october 2012

© St. Mary’s Malankara Catholic Church, Toronto

MONTHLY EVENTS

Newsletter Volume 4 Issue 4

2.30 PM Sunday school

4.00 PM Namaskaram

4.30 PM Holy Mass

3.30 PM – 4.15 PM Confessions

Contact Information: Fr. John Kuriakose,

222 Ridley Blvd,

Toronto, ON, M5M 3M6

Tel: (416) 485 7781

[email protected]

Sunday Liturgy

Malankara Catholic Church St. Mary’s Mission Toronto

St. Eugene’s Chapel◊13 Regina Avenue◊Toronto, Ontario◊M6A 1R2

www.stmarysmalankaracatholicchurchtoronto.ca

[email protected]

Inside the Issue

Editorial 1

Saint of the month 2

Snippets from Science 3-4

Parish retreat 5

MCYM day 6

October 2012

- Oct 7 MCYM Day

- Oct 20- Monthly Prayer

meeting 6:30 pm at Babu &

Valsa’s residence

- Oct 27– Women’s Payer

meeting 6:30 pm at Abhi-

lash & Jisha’s residence

and give thanks for His in-

numerable graces’’. This

month we reflect on the life

of St. Francis of Assisi

written by Stephina Alex-

ander. This saint is a man

of simplicity, who also is a

great example for youth all

over the world. Finally, the

column “Snippets from Sci-

ence – Glimpses of God’s

Beautiful Mind” features

an article about “The Great

Flood” by Amit Mathews,

where he examines the var-

ious tales and variations of

the story of what we all

know as Noah’s Ark. We

hope you enjoy this

month’s bulletin. May God

bless you and your fami-

lies!

The Editors

The month of Septem-

ber is very important to our

parishioners as the month is

dedicated to Mother Mary.

Since our church is named

after Mother Mary, we take a

special pride! Our parish or-

ganized a wonderful retreat

for the parents and youth,

which was led by reverent

Father Saji Mukkoot from

Detroit. The Youth retreat fo-

cused on the importance of

retreats, our spirituality and

the church. It was a moving

and blessed event for every-

one. This month Deepak Wil-

son thoroughly explains the

real meaning and history of

thanksgiving with his article.

“Thanksgiving is a day that

is set aside to reflect on the

blessings that God has show-

ered upon us

mailto:[email protected]


Malankara Catholic Church

© St. Mary`s Malankara Catholic Church Toronto

Saint of Simplicity - St. Francis

of Assisi

Geovanni

Francesco di

Bernardone

was born in

1181, in the

wake of the

second mil-

lennium

after the

death of

Jesus Christ.

We all are

familiar with his radical conversion

experience and how he left everything

and followed the Lord by becoming

one among the beggars. Coming from

a wealthy family, Francesco had eve-

rything a man ever wishes for and

more. He was popular among the

youth of Assisi and was loved by the

rich and the poor equally.

At the age of twenty, Francesco went

out to Perugia to fight. Being defeated

in this fight, the Assisians were kept

captive for a year. During this time,

Francesco fell sick for a long time,

which led him to turn his thought to

the things of eternity. He started to

realize what emptiness of a life he had

lived thus far! One day after returning

to Assisi, Francesco had an encounter

with a poor leper. At first being dis-

gusted and repelling, he felt sorry and

embraced the unfortunate man and

gave him all the money he had. From

herein and onwards, he kept giving to

the poor, one by one, all that he had.

Realizing what he was doing, Frances-

co’s father dragged him home, pun-

ished him severely, and locked him in

a dark closet. Freed by his mother

during his father’s absence, Francesco

went to Chapel of St. Damian and

found shelter with the officiating

priest. Getting caught by the city offi-

cials, he was put into trail before the

bishop. Francis stripped off of his

clothes and gave it to his father saying,

“Hitherto I have called you my father

on earth; henceforth I desire to say

only ‘Our Father who art in Heaven’.”

He surrendered all that he had pos-

sessed: goods, honours, and privileges

and journeyed off to the hills behind

Assisi. In a place called Gubbio, he

found a friend who offered him a

clock, girdle, and a staff as alms.

