Episode 141: Post-Thanksgiving

In the name of the glorious Trinity, Father and Son and Holy

Spirit forever Amen. Glory be to the everlasting

mercies which sent you to us. O Christ, the light of the world

and the life of all, give us wisdom by.

Your law and. Enlighten our impulses.

By your knowledge. Sanctify our souls by Your

truth, and grant that we may be obedient to Your words and may

fulfil Your commandments at every hour.

O You who enlightens the rational with the knowledge of

Your greatness, do enlight, O my Lord, our thoughts, that we may

meditate upon Your holy and divine Scriptures at all times,

O Lord of all. Father and son.

And Holy Spirit. Forever.

Amen. Holiday of many holidays in

this. Blessed country, the United

States of America, which. Until now, to date hasn't been

tainted by controversy and fuss. Is Thanksgiving Thursday now?

I know you're saying oh that's over, that's done with.

What are we talking about Thanksgiving?

Well, this is a pre Thanksgiving message.

Sorry post thanks. Yeah, there you go, post and

Thanksgiving message. It was supposed to be done

before Thanksgiving, but Steven didn't have time to recall.

I'm only kidding you post Thanksgiving message now.

Now Christmas. When Christmas, you know

Christmas is approaching, we're going to start with a farce.

You remember our Dee sister Kamala Harris said, how dare you

say Merry Christmas? How dare you?

Why am I daring it? I'll say it till the till the

Christmas is is is approached and glorify Christ every day of

my life for the birth of for his birth and give thanks to God for

the birth of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is not a political message, right?

How dare you right there we go. No tinsels, no Christmas trees,

no Christmas carols, right? Then we got we have the feast of

the holy, feast of the resurrection of our Lord and

everyone is getting offended because we're talking about

Jesus resurrected. And Bibi Netanyahu comes out and

doesn't give us a message and doesn't invite the Christians to

come and see the the the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ.

However, for Christmas, Bibi Netanyahu comes out and invites

the Christians to come and see the birth place of Jesus.

I've mentioned I've, we've spoken about this, right?

So there's so much controversy. And then you have the Memorial

Day and people who have, you know, the left and those who

have their own understanding. No, we don't what have you, But

thank God, Thanksgiving, at least not at this point, not

yet, doesn't have much controversy.

Controversy and fuss surrounding it.

We give thanks. Thanksgiving Thursday is to give

thanks. Now, what's amazing think about

it is that on Thanksgiving Thursday, we celebrate by the

death, cooking, consuming of a Turkey, a Turkey.

Now, if it's a Thanksgiving gathering without a Turkey,

that's not a Thanksgiving, right?

People give away. You know, the charities give

away turkeys for people to go and celebrate Thanksgiving to

give thanks. An estimated 46,000,000 turkeys

are slaughtered and consumed for Thanksgiving Thursday.

I think we should consider doing something like this.

Steven, let me give you some maths, $0.50 per Turkey, that's

$23 million you keep going down. So for the US Thanksgiving, we

give thanks as we sacrifice a Turkey.

Commiserations. Condolences to the the dead

turkeys. Congratulations, especially to

those two who are pardoned by the president.

Congratulations. But hey, Turkey, don't count

your chickens before they hatch. There's always next to you.

Why Turkey I did some research due to its practical size for

large gatherings, its native presence in North America.

That's why sacrifice of Turkey. We give thanks to God, praise be

to his name for this country, for our families.

And you know, we pray. I'm sure the Christians before

they, they share the bounty which entails a cooked Turkey.

They give thanks to God, glory to God.

But this is we're going to get, we're now going to get serious.

This is where we get into it. Did you know that each time we

commemorate, we celebrate the Divine Liturgy of Holy Urbana,

the Eucharist in the Greek language of Haristia, which

means Thanksgiving? Each time we come to celebrate

and to partake in the Divine Liturgy of Holy Urbana, we are

giving thanks. It's the breaking of the

Ukharistiya in Ukharistiya, or the Body and Blood of our Lord

and our Savior Jesus Christ. Let me share the priests

concluding prayer for the ferial service.

The ferial service is condensed. There is no reading of the

lectionary. There is no reading from the

epistles. There is just the Gospel reading

and the the hymns and the chants and the preser are said and sung

more rapidly. At the end of the service.

Listen to what the the priest prays audibly, glory, O my Lord,

and honor, and he repeats glory, O my Lord, and honor.

