St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre Orthodox Church
Publish Date: 2025-05-11
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St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre Orthodox Church

General Information

  • Phone:
  • 860-664-9434
  • Street Address:

  • PO Box 134, 108 E Main St

  • Clinton, CT 06413-0134


Contact Information




Services Schedule

Please see our online calendar for dates and times of Feast Day services.


Past Bulletins


Welcome

Jesus Christ taught us to love and serve all people, regardless of their ethnicity or nationality. To understand that, we need to look no further than to the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Every time we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, it is offered "on behalf of all, and for all." As Orthodox Christians we stand against racism and bigotry. All human beings share one common identity as children of God. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatian 3:28)

Members of our Parish Council are:

Carolyn Neiss- President     Greg Jankura - Vice President
Boris Doph - Treasurer     
Sharon Hanson - Member at Large
Luba Martins - Member at Large    
Brett Malcolm - Member at Large

Pastoral Care - General Information

Emergency Sick Calls can be made at any time. Please call Fr Steven at (860) 322-2906, when a family member is admitted to the hospital.
Anointing in Sickness: The Sacrament of Unction is available in Church, the hospital, or your home, for anyone who is sick and suffering, however severe. 
Marriages and Baptisms require early planning, scheduling and selections of sponsors (crown bearers or godparents). See Father before booking dates and reception halls!
Funerals are celebrated for practicing Orthodox Christians. Please see Father for details. The Church opposes cremation; we cannot celebrate funerals for cremations.

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Announcements

Our Diocese will be gathering for a Vespers service on Tuesday, May 13th at 6:30 PM at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in New Britain, CT. The Diocesan Choir will sing the service, and all are warmly invited to attend this beautiful evening of prayer and fellowship.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to seeing many of you there.

In XC
Fr. Phillip

Parish Council

We need to confirm Dierdre Garfield as council secretary. We are also in need of nominations for auditor and Diocese Council Representative. Hopefully, we will have a quorum this Sunday.

 

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Prayers, Intercessions and Commemorations

Many Years! to all our mothers, god-mothers and grandmothers, to Luba Martins and Katerina Hoehnebart on the occasion of their birthdays.

Memory Eternal to Fr Nicholas Timko on the anniversary (5/16) of his repose. Christ is Risen!

Pray for: All those confined to hospitals, nursing homes, and their own homes due to illness; for all those who serve in the armed forces; widows, orphans, prisoners, victims of violence, and refugees;

  • All those suffering chronic illness, financial hardship, loneliness, addictions, abuse, abandonment and despair; those who are homeless and dispossesed, those who are institutionalize, those who have no one to pray for them;
  • All Orthodox seminarians & families; all Orthodox monks and nuns, and all those considering monastic life; all Orthodox missionaries and their families.
  • All those who have perished due to hatred, intolerance, predjudice; pestilence and natural disaster; all those departed this life in the hope of the Resurrection.

Please let Fr. Steven know via email if you have more names for which to pray.

  • Departed:  Evangeline, Wayne 
  • Clergy and their families: Fr Sergei B, Fr Vladimir, Matushka Anne, Matushka Sharon Anne, Fr Vladimir
  • ​Catechumen: James, Paige
  • Individuals and Families: Luba, Suzanne, Rosemary,  Daniel & Dayna, Kristen, Victor, Susan, Gregory, Nancy
  • Birthdays and Name’s Days this Month: Anne Hosking (B-5/4), Kim Hanson (B- 5/6) Luba Martins (B-5/12), Katerina Hoehnebart (B-5/14), Kathryn Brubaker (B-5/24), Stella Boruch (B-5/26), Alexander Melesko (B-5/25), Fr Steven Hosking (B-5/28)
  • Anniversaries this Month: Brubaker (5/23), Melesko (5/24), Kuziak (5/28), Jankura (5/29)
  • Expecting and Newborn: Katie and Aaron and their unborn child
  • Traveling: Michael, Dn Timothy and Maureen
  • Sick and those in distress:  Thomas, Sheri, Joanna, Joshua, Julia, Stormy, Anne, Noah, Nancy, Sophia, Gregory, Tomas, Nicholas, Carol, Matthew, Mark, Hermon, Sandra, Alan, Richard, Peter, Loretta, Boris

Today’s commemorated feasts and saints

4th SUNDAY OF PASCHA — Tone 3. Paralytic. Holy Equals-to-the-Apostles Cyril (869) and Methodius (885), First Teachers of the Slavs. Holy Monastic Martyrs Olympia and Euphrosynē (13th c.). Commemoration of the Founding of Constantinople (330). Hieromartyr Mocius (Mucius), Presbyter, of Amphipolis in Macedonia (3rd-4th c.). Ven. Sophrony, Recluse, of the Kiev Caves (Far Caves—13th c.). St. Joseph, Metropolitan of Astrakhan (1671). St. Nikodemos, Archbishop of Serbia (1325).

