Changes in place
We pray that in future years we will be able to celebrate as we have in the past honoring the mother of our blessed Theotokos, the Mother of Our God.
The first week starting with Pascha is known as Bright Week. In our Byzantine Catholic churches, the entire week of Easter or Pascha is given extraordinary significance. Pascha, being the Feast of Feasts is the greatest historical event on the liturgical calendar and we carry the salutations and hymns of the resurrection from Pascha to Christ’s Ascension.
Our Hymn of Victory is made visual each time we see the symbolic letters of
Our journey with our Lord brings us to this most solemn week for all Christians. Yet we find ourselves both anxious and expectant of what may come next. It is not the events of our Lord’s passion that has us most anxious. Rather we feel the vulnerability and risk associated with a microscopic adversary, the novel coronavirus. This tiny entity that we cannot see, but fear greatly, has presented every person with never before foreseen challenges. We have been forced to submit to authorities in new ways, we have been stripped of our complacency and distanced from our self-created sense of comfort and self-reliance.
a food standA Divine Liturgy is celebrated annually at the Basilica of St. Ann, Scranton, Pennsylvania.
The annual novena to St. Ann draws thousands of faithful pilgrims from July 17 through July 26, the feast day of St. Ann on the Latin calendar (July 25 : Dormition of St. Ann on Eastern rite Calendar). Novena week is observed with multiple daily Roman Catholic Masses and daily novena prayer services with inspirational preaching. Each year for four decades, a Byzantine Catholic Liturgy has also been featured.
The Bishop of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic, New Jersery presides at the Divine Liturgy with area priests and deacons as concelebrants, and altar servers and choir members assisting. The photos seen below are a sample of the annual event, taken at the 2018 Liturgy with Bishop Kurt Burnett as the main celebrant. The Passionist preachers for the 2018 novena were Rev. Don Ware, C.P. and Rev. Michael Rowe, C.P.. The Rev. Don Ware, C.P. is pictured below with Bishop Kurt.
Photos appear in sequential order including: the great incensing of the church and faithful, chanting of litanies, the Epistle and Gospel readings, homily, singing of the Nicene Creed, the Anaphora (Eucharistic prayers) and Epiclesis (consecration of the Holy Eucharist), and following the Liturgy were the closing with novena prayers and blessing with relic of St. Ann.
† For a description of the history of the Divine Liturgy during St. Ann novena week: click here.
† Click on any photo to open to Slide Photo View
Our Hymn of Victory is made visual each time we see the symbolic letters of IC XC NIKA, shorthand derived from the Greek language meaning JESUS CHRIST CONQUERS! Everytime we see these letters — on icons, on our hymnal books, in stained glass windows, and also imprinted on the 
St. Michael's Byzantine Catholic Church 