VOLUME XXXV No 5 13th April, 2018
HOMILY ON THE OCCASION OF EASTER – PASCHA 2018
DATES TO REMEMBER APRIL Anzac Day (office closed)
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Anzac Day at St Spyridon Church – 9am
28th
Staff Development Day
30th
MAY Students return – Winter uniform Year 6 Interrelate National Schools Event - Melbourne School photographs JS Naplan Yrs 3, 5, 7 & 9
1 th
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4 , 11 18
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9 – 11
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14 th
15 – 17
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Half Yearly Exams Primary begins
28
School photographs - Senior School
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Kindergarten 2019 Information Morning
23
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ISA Cross Country Carnival SS
30
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Bright week, also known as Renewal Week, begins on Easter Sunday and ends on the following Sunday, the Sunday of St. Thomas. According to Holy Tradition, the name originates from the fact that the newly baptized from Pascha on Holy Saturday are newly illumined and bright. For them, Bright Week was a period of spiritual rebirth and renewal. In the early Church, the newly baptized wore white for an entire week and hence the week is also called White Week. The seven days of Bright Week are seen as one day, a continuous celebration of Pascha, and Pascha is ultimately an expression of God’s great love for humanity accomplished through the Cross and resurrection of His only-begotten Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This love is expressed by St. John the Evangelist in the New Testament: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3: 16).
It is for this reason that the Church encourages us to rejoice during this important period by repeating psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, by reading sacred Scripture and by receiving Holy Communion more often, rejoicing and celebrating in Christ’s victory over death. This joy is reflected in the sacred hymnology of the Orthodox Church. St. John of Damascus for example, in his Paschal Canon or resurrection hymn teaches us: “Now all things have been filled with light, both heaven and earth and those beneath the earth; so let all creation sing Christ’s rising, by which it is established.” Bright Week is also an invitation for us all to bear spiritual fruit and to cultivate or to develop new virtues for our own personal illumination as well. Therefore, Bright Week is also a period of spiritual rebirth and renewal for each and every Orthodox Christian. The Church, as a living testimony and witness to the reality of Christ’s resurrection, invites us all, her children, to live this Paschal mystery - not annually, not once a year but daily. According to St. Gregory the Theologian, this can only be achieved by dedicating our lives to God and by becoming Christ-like: “Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become God’s for His sake, since He became a human for our sake. He assumed the worse so that He might give us the better; He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich. He took the form of a servant so that we may receive our liberty. He came down from heaven so that we might be exalted and raised to heaven…He died that He might save us; He ascended that he might draw us to Himself…. Let us offer all to Him who gave Himself so that we may have eternal life.” Christ is Risen! Mr A. Picardi Orthodox and Legal Studies Teacher
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