  • Again we pray for those who have lost their lives because of the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East: that the Lord our God may look upon them with mercy, and give them rest where there is neither sickness, or sorrow, but life everlasting.
  • Again we pray for mercy, life, peace, health, salvation, for those who are suffering, wounded, grieving, or displaced because of the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East.
  • Again we pray for a cessation of the hostilities against Ukraine and the Middle East, and that reconciliation and peace will flourish there, we pray thee, hearken and have mercy.
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Parish Calendar

  • St Alexis Parish

    May 11 to May 19, 2025

    Sunday, May 11

    Sunday of the Paralytic

    9:30AM Divine Liturgy

    Monday, May 12

    4th Monday after Pascha

    Luba Martins

    Elisha Liam Watson

    Tuesday, May 13

    4th Tuesday after Pascha

    Wednesday, May 14

    4th Wednesday after Pascha - Mid-Pentecost

    Katerina Hoehnebart

    Thursday, May 15

    Pachomius the Great

    Friday, May 16

    Theodore the Sanctified

    Saturday, May 17

    The Holy Apostles Andronicus and Junia

    5:30PM Great Vespers

    Sunday, May 18

    Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

    9:30AM Divine Liturgy

    Monday, May 19

    Patrick the Hieromartyr and Bishop of Prusa and His Fellow Martyrs Acacius, Menander, and Polyaenus

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Saints and Feasts

May 11

Sunday of the Paralytic

Close to the Sheep's Gate in Jerusalem, there was a pool, which was called the Sheep's Pool. It had round about it five porches, that is, five sets of pillars supporting a domed roof. Under this roof there lay very many sick people with various maladies, awaiting the moving of the water. The first to step in after the troubling of the water was healed immediately of whatever malady he had.

It was there that the paralytic of today's Gospel way lying, tormented by his infirmity of thirty-eight years. When Christ beheld him, He asked him, "Wilt thou be made whole?" And he answered with a quiet and meek voice, "Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool." The Lord said unto him, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." And straightaway the man was made whole and took up his bed. Walking in the presence of all, he departed rejoicing to his own house. According to the expounders of the Gospels, the Lord Jesus healed this paralytic during the days of the Passover, when He had gone to Jerusalem for the Feast, and dwelt there teaching and working miracles. According to Saint John the Evangelist, this miracle took place on the Sabbath.


May 11

Methodios & Cyril, Equal-to-the Apostles Illuminators of the Slavs

Born in Thessalonica, Saint Methodius was a military man before becoming a monk on Mount Olympus. His brother Constantine, known as the Philosopher because of his erudition, was Librarian at the Church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople; he later became a monk with the name of Cyril. The Emperor Michael sent him with his brother Methodius to the Khazars in response to their petition for teachers to expound to them the Christian Faith. On their way, they stayed in Cherson, where they recovered from the Black Sea the relics of Saint Clement of Rome. Later, they were called by Prince Rostislav of Moravia to instruct his people in the Orthodox Faith (Saint Rostislav died a martyr's death and is celebrated Oct. 15). The Saints devised an alphabet for the Slavs, and used it to translate the Greek books into the language of the people. In their apostolic labours throughout the Balkans, the holy brothers were slandered by certain Germanic bishops who opposed the use of the vernacular in the church services. Summoned to court at Rome in 867, they presented their Slavonic translations to Pope Adrian II, who received them with love and full approval. Two years later, Saint Cyril reposed in Rome on February 14 and was buried in the Church of Saint Clement. Saint Methodius was made Bishop of Moravia, but at the intrigues of certain Latin clergy, was cast into prison by the "Holy Roman Emperor" (the Germanic Emperor of the West), where he was cruelly tormented for some three years. In 874, through the defence of Pope John VIII, he was freed and made Archbishop of Moravia. Because he reproved the lax morals of the German priests in Moravia, he was soon accused of heresy by them, and was forbidden to celebrate the Liturgy in Slavonic. Summoned to Rome again in 879, he was completely exonerated and allowed once again to use the Slavonic tongue for the divine services. He reposed on April 6, 885.