St. Francis, a man of simplicity, is a

great example for all the youth around

the world. Many at times, I used to

wonder why he is the patron Saint of

MCYM. I understand why, as his life

challenges us to let go of what we

have and surrender ourselves to God.

As youth of our church celebrate the

MCYM day in the first week of Octo-

ber, it is essential to reflect on the sim-

plicity and boldness of St. Francis. We

realize that the realities of our sur-

roundings are strong; but the specific

calling of God in our day to day life is

even stronger, if only we choose to

hear.

Stephina Alexander

Feast of our Guardian Angel October 2




THE GREAT FLOOD Tales of a Flood Stories of an all-engulfing flood are told in many parts of world. The best-known legend of the great flood is found in the Old Testament of the Bible of course. Behind the legends of arks and its heroes, is there perhaps a historic record of a watery catastrophe hid-den somewhere, which has been so deeply ingrained into the memory of widely scattered cultures? The more witnesses corroborate a certain event, the more likely it is that the event actually occurred. This princi-ple can be easily applied to archeol-ogy and comparative anthropology as well. If a single story appears in the traditions of many cultures, the likelihood of story representing his-torical fact is very high. The Great Flood is such a tale, the story of a tremendous deluge from which only a handful of people are spared and left to repopulate the world. The most familiar Western articulation of the story appears in the book of Genesis. Noah, a man of virtue is chosen by God to build an ark 300 cubits by 50 cubits, which would float above the waters as God pours down incessant rain on a sinful world. A similar tale appears in the mythologies of many other ancient cultures, including those of Mesopo-tamians, Scandinavians, Greeks and American Indians. The most famous non-biblical narration of the Great Flood story was discovered in 1872, engraved on the Gilgamesh tablet of Babylonia. The tablet tells the story of a man named Ur-Napishtim, who survived a flood sent by the gods to punish mankind. Segments of the same story have since been found on hundreds of cuneiform frag-ments. The stories share many de-tails: a large ark, animals taken on board, the sending of birds to con-firm the presence of dry land and the symbol of a divine pact to signal the end of the global cataclysm

The others are partly text from the Old Testament, which the modern church does not recognize as au-thentic or inspired, as well as previ-ously unknown non-biblical texts. These non-biblical texts, which were to give rise to the most passionate reactions, display such a consistency of ideas that many scholars believe they can only stem from a mystic, religious community not far re-moved from the beginnings of Chris-tianity. The Austere Essenes Although some debate persists over who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, they are widely assumed to have been the work of the Essenes, an ascetic sect of Jews who had jour-neyed south toward the desert in the middle of the 2nd century BC to distance themselves from the urban Jews, who, they believed, practiced an illegitimate brand of Judaism. The Essences were very strict with themselves to practice chastity. The Essenes are also thought to have shared their personal belongings with the community as a whole, much like a commune. Several ex-planations have emerged regarding why these scrolls might originally have been deposited in caves. It is possible that some of the caves were Essene homes, and the scrolls were remnants of personal libraries. Some scholars believe that the Qum-ran caves actually served as the communal library for the Essenes who dwelled nearby. Because of the haphazard fashion in which the scrolls were deposited in a number of caves – 11 caves with scrolls were discovered in the region – it has also been postulated that they were hid-den rather hastily to avoid their de-struction prior to the Roman on-slaught in 68 AD. The texts discov-ered at Qumran can be divided into manuscripts written by the Essenes themselves, and, those that were imported by the Essenes from else-where. The former are instructive in ...continued on Page 4

