Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
Happy Feast!
It’s almost here! Holy Week, the high point of the liturgical year, begins this coming Saturday, April 20! Please check the schedule and read through all the announcements and make plans now to join us as often as you can.
Our Calendar
Fasting Days
The Fast Continues. During the Fast we abstain from meat, poultry, eggs, dairy, fish, wine, and olive oil Monday through Friday, with katalysis (a blessing) for wine and olive oil on Saturday and Sunday. Please be aware that Great and Holy Friday is a strict fasting day. Also, if you need to modify the fast in any way, please check with your spiritual father.
Daily Services
Monday, April 15-Friday, April 19:
Orthros 5am;
Vespers 5pm
(Please be aware that there will be no daily vespers on Wednesday due to the Pre-Sanctified Liturgy. Also, don’t forget that since life in our parish community can be pretty busy, sometimes the starting times for the daily services has to be shifted. So, if you know ahead of time that you will be attending a particular service, it’s always a good idea to send Father Aidan a note at fraidan@austin.rr.com to confirm when the service will actually begin.)
Lenten Services
Monday, April 15 Great Compline 7pm
Wednesday, April 17 Pre-Sanctified Liturgy 7pm
Thursday, April 18
Choir Practice 7pm
Saturday, April 20
Lazarus Saturday
Orthros 7am
Divine Liturgy 9am
St Thomas School 4pm This week Baker Galloway will lead the discussion on Chapter 7, The Iconographic Tradition in Byzantium
Great Vespers 6pm (and final opportunity to participate in the Mystery of Holy Confession)
Sunday, April 21
Palm Sunday
Orthros 8am
Church School 8:15am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Community Meal Noon
Bridegroom Orthros 6pm
Monday, April 22
Great and Holy Monday
Pre-Sanctified Liturgy 5am
Bridegroom Orthros 7pm
Tuesday, April 23
Great and Holy Tuesday
Pre-Sanctified Liturgy 5am
Bridegroom Orthros 7pm
Wednesday, April 24
Great and Holy Wednesday
Pre-Sanctified Liturgy 5am
Service of Holy Unction 7pm
Thursday, April 25
Vesperal Liturgy of St Basil 5am
Service of the Twelve Gospels 7pm
Friday, April 26
Great and Holy Friday
Royal Hours 9am
Descent from the Cross Vespers Noon
Service of Lamentations 7pm
Saturday, April 27
Great and Holy Saturday
Vesperal Liturgy of St Basil 9am (Sean Bassari and Miriam Hart will be baptized, and Clayton Stewart and Jeremy Howell will be chrismated at this service)
Paschal Liturgy 11pm
Sunday, April 28
The Great and Holy Pascha
Agape Vespers 2pm
Paschal Picnic 3pm
Monday, April 29
No Daily Services
Tuesday, April 30
Parish Council 7pm
Wednesday, May 1
Pascha Book Study 7pm
This Week at St Thomas School
It doesn’t come as a surprise that Christians in the 4th-7th c. would — from a mostly Roman and Levantine background of the Byzantine Empire — make mosaics, frescoes, and images to represent important Scriptural messages and beliefs and teachings from Apostolic tradition.
As Metropolitan Hilarion explains in this chapter, Orthodoxy has passed through a period of iconoclasm (destruction of icons). Likewise, we might be going through a similar kind of iconoclasm of traditions, beliefs and ideas that we thought couldn’t ever be challenged seriously or changed.
There are more than a few sections in the book that cover different topics that survive in Byzantium’s entrancing iconographical tradition:
1. The Icons of the 4th-6th c. and Sinai’s Encaustic Icons
2. The Canonical Image of Christ, Image Not-Made-By-Hands that is mentioned in the Teaching of Addai, and its connection to the Shroud of Turin
3. Iconoclasm and the Veneration of Icons that has received probably most of its inspiration from Islamic mindset. But there are deep theological currents behind the bloody conflict
4. Decorative Painting and Basic Iconographical Types
5. Byzantine Mosaics and Frescoes, 4th-9th c., 9th-14th c.
6. Book Miniatures
Join us all this Saturday at 4:00 and immerse yourself in Orthodoxy’s iconographical tradition with our resident iconographer, Baker Galloway.
Coming Up
One of the ways in which we celebrate Pascha is by adorning the nave and the bier with flowers. But nice flowers cost money—typically, decorating the temple requires a minimum of $500. So, every year, we put out baskets to collect money for this effort. Of course, some parishes take up special collections almost every single week, but we save that sort of thing for the really important items—like beautifying the temple for Pascha. So, look for those baskets and be as generous as you can.
Two weeks ago, we all received links to sign-up sheets for the Great and Holy Friday Tomb Vigil and the Agape Vespers Gospel Readings. For security reasons, we need to have the vigil sheet filled out completely in order to actually have the event, because the temple must be occupied all night if we are going to leave it open. At this point, the only slot still open is 3-4am, but we need to have that covered in order to do the whole vigil. Also, we’re going to shut down the sign-up sheet for the Gospel Readings at the end of the day on Great and Holy Wednesday. So, if you would like to participate in these wonderful events, please go to those links and sign up today.
Attached to this week’s edition of The Happy Priest is our parish guide to The Holy Week Services. The service book for Holy Week that is published by the archdiocese does not include the full services, and since we offer the full services, this guide will allow you to use the archdiocesan service book and keep up with what is actually going on in the services. So print out the attachment and keep a copy of it in your archdiocesan service book and join us for as many of the services as you can.
The Pascha Book Study begins on Wednesday, May 1; the book we are using is called Laughing at the Devil; it’s by Laura Hall, and a few additional copies are still available at Christ the Lightgiver Bookstore. The book is part memoir and part commentary on the very first book ever written in English by a woman about the spiritual life (that book The Revelations of Divine Love is also available in an inexpensive edition at Christ the Lightgiver). That woman is Julian of Norwich, and Laura Hall, who is a Protestant, does a very good job of connecting Julian’s insights with contemporary issues. We have already finished up our Lenten reading of Dr Hall’s book, but it’s not too late to purchase a copy and start reading through it on your own. We’ll see you on Wednesday, May 1!
Our Moment of Grace and Courtesy
Here is the sixth and final Pascha Moment of Grace and Courtesy:
Please plan on cleaning up after yourself and your children or grandchildren--even if your children or grandchildren aren't actually sitting with you during the Paschal Feast. Also, if your schedule will allow, please plan on helping clean up after the feast: we will need to put up all the tables and chairs, clean up the kitchen, take out the trash, wipe down the bathrooms and vacuum before Agape Vespers that afternoon.
At the conclusion of this edition of The Happy Priest is a column that will appear in this coming week’s Hill Country News: What Makes Easter So Special?
Attached to this newsletter is a copy of a letter from Metropolitan Joseph.
I’m looking forward to serving Holy Week with all of you.
An unworthy priest,
Aidan