May 12

Epiphanios, Bishop of Cyprus

Saint Epiphanius was born about 310 in Besanduc, a village of Palestine, of Jewish parents who were poor and tillers of the soil. In his youth he came to faith in Christ and was baptized with his sister, after which he distributed all he had to the poor and became a monk, being a younger contemporary of Saint Hilarion the Great (see Oct. 21), whom he knew. He also visited the renowned monks of Egypt to learn their ways. Because the fame of his virtue had spread, many in Egypt desired to make him a bishop; when he learned of this, he fled, returning to Palestine. But after a time he learned that the bishops there also intended to consecrate him to a widowed bishopric, and he fled to Cyprus. In Paphos he met Saint Hilarion, who told him to go to Constantia, a city of Cyprus also called Salamis. Epiphanius answered that he preferred to take ship for Gaza, which, despite Saint Hilarion's admonitions, he did. But a contrary wind brought the ship to Constantia where, by the providence of God, Epiphanius fell into the hands of bishops who had come together to elect a successor to the newly-departed Bishop of Constantia, and the venerable Epiphanius was at last constrained to be consecrated, about the year 367. He was fluent in Hebrew, Egyptian, Syriac, Greek, and Latin, and because of this he was called "Five-tongued." He had the gift of working miracles, and was held in such reverence by all, that although he was a known enemy of heresy, he was well nigh the only eminent bishop that the Arians did not dare to drive into exile when the Emperor Valens persecuted the Orthodox about the year 371. Having tended his flock in a manner pleasing to God, and guarded it undefiled from every heresy, he reposed about the year 403, having lived for ninety-three years. Among his sacred writings, the one that is held in special esteem is the Panarion (from the Latin Panarium, that is, "Bread-box,") containing the proofs of the truth of the Faith, and an examination of eighty heresies.


May 13

Glykeria the Virgin-martyr of Heraclia

This Martyr contested in 141 in Trajanopolis of Thrace, during the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. At a heathen festival, when Sabine the Governor of Trajanopolis was offering sacrifice, Saint Glyceria entered the temple and declared herself to be a handmaid of Christ. Sabine commanded her to sacrifice. She went to the statue of Zeus and overturned it, dashing it to pieces. She was subjected to many horrible tortures, and finally was cast to wild beasts; bitten once by one of them, she gave up her soul into the hands of God.


May 14

4th Wednesday after Pascha - Mid-Pentecost

After the Saviour had miraculously healed the paralytic, the Jews, especially the Pharisees and Scribes, were moved with envy and persecuted Him, and sought to slay Him, using the excuse that He did not keep the Sabbath, since He worked miracles on that day. Jesus then departed to Galilee. About the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles, He went up again to the Temple and taught. The Jews, marvelling at the wisdom of His words, said, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" But Christ first reproached their unbelief and lawlessness, then proved to them by the Law that they sought to slay Him unjustly, supposedly as a despiser of the Law, since He had healed the paralytic on the Sabbath. Therefore, since the things spoken by Christ in the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles are related to the Sunday of the Paralytic that is just passed, and since we have already reached the midpoint of the fifty days between Pascha and Pentecost, the Church has appointed this present feast as a bond between the two great feasts, thereby uniting, as it were, the two into one, and partaking of the grace of them both. Therefore today's feast is called Mid-Pentecost, and the Gospel Reading, "At Mid-feast"--though it refers to the Feast of Tabernacles--is used.

It should be noted that there were three great Jewish feasts: the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. Passover was celebrated on the 15th of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish calendar, which coincides roughly with our March. This feast commemorated that day on which the Hebrews were commanded to eat the lamb in the evening and anoint the doors of their houses with its blood. Then, having escaped bondage and death at the hands of the Egyptians, they passed through the Red Sea to come to the Promised Land. It is also called "the Feast of Unleavened Bread," because they ate unleavened bread for seven days. Pentecost was celebrated fifty days after the Passover, first of all, because the Hebrew tribes had reached Mount Sinai after leaving Egypt, and there received the Law from God; secondly, it was celebrated to commemorate their entry into the Promised Land, where also they ate bread, after having been fed with manna forty years in the desert. Therefore, on this day they offered to God a sacrifice of bread prepared with new wheat. Finally, they also celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles from the 15th to the 22nd of "the seventh month," which corresponds roughly to our September. During this time, they live in booths made of branches in commemoration of the forty years they spent in the desert, living in tabernacles, that is, tents (Ex. 12:10-20; Lev. 23).