(Noah saw a rainbow, Ur- Napishtim saw the likeness of a necklace flung across the sky). The constant strug-gle fledgling civilizations every-where waged against the flooding of arable land may account for the ap-pearance of flood tales in almost all ancient cultures. There are many other written records of the legend of the flood. In the holy scriptures of the Mayans, a man named Tapi as-sumes the role of Noah; in the Per-sian text collection known coast of the Dead Sea near the ruins of Qum-ran in what is now the war zone of West Bank. While leading his goats to water, Muhammad edh-Dhib idly tossed a stone toward a nearby cave where one of his herds had wan-dered. He heard a noise of some-thing shattering in the cave and his curiosity was piqued. He returned the next day to investigate and on entering the cave he discovered sev-en Hebrew scrolls, wrapped in linen and stored in clay jars. Little did he know that, over the next few years, the caves would yield up some of the world’s most stunning archaeo-logical treasures. However, these were not jewels or bars of gold. In-side the 11 caves were numerous papyrus rolls – many of them gnawed, frayed or otherwise de-cayed – wrapped in leather and con-cealed in clay containers. In 1948, these scrolls were hailed as the ‘greatest manuscript discovery of modern times’, and were dubbed the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, the discovery also raised the possibility that the origins of Christianity might have to be viewed in a different light. The manuscripts consisted of leather, papyrus and copper; several were largely intact, while only frag-ments remained of others. The man-uscripts were written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Roughly, a quar-ter consists of copies of texts from the Old Testament, and their sources are thousands of years older than previously known versions.




revealing how they lived and what its members believed. The Manual of Discipline – discovered in the first cave by the shepherd boy – was a strictly sectarian work, written by the Essenes themselves. It included a statement of who they were and what they believed; a guide for en-trance into the group; a list of com-munal rules; a penal code; a discus-sion of their theology and a hymn praising God. The War Scroll, another document particular to the Essenes, describes a 40-year-old war that is to ensue at the end of the world, when the Sons of Light (the Qumran com-munity) will battle their nemesis the Sons of Darkness, culminating in a final, crushing victory for the Sons of Light. This manuscript reads like an army manual in sections, and seems to have been intended to prepare the Essenes on a practical level, for an inevitable Armageddon. The Roots of Christianity There were two series of carbon da-ting tests that were performed on the Dead Sea Scrolls to estimate the time period in which it is supposed to have originated. The first series was carried out by the AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectroscopy) lab of Zurich

Institute of Technology in 1990 and the second series were carried out at the AMS facility at the University of Tucson in 1994. The various scrolls were dated having originated be-tween 408 BC and 318 AD using the method and the dates were attributed with a 2-sigma error rating which means a 95% level of confidence or accuracy. Collaborative evidence for an early date came from archaeology. Pottery accompanying the manu-scripts was late Hellenistic (150 BC– 3 BC) and Early Roman (63 BC to 100 AD). Coins found in the monas-tery ruins proved by their inscrip-tions to have been minted between 135 BC and 135 AD. The weave and pattern of the cloth supported an ear-ly date. There is no reasonable doubt that the Qumran manuscripts came from the century before Christ and the 1st century AD. Previous to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest known manuscript of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Text (900 AD) and two others (dating about 1000 AD) from which, for example, the King James Version of the Old Testament derived its translation. The beauty of the Dead Sea Scrolls lies in the close match they have with the Masoretic text .

Thanksgiving Day is a holi-

day celebrated primarily in the United

States and Canada. Thanksgiving is

celebrated each year on the second

Monday of October in Canada and on

the fourth Thursday of November in

the United States. The sweet aroma of

turkey and pies, gathering of all our

family members and eating the

thanksgiving meal together are just a

few of the thoughts that rush into our

minds when we think about Thanks-

giving. But, is that all what Thanks-

giving is about?

It is a common misconception

that Thanksgiving is a Christian holi-day like Easter, Good Friday, etc. It is

in fact a pagan feast which was cele-

brated by early settlers to give thanks

for the bountiful harvest that they

received in the past year.

the past year. Over the course of

years, the customs and traditions

changed but they continued to cele-

brate this feast and it later evolved into Thanksgiving. According to sta-

tistics, thanksgiving is the most trav-

elled holiday surpassing even

Christmas. This shows us how im-

portant of a feast Thanksgiving is in

North American culture, and the

amount of importance that families

give to others and gathering and spend-

ing the festival together.

In a Christian perspective,

Thanksgiving is a day that is set aside

to reflect on the blessings that God has

showered upon us and give thanks for

His innumerable graces. We should

keep in mind that giving thanks to God

is not a one day event but rather, we

should continuously give thanks to

God every minute of our lives. As the

psalmist says, “Enter into His gates

with thanksgiving and into

His courts with praise”.

