Nebab #60 Saint Yared

 NEBAB #60

The Orthodox Tewahedo Magazine

ST YARED

The Spiritual Education Unit

Ethiopian Orthodox Church

Archdiocese of the Caribbean and Latin America

In this issue:

    1. The Feast of Saint Yared

    2.  Saint Yared and Traditional School of Ethiopia

    3. Faith and works

    4. “Ask Abba/Kes”

    5. Miracle of the Virgin Mary

    6. Children’s corner

    7.ይበል ግዕዝ 

    8. Orthodox Q&A

Christ is Risen From The Dead
With Great Power and Authority

He bound satan, He freed Adam

Peace
Henceforth

Let there be
Hapiness and Peace!

The Feast of Saint Yared

Today, on the 11th of Ginbot (May 19), St Yared disappeared. He pleased God and was taken to the Land of the Living (Bihere Hayawan) with Enoch and Elijah and John the Evangelist and many other saints. Why are we celebrating him?

Because when Yared was a young boy learning the Psalms at school he struggled to learn what the other boys were learning. He left school, running away and going back to his mother. On his way he came to rest and saw a caterpillar climbing a tree. The caterpillar was struggling just like Yared, but the caterpillar never stopped trying. When the caterpillar fell he just started climbing again, so Yared went back to school and started studying again. God saw Yared's determination and taught him the Bible, and so Yared became a scholar of the Bible.

Why are we celebrating him?

Because in St Yared's time the liturgy was not chanted in beautiful melodies like we chant today. In Yared's time the liturgy was only spoken. But Yared loved God and loved to praise Him, like the angels do, so God sent 3 angels to Yared, in the form of birds, and they taught him how to sing. The green bird taught him to sing praise to God the Father in the Ge'ez tone, the yellow bird taught him to sing praise to God the Son in the Izl tone, and the red bird taught him to sing praise to God the Holy Spirit in the Araray tone. St Yared was taken to heaven to see and hear the angels praising God. He saw the angels in a circle, and wanted to be in the middle to see better. An angel told him, "If you do this, this will become your life." St Yared wanted to make this his life, so he went into the circle of angels and learned from them like he had learned from his teacher, Abba Gideon. When St Yared came back from heaven, he brought the music of heaven with him. He brought it to the king, Gebre Meskel, who loved it just like Yared loved it.

Why are we celebrating him?

Because he taught his students, like Abba Gideon had taught him, and like the angels had taught him. He taught his students the Bible, and he taught them to sing the praises of God the Holy Trinity. His students taught their students, and their students taught more students, and now our whole church is full of students learning how to sing praise to God because of St Yared. How can we thank St Yared for the gift he gave us? He went to heaven and brought back the sound of heaven, like the conch shell brings the sound of the ocean when you put it to your ear. For this we can call St Yared the Conch Shell of Heaven. How can we thank him? God took him from us to be with Enoch and Elijah and John the Evangelist, but God let us keep the music of heaven that StYared taught us. Let us never stop singing the praises of God, and of the Virgin Mother of the Lord, and of the Honourable Angels, and of the Victorious Martyrs, and of the Spotless Church, and of the seasons and flowers and pomegranates. Let us thank St Yared by singing, and let us thank God for giving St Yared to us, and for taking St Yared from us, and for leaving Yared with us.

May God make us hear the hymns of the angels

Saint Yared and Traditional Schools of Ethiopia

St Yared was a product of the traditional Judeo-Christian education of Ethiopia. He then became a cornerstone of that tradition for the future generations of Ethiopian Christians. His hagiography (the life of a saint) alone gives us a lot to appreciate.

1. Fatherhood - In Ge'ez, abinet is the term for the traditional system of Christian instruction. The word literally means 'fatherhood', which tells us that in the Ethiopian Christian mind, teaching- especially about God- is a primary function of fatherhood. A father is a teacher and a teacher is a father. The purpose of instruction under this system, then, is to give birth to children. To give birth means to produce another like yourself, and so in the Axumite school, to teach is to give of yourself to someone else who, if they accept it, will make what was yours theirs. This gives strength to the succession of Christian education in the EOTC, since no matter how many generations there have been or how much time has passed, I will always be my father's child, and my grandfather's grandchild, and my great grandfather's great grandchild, and so on. The spiritual "DNA" of St Yared is still found in his successors to this day, and those "genes" express themselves in our traditions, given to us by St Yared and his disciples. A Christian can learn from reading many books, and listening to many sermons, but abinet is more than just another place to learn. As St Paul says:

"For though ye have ten thousands instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel." - 1 Corinthians 4:15

2. The Assembly/Community - The Ge'ez word guba'e is hard to translate directly into English, since Ge'ez uses one word where English uses many different words. In the case of the Yaredawi (or Yaredic) tradition, we can translate guba'e as 'school'. The 'school' of the EOTC is not a building, as we often mean when we use the word in English (indeed, the typical example of the Ethiopian guba'e is students sat in the grass around their teacher), nor is it the institution with its registration and administration. 'School' in the ancient church sense refers simply to the teacher and the students, and to the knowledge (and the way of thinking) that exists collectively among them, flowing from teacher to students. This is why the school is a guba'e, because knowledge in the mind of a teacher is not a school, but knowledge  that lives in the conversation between teacher and student is what a school is made of. The students' fellowship is also the school, as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17). This network of relationships- the teacher with the students, the students with one another- all connected by the flow of knowledge, makes a true guba'e, and the guba'e makes a true student.

