Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
This coming weekend is going to be another busy Lenten weekend. On Sunday, we will celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy with a procession around the property (be sure and bring an icon from home), and then, after a brief Fellowship Hours, we will serve Great Vespers for the Feast of the Annunciation. That service will begin no later than 1pm.
Our Calendar
Fasting Days
The traditional fasting discipline is that we go without meat (beef, pork, chicken, and fish with backbones), dairy products, oil, wine, and hard liquor through Pascha, Sunday, May 5 (there is a blessing for fish, wine, and oil on Saturdays and Sundays and on this coming Monday, March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation). If you need to modify that discipline in any way, please speak with your spiritual father as soon as possible.
Daily Services
Monday, Mar 18 - Friday, Mar 22
Orthros 5 am
Vespers 5 pm
Except Wed Mar 20: Pre-Sanctified Liturgy
(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 M-F at 12pm.
Also, our online team will now be reading the Daily Synaxarion on the #synaxarion channel.
Monday, March 18
Great Compline 7 pm
Tuesday, March 19
Great Compline 7 pm
Wednesday, March 20
Pre-Sanctified Liturgy 7 pm
Thursday, March 21
Great Compline 7 pm
Friday, March 22
The Akathist Hymn 7 pm
Saturday, March 23
Youth Group 4 pm
St Thomas School 4 pm
Great Vespers 6 pm
Sunday, March 24
The Sunday of Orthodoxy
Orthros 8 am
Divine Liturgy 10 am
Fellowship Hour Noon
Great Vespers for The Feast of the Annunciation no later than 1 pm
Monday, March 25
The Feast of the Annunciation
Orthros 5 am
Divine Liturgy 7 am
St. Thomas School
On Saturday, March 23, John B. will be leading the discussion of chapter ten of Volume V entitled, “The Paschal Cycle”. 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, March 21, to reserve your spot.
Finance Update
Thanks to the mercy of the Most Holy Trinity and to your generosity, we ended February with a budget surplus of just over $20,000 for the year. That’s a great way to begin 2024, and we need to keep up that level of commitment, because the company that will sponsor our bond offering for the new temple will be taking an especially close look at our finances as we head towards the beginning of our three year pledge campaign at the very end of August. So thanks to each and every one of you, and let’s keep up the great work!
Coming Up
We will be celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation this next week. We will offer Great Vespers for the least after a brief Fellowship Hour, this coming Sunday, March 24 (the service will begin no later than 1pm). On the day of the feast, Monday, March 25, we will serve Orthros at 5am and Divine Liturgy at 7am. Join us as we honor the Most Holy Theotokos on this lovely feast day.
The next Saturday of Souls will be March 30, and we will also offer those services 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 March 9 and April 6, 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 (on those Saturdays, a light breakfast will also be provided). 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
When we need to ask the priest a question or give him an update on our health or schedule an appointment, we can do that by email or with a phone call or in a personal conversation. However, we should not try to do any of that when we are receiving the Holy Eucharist or reverencing the Precious and Life-Giving Cross—those are sacred and solemn moments that should not be interrupted with other concerns.
an unworthy priest,
aidan