Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
The Apostles’ Fast begins today. It will run through the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul on Thursday, June 29. During this fasting season, we observe the traditional fasting discipline on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (no meat, dairy products, oil, wine, or hard liquor), with a blessing for fish, wine and olive oil on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. If you need to modify the fast in any way, please be sure and get a blessing from your spiritual father.
Our Calendar
Fasting Days
The Apostles’ Fast begins this week and continues through June 29.
Daily Services
Monday, June 12 to Friday, June 16
Orthros 5am
Vespers 5pm
There will not be any daily in person services beginning with vespers on Wednesday, as Father Aidan will be at the Parish Life Conference. The in person daily services will resume on Monday, June 19.
Seth Hart and friends will be at the online chanter’s stand offering the First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours this week.:
1st hour: 6:45 a.m.
3rd hour: 8:45 a.m.
6th hour: 11:45 a.m.
9th hour: 3:45 p.m.
Join the Daily Hours on Discord.
Fr. Andrew, Seth Hart, and Matthew Groh and many other folks continue to broadcast daily readings from spiritual books online. They are currently reading Commentary on Psalm 118 by St Theophan the Recluse. The schedule is as follows: M-F at 12pm.
Please see the emailed version of the newsletter for the link to join the Trapeza Readings on Discord.
Tuesday, June 13
Orthodoxy 101 7pm
You can access the group on Discord.
Thursday, June 15
The Bible Study, New Testament Edition 7pm
You can access this group on Discord
Saturday, June 17
St Thomas School 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Sunday, June 18
Orthros 8am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour Noon
st. thomas school
On Saturday, June 17, John Bell will lead the discussion on Chapter 4 of Volume III, “Arrangement of Churches and Church Objects”. 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, June 15, to reserve your spot.
coming up
During The Apostles’ Fast, we always serve The Akathist to the Apostles on Wednesday evenings. This year, the clergy will be out of town at the Parish Life Conference on the first Wednesday of the fast, so mark your calendars for Wednesday, June 21, at 7pm when we will offer the Akathist, and Wednesday, June 28, at 7pm when we will serve Great Vespers for the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul.
Our parish feast day, The Nativity of the Forerunner, also falls during The Apostles’ Fast, on Saturday, June 24. On Thursday, June 23, we will serve Great Vespers at 7pm, and then on the morning of the feast, we will serve Orthros at 6am and Divine Liturgy at 8am. Come join us as we thank our patron and protector for his intercessions—and, this year, at the conclusion of Great Vespers on Friday, we will have our first ever Beating of the Bounds. We will process around our property in thanksgiving for the beautiful land with which we have been blessed, so, if you’ve never been on the back two and a half acres of our five acre lot, here’s you’re chance!
On Sunday, June 25, we will have our next Safety and Security Rehearsal. This rehearsal will be for a severe weather event. Basically, what we will be doing is evacuating The Long Hall and The Parish House as we have done in the past, but we will also add a ‘duck and cover’ component to the exercise—which, to put it in Orthodox terms, just means that we will all make a prostration before we get up and move to the Rally Signs--butut we will also have plenty of additional information about the event as the date gets closer.
OUR MOMENT OF GRACE AND COURTESY
Let’s be sure and leave the chairs and the benches for folks who are older and for folks who have physical limitations. Children and young people should always sit on the floor or stand. We never know who is going to come through the door of the nave, so even if it appears that there are vacant chairs or benches, children and young people should remain sitting on the floor or standing.
Things That Make Priests Happy
Blessing Cameron and Julia C. on their 7th anniversary; learning that the Young Adults will be screening the Princess Bride on Saturday, June 17 (favorite line: “You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.”); maintaining a steady pace during the Divine Services, because if you rush, you get rotten miracles; trying not to think about Vizzini every time we use the word ‘inconceivable’ in the Holy Anaphora; recalling that, since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate and the most pure, and thinking back on forty-seven years of marriage, and realizing that, actually, there have now been six; walking to Orthros early on Sunday morning and keeping an eye out for Rodents of Unusual Size.
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 Georgia Mason, we always begin interviews by asking if the applicant has six fingers on their right hand, and our Spiritual Advisor is Elder Galaction of the Holy Mountain.