May 15

Pachomios the Great

Saint Pachomius was born of pagan parents in the Upper Thebaid of Egypt. He was conscripted into the Roman army at an early age. While quartered with the other soldiers in the prison in Thebes, Pachomius was astonished at the kindness shown them by the local Christians, who relieved their distress by bringing them food and drink. Upon inquiring who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed that once delivered from the army, he would serve Him all the days of his life. Released from military service, about the year 313, he was baptized, and became a disciple of the hermit Palamon, under whose exacting guidance he increased in virtue and grace, and reached such a height of holiness that "because of the purity of his heart," says his biographer, "he was, as it were, seeing the invisible God as in a mirror." His renown spread far, and so many came to him to be his disciples that he founded nine monasteries in all, filled with many thousands of monks, to whom he gave a rule of life, which became the pattern for all communal monasticism after him. While Saint Anthony the Great is the father of hermits, Saint Pachomius is the founder of the cenobitic life in Egypt; because Pachomius had founded a way of monasticism accessible to so many, Anthony said that he "walks the way of the Apostles." Saint Pachomius fell asleep in the Lord before his contemporaries Anthony and Athanasius the Great, in the year 346. His name in Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle."


May 16

Theodoros the Sanctified

This Saint, who was born in the Upper Thebaid of Christian parents, joined the community of Saint Pachomios at about the age of fourteen years, and became the greatest of his disciples. Because of Theodore's utter humility and unquestioning obedience, Pachomios called him more and more to his aid in governing the monasteries he had established. Although some found fault with this, because Theodore was younger than they, Pachomios continued to put his confidence in him, to such a degree that once he told the brotherhood, "Theodore and I fulfil the same service for God; and he also has the authority to give commands as father." Pachomios was succeeded as governor of the monks by Saint Orsiesius in 346, and Orsiesius later took Theodore as his fellow abbot. At Theodore's death in the year 368, the monks mourned him so bitterly that the sound of their crying was heard on the other side of the river.


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Hymns of the Day

Priest:  Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages

Choir: Amen

Priest:  Christ is Risen (2 ½ times)

Choir:  And upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

Tone 3    Troparion    (Resurrection)
Let the heavens rejoice!
Let the earth be glad!
For the Lord has shown strength with His arm.
He has trampled down death by death.
He has become the first born of the dead.
He has delivered us from the depths of hell,
and has granted to the world//
great mercy.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

Tone 3    Kontakion    (Pentecostarion)
By Your divine intercession, O Lord,
as You raised up the Paralytic of old,
so raise up my soul, paralyzed by sins and thoughtless acts;
so that being saved I may sing to You://
“Glory to Your power, O compassionate Christ!”

now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Tone 8    Kontakion    (Pascha)
You descended into the tomb, O Immortal,
You destroyed the power of death.
In victory You arose, O Christ God,
proclaiming: “Rejoice!” to the Myrrhbearing Women,//
granting peace to Your Apostles, and bestowing Resurrection on the fallen.

HYMN TO THE THEOTOKOS
(Instead of “It is truly meet…,” we sing:)
The Angel cried to the Lady, full of grace:
“Rejoice, O pure Virgin! Again, I say: Rejoice,
your Son is risen from His three days in the tomb!
With Himself He has raised all the dead.”
Rejoice, O ye people!

Shine, shine, O new Jerusalem!
The glory of the Lord has shone on you.
Exult now, and be glad, O Zion!
Be radiant, O pure Theotokos,
in the Resurrection of your Son

COMMUNION HYMN

Receive the Body of Christ; taste the fountain of immortality!
Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the highest!
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

  • Priest: “In the fear of God…”
  • Choir: “Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord… “
  • Priest: “O God, save Your people… “
  • Choir: “Christ is risen from the dead… “ (sung once, instead of “We have seen the True Light…)
  • Priest: “Always, now and ever…”
  • Choir: “Let our mouths be filled…”

At the Dismissal,

  • Priest: “Glory to You, O Christ…”
  • Choir:  Christ is risen from the dead…” (thrice).
  • And unto us He has given eternal life.
  • Let us worship His Resurrection on the third day!
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Gospel and Epistle Readings

Epistle Reading

Prokeimenon. 3rd Tone. Psalm 46.6,1.
Sing praises to our God, sing praises.
Verse: Clap your hands, all you nations.

The reading is from Acts of the Apostles 9:32-42.

In those days, as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints that lived at Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed." And immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. Now there was at Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. In those days she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him entreating him, "Please come to us without delay." So Peter rose and went with them. And when he had come, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping, and showing tunics and other garments which Dorcas made while she was with them. But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed; then turning to the body he said, "Tabitha, rise." And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. And he gave her his hand and lifted her up. Then calling the saints and widows he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.


Gospel Reading

Sunday of the Paralytic
The Reading is from John 5:1-15

At that time, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water; whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your pallet, and walk." And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked.

Now that day was the sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, "It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet." But he answered them, "The man who healed me said to me, 'Take up your pallet, and walk.' "They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take up your pallet, and walk'?" Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.


