Christ is Risen!
Indeed He is Risen!

The Focus on Scripture forum will resume soon. I have in mind doing the Acts of the Apostles until Pentecost (since this we cover in our lectionary), but not every chapter. I also plan to cover the Sundays too and their Gospel readings. All in all, I hope to show more 'connections' between our Scriptures and our Liturgies, especially in regards to our stichera/hymns. For you Latins and non-Byzantine Eastern Christians, feel free to share your traditions too so we can all learn the beauty of the universality of our faith. In addition, I will throw in some biblical topics.

Work, finishing a deacon paper and helping my wife get her home business set up in our office has consumed a great amount of time this week. I apologize for lack of posts.

Last week was truly a wonderful Holy Week. Our church was packed with an abundance of people - standing room only even with fourteen serving at the altar. We had 50% more baskets to bless than last year. I am proud of our little schola ... two cantors, one pripiv cantor (my wife), and four assistants, including our newest member, a ten-year old girl with such a beautiful voice! Watch out, Amy Grant! The Byzantines are coming! She knew the Samohlasen and Sidalen tones by heart from singing all those Festive Vespers over the years.

I did overdo it eating too many links of Slovenian sausage.

I hope to hear more from you all as we get things rolling again on the Focus on Scripture forum. If there are any topics you wish to discuss please email them to me or send a private message via byzcath.org.

One request:

Do any of you have papers dealing with Scripture that you wouldn't mind sharing with the rest of us? Please feel free to notify me of your papers. All are invited to take a stab at this challenge. Non-Christians are invited to participate too. I would like to post them if you wouldn't mind. Thanks.


God bless!
Cantor Joe Thur
Deacon-student

[ 04-04-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

Papers we wrote, or papers others wrote? :p

I think, if I look hard enough, I might be able to find some papers I once wrote for some Scripture classes I took...I never thought much of them, it wasn't my best work. I thought the time for penance was over... :p

Mor Ephrem,

Clarification: Papers you and others wrote.

Dig out those class papers from yonder years ago! I would like to post parts of a paper in a serial fashion to stimulate conversation on topics that you and others felt were important enough to write about. If you wish only a part of the paper to be posted and not the entire gamut, then let me know when you email me.

This is not an 'open forum,' so I would like to give you all an opportunity to convey what you learned in your own personal Scripture studies. I thought this would be a different approach to forum participation.

Don't be shy!


Cantor Joe Thur

[ 04-03-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

Christ is Risen Indeed!


Welcome back, Joe. I thank you in advance for the planned discussion of Acts. I hope to learn a lot. I do read these posts, although I am not much of a student nor a theologian.

As to contributing, I must plead the Aunt Mary Rule: "I know nothing!".

However, there is an exception to prove this rule:

There is no such thing as too much Slovenian sausage!

There may however, be insufficient time in which to consume the desired amount.


John
Pilgrim and Odd Duck

Dear Cantor Joe,

Welcome back!

Between the services and the sausage links, it sounds like your celebration was a real gas in more ways than one . . .

Alex

Dear Joe,
Glad you have survived. Pity I am going to vanish for a month soon[very soon - 1 week to go ] so will really miss the Pentecost themes - and I've been working on the Acts too .
Never mind - there will be other occasions I'm sure. Thank you for all your efforts in the recent past - they were much appreciated.

One question what is one pripiv cantor , higgerant Latin Scot wants/needs to know

Angela

[ 04-04-2002: Message edited by: Our Lady's slave of love ]