Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
This coming Saturday, February 24, Bishop JOHN of Worcester will be at St Elias, Round Rock, leading a Marriage Workshop designed for couples, engaged couples, and singles who wish to learn more about marriage. His Grace is a widower who was married for many years before he was consecrated a bishop, and he has a background in counseling, so the presentation should be excellent. The entire schedule is on the Announcement page on our Discord, but everything starts at 10am, and it will wind up with Great Vespers at 4pm—at which our own Demetry Z. will be tonsured a reader.
Our Calendar
Fasting Days
Wednesday, February 21, and Friday, February 23
Daily Services
Monday, February 19—Friday, February 23: Orthros 5am; Vespers 5pm (but there will not be any daily vespers on Monday, Feb 19; please remember that if you plan on attending the in-person services, it’s always a good idea to check the day before and make sure the regular schedule will be observed).
Fr. Andrew, Seth Hart, and Matthew Groh and many other folks continue to broadcast daily readings from spiritual books online. They are now reading “Wounded By Love: The Life and Wisdom of St Porphyrios”. The schedule is as follows: M-F at 12pm.
Also, our online team will now be reading the Daily Synaxarion on Discord. Just look for this channel: #synaxarion
Tuesday, February 20
Orthodoxy 101 7pm; you can also access the group on Discord
Thursday, February 22
The Bible Study, Old Testament Edition 7pm You can access this group on Discord
Saturday, February 23
St Thomas School 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Sunday, February 24
The Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee
Orthros 8am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour
St Thomas School
On Saturday, February 24, Gabe M. will be leading the discussion of pages 295-314 chapter nine of Volume V entitled, “The Divine Services from The Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee”. Online access is available on Discord; like to participate online, you still need to sign-up ahead of time. Just send an email to remote.meetings@theforerunner.org by Thursday, February 22, to reserve your spot.
Coming Up
It’s time to plan for summer camp! Every year, The Order of St Ignatius generously provides each parish in the archdiocese with scholarship money. This year, the Order will give St John’s $1,000 to be divided up among no more than 10 campers, but we need to sign up for this scholarship money by March 1. So, if your child is registered for Camp St Raphael, and you would like to access some of the scholarship money, send an email to Father Aidan as soon as possible and get on the list.
This year, the Triodion begins on Sunday, February 25, and Great Lent begins on Monday, March 18. Please take a look at the website calendar and start planning how you will fast and when you will make your confession. We also need to be thinking about which Lenten services we will attend, what kind of spiritual reading we want to do, how we will help others, and how much we want to increase our giving. If we will plan ahead, we will be able to take full advantage of these special seasons.
This year, the Saturdays of Souls fall on March 9 and March 30, as well as on April 6 and June 22. On those Saturdays, we pray for our departed friends and loved ones, but we also prepare for our departure from this life, and our Burial Society can help us with a lot of those practical details. Members of the society will be present on each Saturday, along with a representative from Beck Funeral Home, and they can answer all your questions and help get you started on that process that so very many of us just try to postpone. Since there are four Saturdays of Souls, our hope is that all of us will attend the Divine Services on at least one of those days, so look at your calendar and go ahead and pick a Saturday on which you can join us.
The archdiocese expects all of us to make our confession prior to Pascha. Here in our parish, we do not offer the Mystery of Holy Confession during Holy Week, so that means we have eight weeks to get that done. Of course, two months seems like a long time, but it will go by very quickly, so we need to plan ahead. Holy Confession is available on Saturday evenings after Great Vespers or just about any other time with a specific appointment (our priests do not hear immediate-request-on-the-spot confessions).
Our Moment of Grace and Courtesy
We should always remember to dress appropriately for the Divine Liturgy. It is our encounter with the Most Holy Trinity, and our clothes should reflect the importance of that encounter. If you have questions about what is or is not appropriate, you can consult the article from the archdiocese that is on our web-site. If you have specific questions that are not addressed in the article, please feel free to ask one of the deacons or myself. However, if you see someone who is wearing something that is inappropriate, under no circumstances should you say anything to that person because only clergymen have the authority to do that.
an unworthy priest
aidan