Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
On Friday, August 15, we will be celebrating The Dormition, the greatest feast of the Most Holy Theotokos. We will serve Great Vespers with The Lamentations on Thursday, August 14, at 7pm; on Friday morning, we will offer Orthros at 5am and Divine Liturgy at 7am. Please join us as we honor the Mother of God.
Pat K. has been a member of our parish for over twenty years. In the next few weeks, she will be relocating to Houston to be closer to her children. This coming Sunday, August 17, we will have a special cake for her and an opportunity to let her know how much she has meant to us all these years.
Our Calendar
Fasting Days
The Dormition Fast runs through Wednesday, August 14th , the eve of the great feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. During this season, 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 Wednesday, August 6th. If you need to modify the fast in any way, please check with your spiritual father.
Daily Services
Monday, August 11-Friday, August 15; Orthros 5am; Vespers 5pm (be sure and check the schedule for the festal services; it’s always a good idea to check the day before and make sure nothing has come up to change the regular schedule). However, Fr. Andrew, Seth Hart, and many other folks continue to broadcast daily readings from spiritual books online. They are now reading From Object to Icon by Andrew Williams. The schedule is as follows: M-F at 12pm.
In addition to the daily Synaxarion readings posted in the #synaxarion channel on Discord, the online team is now posting daily Bible Readings that will allow you to read through the Bible in a year. These readings are posted in the #bible-365 channel.
Monday, August 11
The Paraclesis 7pm
Tuesday, August 12
The Paraclesis 7pm
Wednesday, August 13
The Paraclesis 7pm
Thursday, August 14
Great Vespers with The Lamentations for the Mother of God 7pm
Friday, August 15 The Feast of the Dormition
Orthros 5am
Divine Liturgy 7am
Saturday, August 16
St Thomas School 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Sunday, August 17 The 10th Sunday of St Matthew
Orthros with baptisms and chrismations 7:30am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour Noon
Church School Registration
Please note: Beginning this year, our Archdiocese is requiring all children who participate in Church School to register ahead of time. So, please read the following announcement carefully, and let us know if you have any questions.
It is time for church school registration for the 2025-26 school year!! As a reminder, children need to be at least 3 years of age by September 1, 2025 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 and like last year, CGS will 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 would like to encourage you to register your child if you have any intention of them participating at all in the upcoming school year as it assists us tremendously with our planning. Please note that the first day of church school will be Sunday, September 7th. Look for the link for all church school registration on Discord.
Calling All Church School Friends and Volunteers
Our hard-working Director of The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Sandi A., is getting closer and closer to being fully certified—that means she will be able to do in-house training for our parish. One of the important tasks in the certification process is putting together all the materials for each of the classrooms—and Sandi needs our help with that work! But there’s just one session left! It’s scheduled for Sunday August 17th 1 p.m. - 3 p.m. (snacks provided), so please do you best to take part. We will have all three atria available as work spaces and plenty of supplies, so plan on pitching in and helping out with this tremendously important project.
Coming Up
During the Dormition Fast, we offer The Paraclesis to the Mother of God just about each week night between August 1 and August 13. That means there are still three more opportunities to participate in this lovely service, and that means all of us should be able to be present at least once during the fast. So please look at the website calendar and then look at your calendar and make plans to join us as we ask the Most Holy Theotokos for her intercessions.
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 and just about any other time with a specific appointment.
The last weekend of this month will be an important time in the life of our parish. On Saturday, August 30, St Thomas School will be sponsoring a really interesting speaker, Dr. Jordan Daniel Wood, who will be talking to us about St Maximos the Confessor; that session will be on Saturday afternoon at 4pm. Very early the next morning, Sunday, August 31, we will celebrate an All Night Vigil for the Patroness of our Building Program, St Eanswythe of Folkestone. The vigil will begin at am on Sunday and conclude with our regular 10am Divine Liturgy. During that time, our relic of St Eanswythe will be on display, and our new Substack, “Come See Something Beautiful” will go live. So we will be able to learn more about the Faith, and we will have a wonderful opportunity to pray about our new temple, and we will start sharing our plans for the temple with lots and lots of other people.
Our Moment of Grace and Courtesy
When we offer a weekday Divine Liturgy, there are typically no ushers available to serve. However, just because those friendly folks aren’t at the doors, the rules for entering the nave still apply. So, we need to remember and wait in the narthex during either one of the entrances, while the scripture lessons are being read, during the homily, and during the Holy Eucharist.
an unworthy priest
aidan