Faith and Works: Sing to the Lord a new song

St Yared, well versed in the Scriptures, composed hymns based on the Bible, interpreting the Bible in his hymns. 

On St Yared's day, choose a Psalm you know well, and compose a poem or song based on it. You can reveal in your poem or song what was hidden in prophecy when the Psalms were written.

Alternative: If you have a teacher available, take the opportunity to learn the misbak- that is, how to chant the Psalm before the Gospel.

Ask Abba/Kes

How can I manage my time? It feels like everything in my life (church service, school, work, daily life, rest and recovery) is competing for my time.

You cannot sacrifice your sleep, because then you will be unable to function in anything else, especially your work, and that will negatively affect the other areas of your life. You have to have a limit, because you can't take on everything yourself. If you are doing church service, let other people serve as well, because you cannot do everything.

Take care of yourself, rest, and meditate.

 

BIBLE QUIZ!

St David took care of King Saul's mental health by:
a) playing the harp
b) killing Goliath

c) building the temple

A Miracle of the Holy Virgin Mary

A miracle performed by Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Virgin. May her prayers be with her servant Simon forever and ever, amen.

There was a woman from the great city of Caesarea. Her father had great wealth consisting of lumber, gold, silver, and the possessions of this fleeting world.

That woman was pregnant. When the time of childbirth approached, her womb was bound up. She experienced great torment to the point of death.

Then her father carried her upon a large bed. They went to the church of Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Virgin.

The moment they approached the outer door, her intestines moved about, and she gave birth to a son. So her father happily rejoiced, and they increased the praise of God and his Virgin Mother, the Requester of Mercy for Humanity, my dear Lady Mary, the Holy Twofold Virgin.

They gave alms of great mercy as gifts to the poor and destitute. They also gave gold and silver in the name of Our Lady Mary, the Holy Twofold Virgin, to the church.

Praise be to God, [the Lord] Jesus Christ.

May her prayers be with her servant Simon forever and ever, amen.

O Holy Virgin Mary, pray for us!

LIJOCH! The Children's Corner

May We Hear the Hymns of the Angels!

God sent 3 angels to St Yared, in the form of birds, and they taught him how to sing. Color the three birds, green, yellow and red. And state the tone that each bird taught Saint Yared.

ይበል:ግዕዝ (yibel Ge’ez)

Let's reclaim our forefathers’ language

ጉባኤ

guba'e

assembly, congregation, community (of the faithful)

Guba'e comes from the root ገብአ geb'a, which can be used widely to mean leave, enter, return, to be restored, to be delivered, etc. When geb'a is combined with another verb it also functions as 'again'.

Geb'a can take the jussive* form ይግባእ yigba'i, which can be seen in the Hymn of Praise of Mary for Monday:

ፈቀደ እግዚእ ያግእዞ ለአዳም ሕዙነ ወትኩዘ ልብ ወያግብኡ ኀበ ዘትካት መንበሩ ሰዓሊለነ ቅድስት 

feqede Egzi'i yag'izo le Adam hizune we tikuze lib we yagbi'u habe zetikat menberu se'alilene qidist

God wished to set free Adam who was sad at heart and sorrowful and to bring him back to the state wherein he formerly was. Pray to Him for us, O Holy One

*The jussive is a term for the form of the verb that implies what should be done or is desired, not as giving a command directly to someone, but saying that something should be, as in "Let brotherly love prevail", or "Let it be to me according to your word" or "Let there be light". In the example above, it is as saying "Let (Adam) return/be restored", or "that (Adam) should return/be restored".

ORTHODOX Q&A

Are children produced by fornication doomed to repeat that pattern in their own lives?

God frees us from all kinds of captivity, and that includes the kind of captivity passed down from parent to child. When David in Psalm 51 says, "In sin my mother conceived me", he is not saying that because the manner of his conception was sinful he cannot escape sin, rather he is:

1. Acknowledging that God calls him to be holy, in spite of the circumstances of his birth

2. Acknowledging that his sin is his own (in the rest of the Psalm)

3. Thanking God for the mercy that can overcome both his sin and his mother's sin

Send us your questions at: seu.eotccarla@gmail.com

Short message on behalf the Spiritual Education Unit:

His Grace Abune Thaddaeus, Head Administrator Archimandrite Abba Gebreyesus, and all clergy and faithful- thank you for the opportunity to share this labour of love with you. Thanks also to the team of the Spiritual Education Unit for their hard work.

-Liqe Teghuan Tekle Mariam Greene

References

Miracle of Mary: https://pemm.princeton.edu/en-us/stories/109

_________________________________________________________________________________

CONTACT US:

Archdiocese headquarters: Medhane Alem (Saviour of the World), Old Golden Grove Rd. Arouca, Trinidad and Tobago.

Tel. 868-642-4230.

e-mail: eotc.arch.carla@gmail.com

ethiopianorthodoxtewahedochurchcarla.org