompany his lecture. We hope that many parishioners will come to his presentation; usually, non-parishioners outnumber parishioners by about four to one.
Potluck Lunch to Celebrate Fr James’ Anniversaries on 15 Nov.
The ladies of St Elias Church invite everyone to enjoy a lunch after the Divine Liturgy on Sunday 15 November to celebrate the 16th Anniversary of Fr James’s ordination as a priest and his 14th Anniversary as Pastor of St Elias Church. Father James was ordained by Bishop John Elya on 13 November 1993 (the Feast of St John Chrysostom, the great preacher and theologian) in his home parish of St George, Sacramento.
Bishop John appointed him Pastor of St Elias on 1 November 1995, after he had served as Pastor of St Ann Church in Danbury, Connecticut. Enjoy a delicious home-made lunch for only $10 per person and join Father James in giving thanks to God for calling him to serve His Church as a priest, especially in St Elias Parish. The income from the lunch will benefit the parish.
Fr George Will Serve Liturgy on 22 November
Father George Khoury will celebrate the Divine Liturgy at St Elias Church on Sunday 22 November. Father James will be on an Advent Retreat with about two dozen students from the University of California at Santa Cruz. The retreat is sponsored by the Newman Catholic Center at UCSC. We are very grateful to Fr George coming to serve at St Elias. His preaching provides a fresh perspective and Arabic speakers enjoy his eloquence in that language.
Bishop Nicholas Samra Will Visit St Elias 3-6 December
The Most Reverend Nicholas Samra, Titular Bishop of Gerasa and retired Auxiliary Bishop of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy of Newton, will visit St Elias Church for several days in December. His time with us will include a presenta-tion, book-signing, and reception in the evening of Thursday 3 December; Family Night for the Feast of St Nicholas, with refreshments and a Christmas play by the children, on Saturday 5 December at 5:30; and the Divine Liturgy on Sunday 6 December, the Feast of St Nicholas the Wonderworker, followed by a parish lunch.
On Thursday 3 December at 7:30 pm Bishop Nicholas will discuss “American Melkite Identity: The Vision of Archbishop Joseph Tawil.” Earlier this year, Bishop Nicholas published The Courage to be Ourselves: The Legacy of Archbishop Joseph Tawil. His presentation will highlight the vision of Archbishop Tawil as a vision of Church that remains as relevant today as when it was published nearly 40 years ago. Copies of this book will be available at Bishop Nicholas’s lecture for purchase and autographing. Following the presentation, attendees will be invited to meet and talk with Bishop Nicholas at a wine and cheese reception for a donation of $10 to St Elias Church.
Archbishop Joseph Tawil, one of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, was born in Syria in 1913 and led the Melkite Catholic Church in the US from 1969 to 1990. In 1970 he wrote a prophetic pastoral letter entitled “The Courage to be Ourselves,” boldly exhorting his flock to stay true to their origins in the Apostolic Christianity of the Holy Land but also to make their faith present in modern America. He warned that a church based on ethnic iden-tity – one having a “ghetto mentality” – was not truly Christian and could not survive.
Bishop Nicholas Samra, born in New Jersey in 1944, was ordained deacon and priest by Archbishop Tawil in 1970, and consecrated by him as bishop in 1989. Before becoming bishop, he was assistant pastor of St Ann Melkite Church in North Hollywood, CA, and pastor of St Ann Melkite Church in West Paterson, NJ. Later he served as pastor of Our Lady of Redemption Melkite Church in Warren, MI. He retired in 2005 as Auxiliary Bishop of the Mel-kite Eparchy of Newton. He is past president of the Eastern Catholic Association of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and is active as a retreat master, speaker, and author. He has also been involved in the dialogue between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.
Please Complete and Send Back Your Parish Registration Form
Please fill out and return to the church the Parish Registration Form enclosed with this newsletter. The new Parish Councils need to update our information regarding who is a member of the parish, with spouses’ and children’s names; current mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses; ways in which you would like to use your talents to build up our parish community; and suggestions, comments, and questions. The information will of course be confidential, used only for church purposes, such as starting a Youth Group and reorganizing Religious Education.