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Wisdom of the Fathers

In that case [Matt 9:2] there was remission of sins, (for He said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee,") but in this, warning and threats to strengthen the man for the future; "Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you."
St. John Chrysostom
Homily 37 on John 1, 4th Century

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Beyond the Sermon

The Gospel story of the man with paralysis is our story, too. We are all in need of healing,
and we are incapable of saving ourselves. We need help from others, and ultimately, we
need God’s grace.
There was a healing pool on the outskirts of Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate,
through which the animals to be sacrificed at the Temple passed. The pool was surround-
ed by five covered porches from which the water could be accessed. Many sick people
with various ailments would lay on the porches, waiting for the water to be stirred up and
the medicinal properties from the underground spring to be released. It was believed
that an angel of the Lord would come and stir the water, giving it healing power. The first
person to step into the stirring water was instantly healed. The pool was called Bethesda
— which means “house of mercy” — because of the healing of many who suffered.
Jesus is in Jerusalem for a Jewish festival. He sees a man with paralysis by the pool
who has suffered for 38 years. Jesus has compassion for him and asks, “Do you want to
be healed?” Saint John Chrysostom says that Jesus does not ask this question for Him-
self. He does so to bring to light the great patience of the man, who for 38 years had sat
by the pool with the hope of being healed. The man answers, “Sir, I have no man to put
me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going, another steps down
before me.” Jesus responds, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” The man is healed at
once, and he picks up his bed and leaves.
This healing occurs on the Sabbath (Saturday), the day of rest. The Jewish leaders
accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath Law. Instead of praising God for the miracle, they
condemn Jesus for not honoring the letter of the Law. This reminds us to commit our-
selves more to the love of God and His grace than to rules and religious customs. “The
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).
The pool is a metaphor for the Mosaic Law, and the man with paralysis is an image
of Israel yearning to find salvation in the Law. The man was in his condition for a long time,
just as Israel had been waiting for deliverance from their long-awaited Messiah. Angels
were said to have stirred the Pool of Bethesda, just as angels were said to have given the
Law (Acts 7:53). The pool featured five entrances, just as the Mosaic Law (the Pentateuch)
had five books. Christ is the embodiment and fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, and
“by His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
Only one of the many sick and disabled at Bethesda is healed by the Lord. Although Jesus has compassion for all, the Lord directs his attention to the one who had
no one to help him. The man with paralysis represents each and every one of us. We all
become spiritually paralyzed by the weight of our sins and our shortcomings. As the man
with paralysis needed to be healed, we desperately need healing. As the man was unable
to get to the waters himself, we also need Christ to help us.
Our healing begins with faith. The man with paralysis had waited for 38 years be-
cause others would get to the waters when stirred before he could. Still, he perseveres
in faith. Jesus asks him if he wants to be healed because free will is always involved in
God’s miracles. God’s love initiates the giving of His Grace, but it is up to us to respond
freely by accepting His Grace. The love God offers humanity cannot be reconciled with
force or pressure. Love is only compatible with freedom and trust. Christ knows the exact
condition of the man with paralysis, but He still asks him if he wants to be healed. Christ
knows the exact condition of each and every one of us, but He still asks us if we truly want
salvation.
Later, Jesus finds the man in the Temple and says, “See, you are well! Sin no more,
that nothing worse befall you.” The Lord’s instruction draws attention to the underlying
condition of the paralysis — the relationship between suffering and sin. As the Gospel
story demonstrates, our bodies and souls are interconnected. The health of our body,
mind, and spirit are interdependent. A spiritual problem may have physical consequences, and physical problems may cause psychological or spiritual issues.
The Church, like a hospital, offers holistic treatment for all that afflicts us in body
and soul. We receive the medicine of God’s grace through personal prayer — especially
the Jesus Prayer and the Psalter (Book of Psalms) — the Divine Liturgy, and most of all,
the Holy Sacraments.
The healing waters in the Pool of Bethesda are a symbol of Baptism. But where
the waters of Bethesda cured physical ailments, Baptism cures those of the soul. But even
after our Baptism, we still experience the paralysis caused by sin and need further healing.
Confession —called “a second baptism” — is where God’s grace heals us through our re-
pentance and the priest’s absolution prayers read over us. Holy Unction is the Sacrament
of spiritual and physical healing. And it is in the Holy Eucharist that our body and soul are
healed by receiving Christ’s Body and Blood.
Like the man with paralysis, the Lord sees us and wants to heal us. As we persevere
in faith and participate in the Holy Sacraments of the Church, we will continually receive
healing of our soul and body with the promised gift of eternal life.

https://www.goarch.org/departments/religioused/sermons

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