Now some will say, see, you're like the Pharisees, the

hypocrites who repeat their prayers.

Well, Jesus said truly, truly. Why is it repeating?

Truly, truly. I say to you, Oh yes, yes, I say

to you, it's a confirmation. We are pleading.

It's a pleading, it's a supplication.

Glory, O my Lord, and honour, Glory, O my Lord, and honour and

confession and worship and continuous Thanksgiving.

We are indebted to lift up to your glorious Trinity for Your

gift of the Holy Mysteries, the body and blood which You have

given us in Your compassion for the pardon of our debts, O Lord

of all, Father and Son and Holy Spirit forever.

I'm not going to go in the Scriptures and find where is it

in the Bible. You know where it is.

You go and take this, take this prayer and you will find it.

You will find the words in the Bible.

So it's biblical. Not only is it liturgical, not

only is it a an Apostolic liturgical prayer, not only it's

the prayer that the Church has been praying for 2025 years,

give or take. It's a biblical prayer.

The Bible says it. And then he continues with the

other prayer. May our Lord Jesus Christ, whom

we have served and glorified and honored by his glorious holy

life, giving and divine mysteries, we acknowledge, we

honor, and we give thanks to the Lord each time we come to the

Church. Now let me correct something,

not only to celebrate the divine energy, but to say the Vespas,

to pray, the Vespas to pray the Vespas, the liturgical Vespas,

along with many other things of worship, confession and praise

by the worship, by the pray, by the way, by the way, each time a

worship was conducted in the autism, there was almost every

time there was a, an offering of a sacrifice, right?

So pray we, we, we, we worship, we praise, we confess, we, we

admit, we give glory, we give thanks in every liturgical

service, but we're talking about the Eucharistic service because

the word Eucharistia, Eucharist is Thanksgiving.

Each time we gather around the table of the mysteries, the

altar in the in the pancake, the table, we give thanks by

commemorating the death, burial, resurrection of our Lord.

And we thank our Heavenly Father for the sacrifice of his beloved

son. Not a Turkey has the of his

beloved Son, Jesus. Perfect man, perfect God.

How sad is it? But how sad is it that we make

every effort to come together as a family?

We book flights, we drive for hours sometimes to come together

as a family on Thanksgiving Thursday and celebrate the day,

the history, the tradition with our families through the

sacrifice of a Turkey. Yet we try to find any excuse

and at some at times quite ridiculous excuses.

Now some people will outright say, I don't believe, I don't

understand church, I don't believe in God.

Great. You're cold for Christ according

to the Book of Revelations. Some people say no, I love the

Lord. I want to come each time I have

an opportunity, a blessing to come and give him thanks through

the divine Liturgies of the Church.

I will be there. You're warm, you are on fire.

But there are those Luke warm. Yeah, I'll go every time.

No, we find excuses. You know, I'm working six days

or I came to church. I make it the last 10 minutes

and come through the doors and partake in the Eucharist and

walk out again. Well, that's being lukewarm and

some ridiculous excuses not to attend Divine Liturgy.

Not to attend Divine Liturgy to celebrate and give thanks

collectively collectively without church family for the

give thanks for the sacrificial Lamb of God for our atonement

with the church family. Now, Thanksgiving Thursday, when

you want to celebrate with your family by the sacrifice of a

Turkey, you need to get on a plane and you to come to where

your parents are or your family if you know or drive hours,

maybe not ours, but you need to drive maybe hours, you know, get

on a plane to come together with your family.

However, when you want to give thanks to Christ, give thanks to

God for the sacrifice on his of his Son through the Liturgy of

the Holy Qurbana. You don't need to get on a plane

and attend a parish where your family in wherever they may be.

No, you attend an Apostolic Church, an Apostolic Church who

celebrates the Divine Liturgy of the Holy Qurbana, and you

partake in Thanksgiving to God with your church family there.

They don't have to be your nation.

They don't have to be your tribe.

They don't have to be Arturaya. And whatever tribe you, I know

when you walk into the church and you see the altar, you see

the priest, you see the host, the elements being brought up to

be presented as a commemoration of the offering of Jesus Christ.

And we're going to read some verses, right?

And not being proclaimed that they are just a miss, they're

they're just a symbol. No, no, no, no, that's your

family, be it black, white, pink, red, whatever.

