Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
We will be serving the first Saturday of Souls this coming Saturday, February 26. Orthros will be served at 6:00 a.m. and Divine Liturgy at 8:00 a.m. Immediately after the liturgy, the St. Joanna Myrrhbearers will be hosting fellow parishioner and attorney, David Brown, to present information on end of life legal documents. The bookstore will have bound copies of these documents on hand. So, this is a wonderful opportunity to start this important process, which not only shows the acknowledgment of our own deaths, but provides clearly defined directives and wishes for our loved ones. Coffee and breakfast snacks will be provided.
Our Calendar
Fasting Days
Wednesday, February 23 and Friday, February 25. We are observing the regular fasting schedule in which we go without meat, most kinds of fish, dairy, oil, wine, and hard liquor. If you need to modify the normal fasting schedule, please check with your spiritual father.
Daily Services
Monday, February 21 - Friday, February 25: Orthros 5am; Vespers 5pm (If you plan on attending the daily services, it’s generally a good idea to check the day before to make sure that the service will be offered; sometimes pastoral situations require a change of plans, and the service cannot be offered on that particular day).
Seth Hart will be at the online chanter’s stand, offering the First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours this week on ZOOM: 1st hour @ 6:45; 3rd hour @ 8:45; 6th hour @11:45; 9th hour @3:45. Please see the emailed newsletter for the log in information.
Tuesday, February 22
Orthodoxy 101 at 7pm - see emailed newsletter for Zoom info
Thursday, February 24
The Bible Study at 7pm - see emailed newsletter for Zoom info.
Saturday, February 26
The Saturday of Souls
Orthros 6am
Divine Liturgy 8am
St Thomas School 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Reader’s Vespers 6:00 p.m. (Located at Central Texas Behavioral Center, 315 East Avenue D, in Killeen.)
Sunday, February 27
The Sunday of The Last Judgement
Orthros 8am
Church School 8:15am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour Noon
Akathist to the Mother of God, Nurturer of Children at Noon
St Thomas School
On Saturday, February 26, DeAnne Maisano will lead the discussion of Chapter Seven in Volume V, entitled “Marriage”.
In order to participate online, send an email to remote.meetings@theforerunner.org by this coming Thursday, February 24; you will also need to keep your camera on during the session.
Construction News
The work on our new parking lot will begin Tuesday, March 1. The project will take at least five weeks and, during that time, here are some things we will all need to do:
First of all, we should be praying for the entire process, for our project manager, for the construction company and their workers, and for our parish council who will be over-seeing the whole effort. Our prayers will keep everyone safe and ensure that the project is completed successfully.
Second, parents, godparents, and grandparents need to be especially vigilant during the construction work. None of the work will take place on Sundays. However, there will be heavy equipment parked on the property; lots of earth will be moved; there will be construction fencing and porta-potties and all sorts of items that are attractive and intriguing to young children. The general rule at our parish is that our children must be in our direct line of sight at all times. This rule is going to be even more critical while the parking lot is being replaced.
Third, there are specific places that you cannot park: You cannot park in the circular drive in front of the parish house and you cannot park in any area where there is a red border along the edge of the concrete. Those areas are set aside for emergency vehicles. If a policeman drives by our property and sees that you are parked in any of those locations, you could very well receive a ticket.
Fourth, if your family normally brings two or three vehicles to the parish, please consider adjusting your schedule for the next several weeks and only bring one vehicle. If all our families car-pool, then we should have plenty of parking, not only for our parishioners but also for our visitors.
Finally, quite a few of our folks are going to be parking off-site while the construction project is going on. Those folks have already received instructions about how that is going to work (you can read through those instructions in the letter attached to this newsletter). However, if you arrive on a Sunday and you cannot find a place to park on our property, then you need to know that, while it is legal to park in the surrounding neighborhoods, (1) you cannot park within four feet of a private driveway and (2) you cannot park on the bridges that cross North Winecup Trail and Big Sur Drive. Parking your car in that way and in those locations could lead to a ticket.
Coming Up
Great Lent
Great Lent begins on Monday, March 7! It will be here before we know it. So, let’s make sure and use this upcoming time of preparation wisely. Let’s decide which weekday services we will attend. Let’s go ahead and figure out when we will make our confession. Let’s check to make sure we are up to date on our financial commitment to the parish. Let’s stop by the library or Christ the Lightgiver Bookstore and pick up a book for some spiritual reading. Let’s make our fasting plans (and get a blessing for any exceptions we need to make in the fasting discipline) and let’s be on the look-out for ways in which we can help and support our brothers and sisters in the parish.
First Saturday of Souls
The first Saturday of Souls for 2022 will be this Saturday, February 26. The others will be Saturday, March 19, Saturday, March 26, and Saturday, June 11. On each of those days, Orthros will be served at 6:00 a.m. and Divine Liturgy at 8:00 a.m. If you plan to be present on a particular Saturday, please write the names of the departed that you will be praying for in the Memorial Book that is located in the narthex. If you will not be present for those specific services, please do not write the names of your friends and loved ones on that particular day. That way, there will be plenty of space for the names of the loved ones who will be at the services.
Forgiveness Vespers
We will be serving Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday, March 6. That service marks the official beginning of the Fast and we will offer it after the Divine Liturgy and a brief Fellowship Hour. In the past, a few people have always made prostrations when exchanging words of forgiveness, but, starting this year, we are going to ask everyone to simply bow rather than make a full prostration. There are 400 of us now and, in order to complete the service within a reasonable amount of time, we all need to just bow. If making these prostrations is an important part of your Lenten disciplines, you can do those at home, following the service.
Camp St. Raphael
Camp St. Raphael 2022 Camper Applications are available online at https://www.campstraphael.org. Remember spots are reserved on a first come first serve basis. So, don’t delay. Session One is Sunday, June 26th to Saturday, July 2nd, and Session Two is Sunday, July 3rd to Saturday, July 9th. This year CSR will be at new location in Kingston, Oklahoma. Scholarships are available. So, if you need assistance in order to send your child to camp, please speak with Father Aidan or Father Andrew.
Parish Life Conference
The Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America’s Parish Life Conference will be hosted by St. George Cathedral in Wichita, Kansas, from Wednesday, June 15th through Saturday, June 18th. Hotel reservations may be made at Reservations: Hyatt Regency https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/group-booking/WICRW/G-GEC.
Our Moment of Grace and Courtesy
We’re still working on this one: With the approval of the parish council, the clergy would like to request that when we approach the chalice we say our baptismal/saint’s name as we cross our arms and open our mouths (parents and godparents will most likely need to assist their young children and godchildren with this). It’s actually standard practice in most communities and, now that are almost 400 people in our parish, it’s a practice that we also need to adopt. Thank you for your help making this change!
an unworthy priest
aidan
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