Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
We have now passed the mid-way point in Great Lent, and while it hasn’t been the season that any of us has expected, we can still make spiritual progress during this time of hardship and isolation and stress. Please read through this entire newsletter; there are lots of resources and ideas and updates that can provide help and hope.
Reminder: the emailed version of this newsletter includes updates exclusive to St. John parishioners. If you believe you should be receiving that newsletter, please contact Fr. Aidan.
What About Holy Week and Pascha?
Honestly, we don’t have anything definite to tell you at this point. Metropolitan Joseph sent out a new letter this week, and we’ve attached that letter to this edition of The Happy Priest. In that letter, the Metropolitan states that he will make a decision about Holy Week and Pascha within the next week or so. However, the local counties and municipalities also get to weigh in on all this, so we will all just have to stay tuned.
We will let you know as soon as we have some definite sense of how things are unfolding. In the meantime, please know that we are working to put together some streaming options for the Holy Week and Pascha services just in case we are still unable to meet together.
The Pascha Book Study
It is still scheduled to kick off on the Wednesday of Bright Week, April, 22. Even if we are able to meet in person, those tech wizards, Father Deacon Andrew Wilson and Father Deacon Michael Coleman, will be using Zoom, a streaming device, which will allow folks to access the parish house group remotely. So, please keep us with your reading of the text they will be using, The New Media Epidemic, by Dr. Jean Claude Larchet (it’s still available through Christ the Lightgiver Bookstore).
Financial Update
Thanks to the grace and mercy of the Most Holy Trinity, and thanks to your faithfulness, we ended February with a surplus of $4,000. Because we ended January, as we just about always do, with a deficit, that means we are heading into this time of uncertainty with a surplus of just over $1,000.
We have sufficient funds in our checking account and also in our savings account. However, it is vitally important that we are intentional about making sure that our gifts reach the parish during this time of ‘social distancing’. Our Finance Guys, Nick Crown and Arun Jacob, estimate that about 50% of what we normally take in each week are gifts that are placed directly in the offering bowl (as opposed to being mailed in and placed in the offering bowl by the folks who get the mail). So please be sure that you bring your offering with you during your time slot for our “Open During the Week” schedule; if you are unable to take advantage of that time slot, please place your check in the mail (800 West Park, Cedar Park TX 78612) or visit with the Finance Guys, Arun Jacob and Nick Crown, about the different ways that you can arrange to have your financial institution send a check to the parish.
Also, please remember that there are many folks in our parish community who may not have jobs when all this is over. We currently have about $15,000 in our charity fund, but if you can afford to give any extra, that fund would be a great place to put your money, please we want to be in a position where we can provide assistance with groceries, gas, and medical bills to anyone in our parish.
The Scripture Lessons and Hymns of the Week
Here are the Scripture Lessons (Hebrews 6.13-20; St Mark 9.17-31) and the hymns that you can use with the Typika Service this coming Sunday.
With the streams of thy tears, thou hast made the barren desert fertile. Through sighs of sorrow from deep within, thy labors have borne fruit a hundred-fold. By thy miracles thou hast become a light, shining upon the world. O John, our Holy Father, pray to Christ our God, to save our souls.
To thee, the Champion Leader, do I offer thanks of victory, O Theotokos, thou who hast delivered me from terror; but as thou that hast that power invincible, O Theotokos, thou alone can set me free: from all forms of danger free me and deliver me, that I may cry unto thee: Hail, O Bride without Bridegroom.
And if you’re thinking it might be easier or more interesting to just watch a live streamed service rather than offering the Typika, ponder on this quotation from John Kaag:
“…we spend an increasing amount of time ‘screening’ the world – taking in most of life through a contracted frame that captures objects of immediate interest. To live with eyes on the screen is to be attached, stuck in the frame, taking in what is presented to us and re-presented to us again. But representation – even in fine-grained pixilation – is not experience. To experience is to perceive. When we look at a screen, we might see something, but we don’t perceive. To live life through representations is to live passively, to receive rather than to experience. It is also, we fear, to live the life of a follower. Instead of asking What do I see? How might I tell you? we are told instead how to see, and often what to feel – much of which is determined by algorithm.”
Thanks to each of you for your Typika photos and your notes of encouragement. I’m looking forward to the time when we are all back together.
an unworthy priest
aidan