Make Your Christmas Flower Donation as a Prayer Offering
As we do every year, we will remember in our Christmas Liturgy the intentions of everyone who donates for the flowers and other decorations in the church for the great feast of Christmas, the Nativity of the Lord. Enclosed with this newsletter is a form for listing the names of the people—living and deceased—for whom you want us to pray in that liturgy. Please complete the form and enclose it with your donation in an envelope marked “Christmas Flowers.” You can mail it to the church or put it in the collection basket. We must receive the forms with the donationas and names by Tuesday 22 December to print them in the Christmas bulletin.
Come to Our Christmas Liturgy at 6:30 PM Thursday 24 Dec.
Following the custom established in our community for the past several years, we will celebrate the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas) with one service on Christmas Eve. Our Christmas service, combining prayers and Old Testament readings from Great Vespers with the Liturgy of St Basil the Great, will begin at 6:30 pm on Thursday 24 December. The early evening liturgy will allow families to celebrate both in church and at home with-out having to go out late at night.
On Wednesday 23 December at 7:30 pm we will celebrate the service of chants, psalms, Old Testament prophecies, and prayers called the Royal Hours of Christmas. This service concludes the 40-day preparation for Christmas byt bringing together all the themes of the coming of the Messiah.
Feasts and Fasts Help us Prepare for Christmas
Just as we observe a 40-day fast before Easter, we also traditionally observe a 40-day fast before Christmas—a time of preparation of our souls, minds, and bodies for the coming celebration. The traditional Christmas Lent begins on 15 November and is sometimes called St Philip’s Fast because it starts the day after the Feast of St Philip the Apostle. During this Christmas Fast, we celebrate several important feasts and saints’ days:
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the Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple on 21 November,
•US Thanksgiving Day (26 November this year),
•the Feast of SS Barbara and John of Damascus on 4 December,
•the Feast of St Nicholas on 6 December, and
•the Feast of the Maternity of St Anne (the Conception of Mary) on 9 December.
Because of all these feasts, our Melkite Church now requires fasting before Christmas only for two weeks starting on 10 December. Keeping the traditional fast as much as we can will still bring us spiritual benefits, however.
Monthly Presentations Explore Melkite Identity
As in the past two years, St Elias Church will offer a series of presentations for Faith Formation on Thursday nights at 7:30 each month from through May, except April. The topics will explore aspects of Melkite identity. Almost 30 people came on October 15 and enjoyed a slide show and talk by Archimandrite Mark Melone, iconographer & pas-tor of St George Church, Sacramento, on The Church as Ikon/New Ikons in St Elias Church. Other presentations will be the following:
•November 12—Byzantine Melkite Perspectives on Marriage. Fr George Khoury, PhD, psychologist, pastor, married priest.
•December 3—American Melkite Identity: The Vision of Archbishop Joseph Tawil. Bishop Nicholas Samra, former Auxiliary Bishop of the Eparchy of Newton
•January 28—That All May Be One: Perspectives on Christian Unity. Panel Discussion: Rev. Ben Daniel (Presbyterian), Rev Andrew Kille (American Baptist), Archimandrite Alexei Smith (Protopresbyter, Western Region, Eparchy of Newton/Ecumenical Officer, Archdiocese of Los Angeles).
•February 19—The Meaning of Great Lent. Fr James K. Graham, St Elias Church.
•March 18—Concert of Byzantine Melkite Liturgical Music. Cantor Tony Noujaim and St Elias Choir.
•May 13--The Spirituality of the Divine Liturgy. Fr James K. Graham.
St Elias Will Host Prayer for Christian Unity in January
January, especially the week of the 18th-25th, is dedicated to prayer for the unity of Christians. Every year, the churches of our Alum Rock neighborhood in San Jose, gather to celebrate a service of Prayer for Christian Unity. On 28 January 2010, in connection with our scheduled panel discussion on Christian Unity, St Elias Church will host this neighborhood service.
To allow time for the speakers and a question period, the service will begin at 7 pm instead of 7:30 pm. Participating churches will include Alum Rock United Methodist, Foothill Presbyerian, St Elias, St John Vianney Roman Catholic, and St Philip Episcopal. Clergy and lay people from each congregation will par-ticipate in the service.