Asian, European, Middle Eastern Christians believing Jesus

Christ, being put to death in baptism with Jesus Christ

through the priesthood of the Jesus Christ, that is your

family. But the US Thanksgiving

Thursday, for you to take part with your family, you have to

spend some money. You don't need to spend any

money to get to the church, only that bus drive or whatever it is

that bus ride or that that 1015 minutes gas spent on going or

even walking to church. It's so sad that we are not

interested in attending the service to give thanks.

Each time the Ivharistiya, the Eucharist, the Thanksgiving

mystical sacrament is broken, the ultimate sacrifice,

sacrifice is commemorated. Could it be, as I touched up on

it, could it be that we see it as a mere symbol?

It's only a symbol. Everything is a symbol.

Our beloved Protestants, brothers and sisters symbolize

everything. Everything is a symbol.

I'm afraid one day Jesus will be seen as a mere symbol.

If anyone who has preached to you that the Eucharist is a

symbol, direct him to this program or pick up the phone and

say, can you talk to this priest, to Father Janard and see

what he's talking about and correct him and refute him.

If he is not speaking correctly, biblically, liturgically,

apostolically, whatever you want to call it, it's not a mere

symbol. Beloved to those who say that

it's a mere symbol, it's a symbol.

Well, not I, not I, but Saint Paul, which is now we're now

we're going solar scriptura. Let's go to solar scriptura,

let's go to the Scriptures. St.

Paul says in One Corinthians 10/16, The cup of Thanksgiving

that we bless, is it not the partaking of the presence of the

blood of Christ. Wow, not a symbol of the blood

of Jesus Christ, the partaking of the presence of the blood of

Christ. And he continues to say, and is

not our breaking of bread, the sharing in the presence of the

body of Christ. Why do we call it a symbol if

you've seen it as a symbol? No, it's not a symbol.

Now you need to, you need to reconsider your attendance

during the Divine Liturgy to give thanks.

So when we celebrate the Holy Qurbana, the Holy Oblation, we

celebrate the one who is the atonement for the sake of our

sins, and not in our place only, but also in the place or on

behalf of the entire universe. 1 John 22 and and he who we

celebrate is alive and in our midst.

He is, we are in His presence when we do this.

Hence we call it the commemoration.

He is with us, beloved, the Turkey is dead.

The Turkey spirit is not in your living or dining room or the

kitchen when you're cutting the Turkey.

No, no, and please, I'm not I'm not saying that that is evil.

That is that should not be done. No, no, it's it's sharing a meal

and thanking God and coming together.

Yeah, but I'm talking about when we find the 1,000,000 and 700

gazillion excuses we want to find and use some ridiculous not

to attend to thanks, Give thanks to Christ.

Yes, you can give thanks every minute of your life.

Amen to that. Give thanks to God always,

always. But giving thanks in the Divine

Liturgy of the Holy Mysteries is different, is particular.

It's a presence of our Lord through the body and blood, the

bread and wine. Let me share another prayer

which the priests praise when he the hosts have been brought up

to the the altar table. The body of Christ and his

precious blood are upon the holy altar.

Let our soldier you to him in fear and in love and with the

angels sing aloud, holy, holy, holy Lord God.

The priest says, make Christ who a sacrifice for our salvation

and who commanded us. Find these in the Bible.

You do the work who commanded us to make a commemoration of his

death, burial and resurrection. Accept the sacrifice in our

hands by his grace and mercies forever.

I mean, we give thanks for that. The one sacrificed on our

mystical table in the altar, in the form of bread and wine.

We give thanks to him. When we partake in the bread and

wine, we share, beloved, we share.

This is what we give thanks to, because when we partake in the

ivharistiya, in the body and blood of Christ, we share.

In the life of the one who is being, who sacrificed, we are

commemorating John chapter 6 verse 53.

John 6:53

For my body truly is John chapter 6 verse 53.

John 6:53

Sorry. Jesus said to them, Yes, yes, I

say to you, unless Jesus is saying this, not a St. a church

father, a priest, a patriarch, a Bishop, a pastor, a minister.

No, no, no. Jesus, our Lord, our God, our

King, our life given, the forgiver of our sins, praise and

glory be to his name type Amin, say Amin, wherever you are.

Yes, thank you, Steven. Yes, yes, I say to you, unless

you eat the body of the Son of man and drink his blood, you

have no life in yourself. You have no life in yourself.

