When the Most Holy Ever-Virgin Mary had reached the age of three (3), her parents, holy Joachim and Anna, took her from Nazareth to Jerusalem, to give her to the service of God in fulfillment of their promise. It was three days' journey to Jerusalem, but, going as they were on God's work, they did not find the journey difficult.

Brothers and sisters, today a few words on fasting from our holy father among the Saints, John Chrysostom. These are timely topics to be addressing today: fasting and asceticism.

Prayer is a universal, spiritual phenomenon, the fundamental and inseparable element of every religion and every personal piety. As such, prayer has appeared in the history of mankind with an astonishing multiplicity of forms and expressions that range from the crudest and primitive to the most spiritually sublime.

After the death of the impious Roman pagan emperors Diocletian and Maximian, who hated Christ, the pious Emperor Constantine came to the throne, and the faith which is in our Lord Jesus Christ spread throughout every land. At that time, certain men, citizens of Alexandria and lovers of Christ, found the place where the holy relics of the holy and glorious martyr of Christ, Menas were laid and built a church dedicated to him.

The Holy Nativity Fast is one of the four Canonical Fasting Seasons in the Ecclesiastical year. This is a joyous fast in anticipation of the Divine Nativity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That is the reason it is less stringent than other fasting seasons.

He was born in Bethsaida near the Seas of Galilee, as were Saint Peter and Saint Andrew the First-Called. Instructed in the Holy Scripture from his youth, Philip immediately responded to the call of Christ and followed Him (St. John 1:43). After the descent of the Holy Spirit, Philip preached the Gospel with zeal in many regions of Asia and in Greece, where the Jews sought to kill him but the Lord saved him by the might of His wonders (miracles).