Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
This coming week we will reach the mid-point in the Forty Days of Great Lent, so this is a good time to think about where we are in our spiritual striving: Have we made our confession? Are we fasting to the level of our ability? Are we present at the Divine Liturgy each and every Sunday? Have we been attending any of the weekday Lenten services? Have we made it to one of the Saturdays of Souls? Are we doing our best to help others and to increase our giving? That’s a lot, but, then, there’s a lot riding on the work that we do—not only our salvation, but the transformation and transfiguration of the entire world.
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, April 16 (there is a blessing for fish, wine, and oil on Saturdays and Sundays). If you need to modify that discipline in any way, please speak with your spiritual father as soon as possible.
Daily Services
Monday, March 13 - Friday, March 17
Orthros 5am
Vespers 5pm
Seth Hart will be at the online chanter’s stand offering the First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours this week on ZOOM. The schedule is below:
1st hour: 6:45 a.m.
3rd hour: 8:45 a.m.
6th hour: 11:45 a.m.
9th hour: 3:45 p.m.
The login information is available in the emailed version of the newsletter.
St. John Trapeza Readings
Fr. Andrew, Seth Hart, and Matthew Groh and many other folks continue to broadcast daily readings from spiritual books online. They are currently reading Beauty, Spirit, Matter: Icons in the Modern World by Aidan Hart.
The schedule is as follows: Monday to Friday at 12:00 p.m.
If you would like to listen in, use the link to join the Telegram group shared in the emailed version of the newsletter.
Lenten Services
Monday, March 13 Great Compline 7pm
Wednesday, March 15 Pre-Sanctified Liturgy 7pm
Friday, March 17 Akathist Hymn 7pm
Tuesday, March 14
Orthodoxy 101 7pm
This week Orthodoxy 101 will not meet in person; you can however, access the group on Discord. Please see the emailed version of the newsletter for the link.
Thursday, March 16
The Bible Study 7pm
Topic: St. John the Forerunner - Bible Study
Please see the emailed version of the newsletter for the Zoom link.
Saturday, March 18 Saturday of Souls
Orthros 6am
Divine Liturgy at 10am
St. Thomas School at 4:00 p.m.
Great Vespers at 6:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 18 The Third Sunday of Great Lent
Orthros 8am
Church School 8:15am
Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour Noon
Youth Church School 1pm
Akathist to the Mother of God, Nurturer of Children
St. Thomas School
On Saturday, March 18, Seth Hart will lead the discussion on Chapter 27 in Volume One, “Death as a Way To Eternity”. St Thomas School is now on Discord, but if you would 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 9 to reserve your spot.
coming up
On Saturday, March 25, we will celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation. We will offer Orthros at 6am and Divine Liturgy at 8am. Please join with us as we honor the Most Holy Theotokos on this lovely festal day.
The Archdiocese expects all of us to make our confession before Pascha. In our parish, confession is offered on Saturday evenings after Great Vespers or just about any other time by appointment, but we do not hear confessions during Holy Week. That means we have until Lazarus Saturday, April 8, so let’s not wait until the last minute to receive that blessing.
Hopefully, by now you’ve heard that we are setting up our official St John’s online presence on Discord. Discord is available as an app for your phone or computer or in your internet browser; to check it all out, click the link below. If you already have Discord set up, you will be added to the server without a role - in other words, as a guest. If you have not set up Discord, you will be prompted to create a username (please use your actual name, so we will all know with whom we are communicating) and a Discord account. Once you are in the server, you'll see a small number of channels, either on the left of the screen or (on mobile) in a three-line menu on the left. Go to the Verify channel for instructions on confirming that you are a St. John parishioner. Once you've been verified, you'll see that the Verify channel disappears and there are additional channels available to you.
At any point, if you run into issues, please feel free to email, text, call, or send a carrier pigeon, etc to Seth Hart, who has graciously agreed to guide us through this process.
The St. Joanna Myrrbearers have now installed the St. John's Memorial Garden by the front entrance walkway to the Long Hall, so that all of us in passing will be able to cross ourselves and say a prayer for the departed. This space will be dedicated to parishioners (and Orthodox immediate family members of parishioners) whose graves are more than 100 miles away and difficult to visit, or simply unavailable to us. In addition, parishioners who have suffered the loss of an unborn infant, by whatever cause, will now have a place to lay a stone in their remembrance. The Myrrhbearers are finalizing the vendor choices for the stones, but in the meantime, we ask that you contact Becky T. (or snag her at Fellowship Hour) if you are interested in getting more information and/or purchasing a stone.
It may seem like a long ways off, but it will be here before we know it—The Pascha Book Study! The study will begin on Bright Wednesday, April 19, and it will meet each Wednesday night at 7pm through May 17. This year’s study will be structured just like the Fall Theological Seminar; we will have a series of presentations that will focus on our new temple, but we will also be talking about men’s issues and women’s issues and how, as women and men, we will interact with one another in our new temple. Please plan on joining us, either in person or on Discord, for what promises to be a very important time in the life of our community.
OUR MOMENT OF GRACE AND COURTESY
Since our first practical session of St Thomas School proved so popular, we are going to be highlighting a few of the liturgical etiquette tips in the weeks ahead. Here is Tip #2: When there is a clergyman standing in front of the altar or in front of the holy doors, you should not come up to the front of the nave to light a candle since that is going to be distracting. So, that means, during the Divine Liturgy, you have two options when it comes to candle-lighting: you can arrive early and place your candles in the candle boxes located in the back of the nave while there is still room in those boxes, or you can wait until after the Divine Liturgy and light your candles during Fellowship Hour (when it is much quieter and you can take all the time you need).
Things That Make Priests Happy
Hearing about the rigorous training John W. went through in preparation for owning an ice cream store; discovering that, in 17th century Michigan, Roman Catholics were given permission to eat muskrat during Great Lent and wondering what that would be like; wishing, with Robbie T., that the deer would clean up after themselves (Is there such a thing as Muskrat Roll or Muskrat Loaf?); visiting with Jared H. about interesting philosophers (What about Muskrat Hash or a Muskrat Burger?); meeting Fredrick L.’s family (When you’re chewing on Muskrat, do you learn What makes the Muskrat guard his musk?); checking out the Fellowship Hour Flash Mob Chess Tournament (And, most importantly of all, do you have to listen to The Captain and Tennille when you’re dining on muskrat?); walking home in front of a rising sun, under a full moon, and amidst the notes of a mockingbird’s song.
an unworthy priest,
aidan
The Happy Priest is a publication of Life At A Dead Run Media, which is a subsidiary of One Take Productions. Our IT Guy is Christian Perez; our Webmasters are Lily Halsey and Seth Hart; our Keeper of Lists is Father Andrew Wilson; our Roving Reporter is Amy Townsend; with company ties, we always use the Full Windsor Knot, and our Spiritual Advisor is Elder Galaction of the Holy Mountain.