Brothers and Sisters,
Happy Feast!
We will be celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation today. 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.
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 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, March 25—Friday, March 29: Orthros 5am; Vespers 5pm (but there will not be any daily vespers on Wednesday due to the 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 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
Monday, March 25
The Feast of the Annunciation
Orthros 5am
Divine Liturgy 7am
Great Compline 7pm
Tuesday, March 26
Parish Council 7pm; this group will meet in the common room of the Parish House
Orthodoxy 101 7pm; this group will meet in the narthex of the Long Hall; you can also access the group on Discord
Wednesday, March 27
The Pre-Sanctified Liturgy 7pm
Thursday, March 28
The Bible Study, Old Testament Edition 7pm You can access this group on Discord
Friday, March 29
The Akathist Hymn 7pm
Saturday, March 30
The Saturday of Souls
Orthros 6am
Divine Liturgy 8am
St Thomas School 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Sunday, March 31
The Second Sunday of Great Lent
Orthros 8am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour Potluck Noon
St Thomas School
On Saturday, March 30, Polly T. will be leading the discussion of chapter eleven of Volume V entitled, “The Divine Services from the Beginning of The Apostles’ Fast”. 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 28, to reserve your spot.
Coming Up
The next Saturday of Souls will be this Saturday, 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 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
An important aspect of our stewardship is keeping our property looking as nice as possible. Parents and grandparents and godparents have a big role to play in that effort. For example, landscaping features often attract children, and we certainly want our children to enjoy their time at the parish, but when children play with the gravel and mulch and stones that are part of our landscaping, those children should also be taught the good stewardship of restoring those materials to their original appearance. When children have paper plates or food scraps, rather than allowing them to simply drop that trash on the ground or leave in on a table, they should be shown how to place it all in the proper containers.
an unworthy priest
aidan