This is what we give thanks to. Yeah, eating doesn't really mean

eating. It actually means believing.

Let's read. He who eats of my body and

drinks of my blood has eternal life.

And I will raise him up at the last day.

For my body truly is food. That means if his body is truly

food, that means when he says eat, it means eating.

And Jesus didn't say swallow. He said eat eating in towels,

chewing as well. And my blood truly is drink.

We give thanks each time we come to celebrate the Divine Liturgy

of the Holy Eucharist, not only on a Sunday, as you know in the

in the Central Valley. Friday 9:00 AM Marziah

Cathedral, Mabel Ave., Modesto Wednesday, 6:00 PM St.

Ade Mara Ade the Apostle on canal and North Hollywood 830 E

Canal, right Sundays. Here we go.

I'm not going to give the addresses, You can you can

search them. Sundays Marziah Cathedral Margi

Vargas Church in Marziah Cathedral, Modesto, Margi Vargas

Church in series Mara de Church or Larsa in diner or Turlock

Mariosup Church in San Jose, Mar Nerse Church in San Francisco.

We give thanks to the father for his son, upon whom he did not

show pity, but he handed him over for the sake of us all.

Romans 832 That's why we give thanks.

We give thanks to the son who emptied himself and took the

form of a servant, and was made in the form of man.

Philippians 27 And when he says emptied himself just like King

David says Mar Ishu, dad of Merv.

Bishop of the Assyrian Church of the E, circa 8050, I believe

8850. Just as King David did slip the

garment of kingship of himself on put on the garment of

slavery. Second Samuel chapter 620.

It was a prototype of Jesus Christ what he did.

We give thanks to the Holy Spirit for the for mystically

again, mystically not transubstantiation.

Lee. We don't.

The Syrian Church of the East does not adhere to the

transubstantiation understanding of the Eucharist.

The Church of the East understands and adheres that

when we give thanks, we give thanks to the Holy Spirit for

mystically, sacramentally, spiritually transforming the

bread to be the body of Christ and the wine to be the blood of

Christ, just as it transforms us into the likeness of the glory

of the Lord. Wow.

And from glory to glory to Corinthians 318.

So, beloved, I'm not so much going to challenge you.

We don't need to challenge one. When you challenge someone and

you force something under someone, it becomes invalid in

the eye of God. I'm not going to challenge you,

but I want to encourage you. I want to invite you on behalf

of your parish priest. I want to encourage you and

invite you to attend service this coming Sunday.

If you're one of those that is trying to find one of the

1,000,000 and 700,000 excuses, don't do that.

If you're genuinely working, by the way, by law, let me let me

now speak legally. I'm not a professional legal

adviser, but my understanding by law, your boss needs to give you

time to go to worship. If you're having issues, visit

your parish priest, receive a letter from the parish priest

and present it to your boss that I need to at least once a month

go to church to partake in the. This is your religious

obligation, right? So.

But if you outrightly don't believe and you don't want to

attend, God bless you. We'll pray for you that the Lord

will instill that love. Maybe this this, maybe this

program will If you know of someone that doesn't attend

church because I don't want to attend because whatever reason,

you know, direct them to this to this episode, pray for them that

the Lord will touch their hearts, right.

Nothing's impossible for God. So I encourage you and invite

you to attend service this coming Sunday and every Sunday

giving thanks to your holy God, the Father of truth, of whom all

fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.

Ephesians 315 Give thanks to his holy and everlasting Son, by

whose hand all things were created.

John chapter one, verse 3 Give thanks to the Holy Spirit, by

whose hands all things are sanctified.

Now you know the Spirit doesn't have hands.

I can, I can, I can feel the the vibes, the questions, you know,

those who sit down and to scrutinize and to find fault,

you know, say, you know, a slip of the tongue gives them an A

program of, you know, oh, did you hear this priest what he

said? Yeah, it may have been a slip of

slip of the tongue, you know, may have been a starter.

Right, Right. Yeah, but when we say by whose

hand? By the way, these are from the

liturgy, these are the prayers. During the holy, holy, holy

chant. The priest is praying this.

And let me one more time repeat. You are holy God, the Father of

truth, of whom all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named.

The biblical liturgy. Biblical liturgy Ephesians

Ephesians 3:15

chapter 3, verse 15 You are holy, O everlasting Son, by

whose hands all things were created, or all things were.

