Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
On Discord, in the St Eanswythe Channel, you can see a photo of Bessie, our Parish Council President, standing in the porch of St Eanswythe’s Church in Folkestone, England. St Eanswythe is the patroness of our Building Program; Bessie and Arun (who took the photo) were recently traveling in the United Kingdom, and they went to Folkestone to reverence the saint’s relics, but the church wasunexpectedly closed. As we prepare to start raising funds this fall for our temple, we want to see photos of you and St Eanswythe, so send us those pictures and be watching the Discord channel for updates.
Our Calendar
Fasting Days
Wednesday, July 12, and Friday, July 14. If you need to modify the fast, please check with your spiritual
father.
Daily Services
Monday, July 10 to Friday, July 14
Orthros 5am
Vespers 5pm
but there will not be any daily vespers on Monday, July 10.
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, July 10
Orthodoxy 101 7pm You can also access the group on Discord.
Thursday, July 13
The Bible Study, New Testament Edition 7 pm ( You can access this group on Discord)
Saturday, July 15
St. Thomas School 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Sunday, July 16
The Sunday of The Holy Fathers
Orthros 8am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour Noon
st. thomas school
On Saturday July 15, Baker Galloway will be leading the discussion on Chapter 6 of Volume III (pgs 115- 134, “The Iconographical Tradition in Byzantium”. 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, July 13, to reserve your spot.
The st. joanna burial society
Memorial Services
How many of you knew the departed parishioners we pray for at the end of Sunday’s Divine Liturgies? Probably not many, since our parish has grown so much over the last several years. In an effort to help us all connect more fully to these people who are, in death, still a meaningful part of our community, we will be publishing information (and photos, if available) of them as a link included in The Happy Priest, as well as on the #myrrhbearers-info channel on the St. John Discord page. On Sunday, July 9th, our memorial service after the Divine Liturgy will be for George Tereshkovich. Please take a moment to read about him, so that we can all connect more closely to this member of our church family, and that our prayers for him will have that much more meaning.
Requests for Myrrhbearer Services
Since most of us are converts, there can often be a spiritual void when a family member departs this life. The Myrrhbearers offer three potential ways to help us fill this void: a week-long reading of the Psalter at the time of death, a clergy-led Akathist Service in church, and a stone in the Memorial Garden. There are specific guidelines for these, which can be found on the Myrrhbearers home page: https://www.theforerunner.org/st-jo. Please remember that memorial stone requests must go through the Myrrhbearers.
Upcoming Visits
The Myrrhbearers will be visiting the grave of our departed sister in Christ, Carol Lockett, next Saturday at 10 AM in Brenham, TX. Carol was a vital and colorful member of our church family, and the donor of a major portion of our church library. Her memorial service and bio will be forthcoming later this summer, but if you would like to join the Myrrhbearers to pray at her grave, please contact Ed Cleland at ed.cleland@gmail.com.
coming up
On Sunday, July 16, we will have our first Blessing of Automobiles. That’s the Sunday closest to St Elias’ Day, and since St Elias ascended into heaven in a fiery chariot, we’re going to bless all of our cars and trucks on that Sunday. When we get our homes and apartments blessed, we always make sure they are picked up and cleaned up, and we should do the same thing for our vehicles. At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy on the 16th, we will process through the parking lots and bless each of the cars and trucks parked there, so let’s make sure that they are all sparkling and clean.
On Tuesday, August 1, we will begin the Dormition Fast. During this Fast, which runs through Monday, 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 Sunday, August 6th . If you need to modify the fast in any way, please check with your spiritual father.
During the Dormition Fast, we offer The Paraclesis to the Mother of God each week night between August 1 and August 13. That means, this year, there will be nine 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 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 Tuesday, 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.
The first-ever St. John Festal Choir will be offering a concert after the Festal Liturgy on The Feast of The Transfiguration, August 6th! Our Festal Choir is made up of our Liturgy Choir plus others in the parish who love to sing...and it’s a pretty big group! After you reverence the Cross on that Sunday, get your food and chill a bit, we'll ring a bell to let you know the choir concert is starting in the nave within 10 minutes! We're excited to sing these beautiful hymns for all of you! That day, we will also end Fellowship Hour all together in the nave: we’ll get a chance to learn the words to the Yellow Rose of St. John and We Give Thanks To Thee so we can sing and pray along with the choir every week.
Starting in September, Chanter Training will be regularly offered each month. If you’re interested, please talk to Karen Morgan or Matt Groh to get invited to the discord thread. Men and women (and youth!) are all welcome to participate!
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 Nathan and Sarah B. on their seventeenth anniversary; blessing the Camp Cars; talking baby tech with Austin and Sarah T. ; getting a jar of Stephen G.’s honey; listening to Ella-Mia M.’s’ travel plans; hearing about the Burial Society eating banana pudding in honor of Carol L. ; wondering about Misty W.’s miraculous hot dogs; watching the shadows of the leaves on the ground in the moonlight.
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 Cindy Moon, instead of food trucks, our corporate headquarters features inter-galactic food ships (the Cimorian Snail Salad is out of this world), and our Spiritual Advisor is Elder Galaction of the Holy Mountain.