Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
In addition to preparing for the Mother of God’s most wonderful feast, we’re also counting down to the beginning of our Three Year Pledge Drive for the Capital Campaign. That kicks off on August 31, the Feast Day of St Eanswythe of Folkestone. We’ve been talking a great deal about all this, but if, after all the emails, announcements, visits, and events, you still have questions about what lies ahead, throughout the month of August, Rob T. and Father Aidan Wilcoxson will be sitting together at one of the picnic tables during Fellowship Hour to answer all your questions. Just look for those two guys, take a seat at the table, and join the discussion.
Our Calendar
Fasting Days
The Dormition Fast continues. During this Fast, which runs through Wednesday, August 14th , the eve of the great feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, we observe the traditional fasting discipline (no meat, poultry, fish, milk, cheese, eggs, wine and olive oil) Monday through Friday with a blessing for wine and olive oil on Saturday and Sunday, and for fish, wine and olive oil on the great feast of the Transfiguration on Tuesday, August 6th. If you need to modify the fast in any way, please check with your spiritual father.
Daily Services
Monday, August 5-9-Friday, August 9, Orthros 5am and Vespers, 5pm (but please check the schedule for the festal services (also, if you wish to attend the daily services, it’s always a good idea to check the day before to make sure the services will be offered).
Fr. Andrew, Seth Hart, and Matthew Groh and many other folks continue to broadcast daily readings from spiritual books online. They are now reading “On The Holy Spirit” by St Basil the Great. 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, August 5
Great Vespers 6pm (at Transfiguration Greek Parish)
Tuesday, August 6
The Feast of the Transfiguration
Orthros 9am (at Transfiguration Greek Parish)
Divine Liturgy 10am (at Transfiguration Greek Parish)
The Paraclesis Service 7pm (at St John’s)
Festal Choir Rehersal 8pm (at St John’s)
Wednesday, August 7
The Paraclesis Service 7pm
Thursday, August 8
The Paraclesis Service 7pm
Liturgy Choir Rehearsal 8pm
Friday, August 9
The Paraclesis Service 7pm
Saturday, August 10
St Thomas School 4pm
Youth Group 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Sunday, August 11
7th Sunday of St Matthew
Orthros 8am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Monday, August 12
The Paraclesis Service 7pm
Tuesday, August 13
The Paraclesis Service 7pm
Wednesday, August 14
Great Vespers for the Dormition 7pm
Thursday, August 15
The Feast of the Dormition
Orthros 6am
Divine Liturgy 8am
St Thomas School
On Saturday, August 10, Father Aidan Wilcoxson will be leading the discussion of chapter ten of Volume V entitled, “The Blessing of the Waters”. 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, August 8, to reserve your spot.
Coming Up
Nathalie M. is hosting a women’s book study in her home. It is called Saints and Sorbets: Seven Holy Women, and the next session will be this coming Wednesday, August 7, at 7pm. Location details are in the email version of the newsletter. This week the group will be talking about St. Kassiani, but everyone is invited to join the group to discuss and learn of and from these Seven Holy women’s lives including: St. Ia, St. Nino, St. Piama, St. Margaret, & St. Casilda de Toledo.
Before the Feast of the Dormition on Thursday, August 15, the Archdiocese expects all of us to make our confession. In our parish, that Holy Mystery is offered on Saturday evenings after Great Vespers or just about any other time by special appointment.
One of the most beautiful feasts of the year is the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God—and this year it will be especially lovely because we will be blessed with a new festal choir! The services of the feast will begin at 6pm on Wednesday, August 14, with Great Vespers and The Lamentations for the Theotokos, and, then, on Thursday, August 15, we will serve Orthros at 6am and Divine Liturgy at 8am. The festal choir will sing at the Divine Liturgy, and you do not want to miss that service. We will see you there.
