Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
Our Annual Community Meeting will be held immediately after the Divine Liturgy on this coming Sunday, February 12. In addition to electing two new parish council members, we will also be voting on our Building Program proposals and several amendments to our Parish Constitution. Since those proposals and those amendments have been available for the last two months, we won’t be discussing any of them in the meeting itself; we will simply vote on those measures. So, please be sure and look over the Building Program proposals and the constitutional amendments (there’s a link to all that in this newsletter), and, if you have any questions, get in touch, this week, with either Father Aidan or Bessie J., our Parish Council President. Lindsey B., our volunteer at the Bastrop Pregnancy Resource Center, writes: I brought all the donations to the Bastrop Pregnancy Resource Center today. Our parish contributed so many wonderful items! We are truly thankful. As I put everything in the boutique, the items really filled out and warmed the space. Also, the service for the victims of abortion was beautiful and helpful. Would you please extend my thanks to our community however appropriate? I really felt so encouraged by everyone’s support.
Our Calendar
Fasting
There is no fasting during this first week of The Triodion (Wha-Hoo!)
Daily Services
There will not be any daily services this week since our priests will be at the Annual Clergy Brotherhood Retreat in Wichita Kansas. The services will resume on Monday, February 13. However, Seth Hart will be at the online chanter’s stand offering the First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours this week on ZOOM. The schedule is below:
1st hour: 6:45 a.m.
3rd hour: 8:45 a.m.
6th hour: 11:45 a.m.
9th hour: 3:45 p.m.
The login information is available in the emailed version of the newsletter.
St. John Trapeza Readings
Fr. Andrew, Seth Heart, and Matthew Groh and many other folks continue to broadcast daily readings from spiritual books online. They are currently reading Commentary on the Apocalypse, Andrew of Caesarea.
The schedule is as follows: Monday to Friday at 12:00 p.m.
If you would like to listen in, use the link to join the Telegram group shared in the emailed version of the newsletter.
Tuesday, February 7
Orthodoxy 101 at 7:00 p.m.
Topic: Orthodoxy 101
Please see the emailed version of the newsletter for login information.
Saturday, February 11
St. Thomas School at 4:00 p.m.
Great Vespers at 6:00 p.m.
Sunday, February 12 Sunday of The Prodigal Son
Orthros 8am
Liturgy 10am
Annual Community Meeting Immediately Following the Divine Liturgy
Fellowship Hour Following the Annual Meeting
Akathist to the Mother of God of the Inexhaustible Cup Following Fellowship Hour
St. Thomas School
On Saturday, February 11, Gabe Martini will lead the discussion of Chapter Twenty Two in Volume Two, “The Unity of the Church” https://theforerunner.squarespace.com/blog/2021/5/9/orthodox-christianity-vol-iii-ch-2. In order to participate online, send an email to remote.meetings@theforerunner.org by this coming Thursday, February 9. You will also need to keep your camera on during the session.
coming up
Building Program Next Steps
We continue to talk about the next steps in our building program, and we want to hear from everyone. Of course, you can also talk to Baker Galloway, Mike Brown, Will Hampton, or Father Aidan Wilcoxson in person or contact any of those folks via email.
The first Saturday of Souls for 2023 is February 18.
On that day, Orthros will be offered at 6am and Divine Liturgy will be offered at 8am. The St Joanna Burial Society will also be on hand to serve refreshments, display caskets that are available to order and sell end-of-life paperwork packets and related reading material. The group will also be able to explain how you can obtain burial plots at Cedar Park Cemetery. The other Saturdays of Souls will be held on March 11 and March 18 and June 3, so if you are unable to join us for the services on the 18th , please plan on one of those other dates.
Great Lent
Now that the Triodion has begun, it’s important that we begin planning for Great Lent: How will we fast? Do we need to get a blessing to modify the fast? Which weekday Lenten services will we attend? Which of the Saturdays of Souls will we attend? What will we use for spiritual reading? How will we increase our giving and help out others? Those are questions that we need to address—and answer—in the next few weeks.
Prosphora
This year and going forward, we’re going to be encouraging everyone in the parish to learn how to bake prosphora! To help with that long-term project, we will be offering a Prosphora Baking Class on Saturday, 18 February from 10:30am-1pm. The class will meet in the kitchen of the Long Hall; it will be taught by Mary K. and other bakers; all supplies will be provided, and a light lunch will be served. What a deal! If you would like to get a head start on this new spiritual discipline, please contact Mary by Saturday, February 11.
Cookbook
Back in 2015, a Lenten cookbook was compiled for our community. As it is now out of print, editors Lindsey B. and Clara C. are collecting recipes for an updated 2nd edition. Please submit any of your own fasting favorites via this form by March 1: https://forms.gle/EZi8wWuC1Ft6RY4Z6.
OUR MOMENT OF GRACE AND COURTESY
The folks who serve on our Fellowship Hour Teams have told us that we seem to be wasting a lot of food. When it comes time to clean up, it’s not uncommon to find full plates of relatively untouched food, and the teams have no choice put to dispose of it. One way to address this problem is for parents to actually go through the line with their children and supervise how much food they put on their plates. Often, after the Divine Liturgy, children think that they will eat more food than they actually are able to consume. So, if an adult from their family is present with them to help them out, they will make better choices, and we won’t end up disposing of so much food.
Things That Make Priests Happy
Blessing Father Deacon Michael and Shamassy Rebecca Coleman on their 11 th anniversary; celebrating the Feast of the Presentation; hearing about the birth of Nicholas P.; talking with Isaac C. about Bug Bunny and with Steve G. about balloons; reading Father Andrew’s analysis of the festal canon; visiting with Anastasia R. about Candyland and reading the prayers for her brother, Dominic (CUTE!); visiting with Zoe D. about all the heads in her car and with Imogene B. about rabbit stew; watching the fog come up over a field.
an unworthy priest,
aidan