Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
Please remember that Daylight Savings Time ends this weekend, so, if we haven’t already, we need to set our clocks back one hour this morning.
This coming Saturday, November 7, we will be celebrating the Feast of St Raphael of Brooklyn. We will offer Orthros at 6am and Divine Liturgy at 8am. St Raphael is The Good Shepherd of the Lost Sheep in America; his icon and relic adorn our nave, so this is a wonderful opportunity to pray for all those that we love who are not yet part of the Church or who have fallen away from the Faith.
Fasting Days
Wednesday, November 4, Friday, November 6
Daily Services
Monday, November 2-Wednesday, November 4: Orthros 4am; Vespers 5pm; there will not be any daily services on Thursday and Friday of this week (in general, if you plan on attending the daily services, it’s a good idea to email Father Aidan ahead of time to make sure the schedule has not changed).
Today, Sunday, November 1 The Fifth Sunday of St Luke
Orthros 8am
Church School 8:15am
Divine Liturgy 10am Travel blessings as well as blessing for devotional items, birthdays, and anniversaries will be available at the conclusion of the Liturgy. (Also, the first Sunday of the month is a good time to check the Lost and Found Box in the kitchen.)
Fellowship Hour Noon
Youth Church School 1pm
Tuesday, November 3
Inquirer’s Class 7pm
Wednesday, November 4
Orthros 4am
Divine Liturgy 6am
Fall Theological Seminar 7pm
Saturday, November 7
4pm St Thomas School
5:45pm Great Vespers
Sunday, November 8 The Seventh Sunday of St Luke
Orthros 8am
Church School 8:15am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour Noon
Coming Up
This past week, we wrapped up our Annual Stewardship Campaign. If it slipped past you, please remember that the Finance Committee needs your 2027 Budge Pledge information to be entered into REALM as soon as possible. You can find all the necessary information on Discord. Ray W. is available if you have any questions or if you need any assistance with REALM.
This coming Saturday, November 7th, Sandi A. will be giving a talk on our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program at the 4:00 p.m. catechumen class. Anyone who is interested in finding out more about CGS is encouraged to attend. Some of the topics that will be discussed include the history of CGS, CGS terminology, how it became the program that we chose for St. John’s, and what it looks like to serve in the atrium. A field trip to all three atrium levels and a presentation of one of our works followed by a Q&A session will round out the presentation.
The Nativity Fast begins on Sunday, November 15, and runs through Thursday, December 24. During this first part of the Fast, November 15- December 20, we observe the normal fasting discipline (no meat, dairy products, fish with backbones, oil, wine, or hard liquor) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. There is a blessing for oil and wine on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and a blessing for fish, oil, and wine on Saturdays and Sunday. Many American Orthodox Christians will also request a blessing to break the fast on Thanksgiving Day, November 26. During the second period of the Fast, December 20-24, we observe the normal fasting discipline, no matter the day of the week. If you need to modify the fast in any way, please visit with one of our priests as soon as possible, so you will be prepared to make the most of the fasting season.
The St. John's Fall Festival is Saturday, November 14, from 2:30 to 9:00 pm, with an arts and crafts market, a chili cook-off for the Building Fund, the Show 'n' Tell Variety Show at 4:00, Vespers at 6:00, and live music, storytelling, food and drinks after. To enter the chili cook-off, text Misty W. To share something at the Variety Show, sign up using the link on the email version of the newsletter. For questions and to volunteer, contact Rigel.
If you haven’t seen the video of the new temple, it is streaming on Substack. Please check it out and share it with lots of folks. If you have questions about anything you say, just about all of those will be addressed on the Substack in the weeks ahead, so tune in often.
Working on the Building
If you want us to get into that new temple as soon as possible, there are four things you can do this week:
Join us in offering The Akathist for a New Temple each week. Copies are available in the bookstore and online; a recording is available on Discord, and there is a group that meets on Discord each Friday at noon to offer the service.
Join us for the 6am Wednesday Morning Divine Liturgy and reverence the reliquary of St Eanswythe.
Check to make sure that you’re current on your Three Year Commitment to our Building Program. If you have not make a commitment to our Temple Fund, please check with our Finance Guy, Ray W.; he’ll get you set up.
Take out a (totally free) subscription to our Substack, Come See Something Beautiful, read through Father Deacon’s Seraphim’s instructional slides that are attached to this newsletter, and like/comment on/restack/forward each of the three weekly posts.
Our Moment of Grace and Courtesy
Water bottles are now a ‘thing’ in our culture. Those containers come in all sorts of sizes, and folks often carry them where ever they go. However, we should not bring water bottles with us into the Divine Services. To begin with, it’s simply not necessary: we can leave our bottles on the shelves above the coat racks, and, if we need to hydrate, we can simply step outside of the services and get a drink (or even use the water fountain). But bringing water bottles with us into the Divine Services is also dangerous: when we set bottle on the floor or even under one of the chairs, we are creating a fall hazard that, given how crowded our nave is, could potentially cause injury to a number of people. So, our ushers will be reminding us that, unless we are a parish musician, we need to leave our water bottles in the narthex.