Church School Registration
It is time for church school registration for the 2024-25 school year!! As a reminder, children need to be at least 3 years of age by September 1, 2024 and potty trained to register for Level 1, 6 years of age to register for Level 2, and 9 years of age to register for Level 3. SOYO (youth) is for ages 13-18. If you have any questions about CGS (Levels 1-3), feel free to reach out to Sandi A. If you have any questions about SOYO, you can reach out to Father Aidan or Father Andrew. The new CGS calendar will be posted to our parish website shortly but please note that we have an exciting new change!! CGS will now be offered at its regular time (8:15 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Sunday morning) for the first three Sundays of each month. We are so pleased to be able to offer a third Sunday of church school to our children and look forward to spending more time with them. The link for church school registration is in the email edition of the newsletter.
Our Moment of Grace and Courtesy
When the priest is processing through the nave during the Great Entrance, everyone is welcome to touch his vestments as an act of prayer. However, please do not grab hold of the vestments as this could cause an accident. Parents and grandparents, please be sure that your children understand that they are to simply hold out their hand and touch the vestments rather than try to hold on to them.
Capital Campaign Countdown Column
Whatever is obtained as a result of long and persistent prayer will remain.
-St John Climacus
We are now just five weeks away from our three year pledge campaign that will begin on the Feast of St Eanswythe, August 31. If you would like to learn more about the project, please read through the FAQ that is attached to this newsletter, but, to help us prepare for this historic effort, this week’s Countdown Column comes to us from our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Co-ordinator, Sandi A.
In Father Aidan’s Capital Campaign introduction he spoke to the permanence and legacy of the temple that we are preparing to build. Today I would like to focus on this idea by highlighting those who it will serve in the time to come: our children, grandchildren, and godchildren. It is through them and their prayers that our Orthodox faith will continue so it only makes sense to give them our very best, not just in terms of catechesis but also a beautiful space in which to worship and pray.
Maria Montesorri, the developer of our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd church school program, was both a physician and educator who after many years of observing children believed that they absorb more from their environment than from teaching. It is from this observation that the first atrium was developed and evolved into what we see today: a unique space that speaks to the child at his/her developmental level through the use of light, space, artwork, and cultural representation. The materials that the child works with are beautiful in a way that demonstrates permanence and consistency. Each atrium reflects what is seen and experienced in the Divine Liturgy and conversely, each Divine Liturgy magnifies what is pondered in the atrium.
Dr. Montessori believed in the power and transcendence of a beautiful environment, not one of extravagance, but of simplicity, order, cleanliness, and spaciousness. When children are provided these things they can begin to build knowledge and understanding of the world and their place in it. If you apply these same principles to the creation of our new temple it is easy to see that the space that they inherit will both inform and shape what they come to know about Holy Orthodoxy.
Many of you may not know that Dr. Montessori began her career working with special needs children and it was with these children that her teaching methods took shape. It is often the most humble and challenged individuals who Christ Jesus chose to speak to us through: children, widows, the sick, the elderly, the disabled and the poor. How important is the physical environment to a child with learning differences, to a child who struggles with language, focus, or cognition? I can tell you firsthand that it is everything. As the parent of a child with severe autism I can speak to the constant effort of finding different ways to teach, to communicate, to break through. There is a higher level of anxiety in parents of special needs children; will my child be able to thrive in the world and, more importantly, how will my child cultivate a deep relationship with the Most Holy Trinity? Questions that all parents have are magnified in parents of special needs children. If we knew that the physical environment of our new temple would be the only way that we could reach someone spiritually, how important would the creation of that space become?
Parents, grandparents, godparents, future parents, I invite you to take ownership of this Capital Campaign in a very personal way because it is personal. It is what we are gifting to our children and children’s children. It deserves our time, attention and very best effort. Most of all it deserves our constant prayer. May we all strive to pray with the fervor and consistency of Holy Mother Eanswythe as we seek to build our new temple.
-Sandi
A Personal Note
Kh Cynthia and I would like to thank all of you for your prayers, support, donations, gifts, time, and energy while she has been recovering from the surgery she had in June. She is doing much better, and we hope she can return soon to the Divine Services, but we have been blessed by all of your care and love.
an unworthy priest
aidan