Did we ever see Jesus roll up his sleeves and make the world

well? John 1/3 By whose hands means

through him, through him God, through the Son, and give

thanks, Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, by whose hands all

things are sanctified, meaning by through all things are

sanctified. 1 Corinthians 611 This is the Thanksgiving that we

need to observe each time the church rings the bell, sends

those telephone messages, sends those emails, or announces

through any means, social media, Facebook, Instagram, wherever

the church is announcing that there is a gathering of the

spiritual family being the church on this particular day,

at this particular time, to gather, to give thanks, to

confess, to worship. We always conclude in our

prayers, give thanks, confession, and worship to God

for what He has done through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

And if you say, well, I wasn't there, I wasn't there, but I do

believe, how do I partake in what God did through his Son?

How do I partake in what Jesus Christ did on the cross?

Through his death is through baptism.

This is what Saint Paul tells us each time we are baptized.

We are baptized in his death. How do I partake in his

resurrected body that is now sitting at the right hand of

power and glory, whom one day when we will return, will will

rebuke our sister Kamala Harris say, oh, you're reluctant,

reluctant to say Merry Christmas because it was Christmas.

It was about me. Well, here I am now, right now.

Let me. I forgot to mention that those

who who want to, you know, gag Christians from saying Merry

Christmas, OK, we won't say Merry Christmas, but Christ is

born praise and glory to his name, right?

Praise and glory be to his name, to give thanks and to partake in

the death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How do we do that? We do that through the Holy

Eucharist. We give thanks for that

participation in Christ's new life that He has given us

through baptism and continued life in Jesus Christ through the

Eucharist. We give thanks for His body and

blood that cleanse not just forgives, cleanses our sins each

time we partake in faith in all those who approach the

mysteries. As I said in the Assyrian

section, don't approach it with humor.

You don't need to say hello to everyone and and smirk at people

and come to the priest and say hi Ravi, how are you?

That's not time for hi Ravi, how are you?

That's fellowship. That's fellowship, right?

You don't you don't thank the priest.

You know many people comes like when you when you put the host

in their hand. He said the body of the body of

Allah to the pious believers for the revision of sins.

One one other point is each time you hear this Pahrat Maran

Lamhainayan or Lamhainazhita or Zahya that's shrugged.

You say I'm in, I'm in. That's it's not just a Catholic

term. You know, one person come and

said to me when I preaches, Oh, the Catholics do that.

Yeah, but that's right. Our brothers and sisters from

the Catholic Church have it right.

You have it wrong. 00 adherent of the Assyrian Church of the

East, Garrick AMR Amin. You're accepting it, You're

agreeing to it. You're believing that this is

the body for the remission of my sins.

And you don't need to say thank you, Robbie.

No, thank God, Thank Jesus. When you approach the the the

chalice, don't joke around with the with the Deacon.

If a Deacon, while administering the chalice is joking around

with you, or smirks at you or throws a joke at you, during the

administering of the blood of Christ, he is supposed to be

reciting the blood of our a spiritual a spiritual feast of

the blood. Of our Lord.

For the remission of sins, you say?

I mean, after you have drank, if the Deacon continues to joke

around with you and make mockery, report him to the

priest, they say. Robbie, Father, one of your

deacons continues to make mockery of the challenge.

And when a faithful makes a mockery of the chalice, the

Deacon will report you to the priest, and the priest will call

you and admonish you in love. I'm sorry.

If you don't believe that it is the blood of Christ, don't

approach it, because you bring condemnation.

Bible. According to the Bible, one

Corinthians you bring condemnation.

You approach with Thanksgiving in all and reverence and

respect, because at that time in one of the Church's doctrinal

hymns, we say the angels are gazing at the putrid dirt, which

is man. They are, they are envious of

man who is approaching and holding the body, which is the

fiery coal that resembles the fiery coal, not resembles.

I'm sorry. The fiery coal was a prototype

of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So attend church and give thanks.

Not only one Thanksgiving, you know, you, you, you, we, we, we

celebrate Thursday of Thanksgiving once a year.

Don't just attend, attend on a Christmas or Easter or Hosanna,

CEOs, Christa, Christmas, Easter or Shana.

No, each time the Divine Liturgies are being celebrated,

come and join us to give thanks to our Lord God.

Praise and glory be to His name now and at all times and

forever. Amen.

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sword. Until next time, God bless you

all.