Deepak Wilson

Support for the Greek Translation of

the Hebrew Text (The Septuagint)

Since the New Testament often quotes

from the Greek Old Testament, the

Dead Sea Scrolls furnish the reader

with further confidence for the Masoret-

ic texts in this area where it can be test-

ed. Nonetheless, this does not mean that

everything was so straightforward with

the interpretation. Rumors surrounded

the Dead Sea Scrolls from the time they

were discovered. Since many of the

manuscripts consisted of just fragments,

they could not be made public without

reconstruction work. Rumors spread

that the scrolls revealed that the origins

of Christianity differed from official

doctrines. According to some scientists,

there were indications that the early

Christian Church had its roots in the

Essene community. Many beliefs and

ideas that were previously considered to

be Christian in origin can be found in

the Dead Sea Scrolls. The best minds

on the planet are working on decipher-

ing just what keys the Scrolls hold to

help us trace the origins of Christianity

and until everything falls into place and

the final piece fits into the puzzle, we

can only speculate.

Amit Mathews



Retreats provide the faithful

with the opportunity to rekindle the

fire of the Holy Spirit and gain a bet-

ter understanding of the divine love

of God. The Toronto community was

blessed with the presence of Saji

Achan for the retreats held during the

first weekend of September, sharing

his spiritual wisdom and passion

with the youth and the parents in two

separate retreats. The focus of this

year's retreat was the importance of

the Catechism of the Catholic Church

and the year of faith. As Achan re-

minded the youth, the Church is de-

pendant on the youth and their

growth in the Church. The youth has

a responsibility to the Church—to

maintain its values and preserve the

tradition for future generations.

Achan’s talk was inspired by a con-

versation that he recently had with

an ex-Malankara Sister who was at a

crossroad in her search for truth and

found herself finding answers in a

Protestant church. As Achan talked

about his experience, he asked the

youth to think about what we would

say to someone who was losing faith

Date Candle 1 Candle 2 Marbahasa 1 Marbahasa

2

Bell Thurible Readings

Oct 7 Alexi Sarath Issac Jerome Deepak Sebin Christopher

Oct 14 Cyrus Anugrah Aaron Alvin Samson Br. Jobin Deepak

Oct 21 Issac Jerome Sarath Alexi Christopher Lynn Neil

Oct 28 Anugrah Aaron Cyrus Issac Samson Br. Jobin Lynn

provided a great retreat for the

youth, which was all he was asked to

do; however God had other plans.

God provided him another venue to

share his knowledge and wisdom at

the parents’ retreat (which initially

Mathai Achan was to guide) during

the same weekend. Saji Achan, under-

standing the needs of our community,

gladly accepted the opportunity and

promptly returned from his home

Parish in Detroit to fulfil his duties

there before making his way back to

us in Toronto. The retreat for the par-

ents had some of the similar funda-

mental messages that he had shared

with the youth. Achan’s words were

very moving, and have certainly in-

spired many to use this retreat and

ones in the future, as a starting point

for learning more about the Church.

As always, it was a blessing to have

Saji Achan with us for the weekend

and we are very grateful for the spir-

itual nourishment he provided us

during the feast of the Nativity of

Mother Mary.

Leo Babu

in the Church. As the youth expressed their

thoughts on where they struggle with their

faith journey, Achan put things into per-

spective using an analogy that was fitting as

everyone was preparing themselves for a

new academic year. “Retreats are like going

to tuition for school students, they provide

enrichment to the teachings that our Church

teaches us”. Saji Achan stressed the im-

portance of attending retreats for spiritual

recharge; however it does not in any way

replace our Holy Qurbono. It was evident

that the youth were regaining a passion to

understand the Church teachings better and

to grow firmer in faith as they were about to

start the new academic year.

Saji Achan was well prepared and


In Loving Memory

Raju Philip

May 20th 1952 - September 5th 2012

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green

pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in

the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through

the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and

Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my

enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness

and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the

house of the Lord forever. Psalm 23: 1 - 6

october 2012

Documents

pm confessions

pm namaskaram

youth of assisi

toronto page

marys mission toronto

pm holy mass

month of septem

mcym day