Brothers and Sisters,
Happy Feast!
Our brothers and sisters at St Sophia in Dripping Springs will be celebrating their feast day on Wednesday, September 17. They will offer Great Vespers at 6pm on Tuesday, September 16, and, on the day of the feast, they will serve Orthros and Divine Liturgy at 10am followed by lunch. All of us are invited, so let’s do our best to support those folks in the Hill Country.
Our Substack, Come See Something Beautiful, is now live, so please share it with everyone you know in as many ways as you can. Here's a link: https://comeseesomethingbeautiful.substack.com
Fasting Days
Wednesday, September 17, and Friday, September 19
Daily Services
Monday, September 15-Friday, September 19; 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.
Tuesday, September 16
Great Vespers at St Sophia 6pm
The Inquirer’s Class 7pm
Wednesday, September 17 Feast of St Sophia
Orthros and Divine Liturgy at St Sophia 10am
The Fall Theological Seminar 7pm
Saturday, September 20
St Thomas School 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Sunday, September 21 The Sunday After the Elevation of the Cross
Orthros 7:30am
Church School 8:15am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour Noon
Youth 1pm
Coming Up
The Fall Theological Seminar continues each Wednesday night at 7pm through November 12. Dr H. is leading the discussion of David Ford’s book Women and Men in Early Christianity; the group is covering one chapter each week, and there are watch parties (they call them watch groups, but they’re actually watch parties) in Killeen and Bastrop. Of course, the coolest way to participate is to show up at the parish house, so pick up a copy of the book at Christ the Lightgiver, and get in on the fun.
On Wednesday, September 24, we will offer our first weekday Divine Liturgy. This past summer, we talked about providing this kind of service during our Next Step Building Program Presentations. The idea is to provide an alternative to the crowded atmosphere that often prevails on Sunday morning. So, Orthros will begin at 4am; Divine Liturgy will begin between 5:30am and 6am, depending on how long Orthros runs that particular morning. There will not be any sort of Fellowship Hour or coffee, since most of us will be heading out to work, but everyone is welcome to join in these Divine Services.
Sandi A. is very close to becoming the only active, fully accredited Orthodox Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Trainer in this country. One of the things that she needs our help with is finishing up the materials for the different classrooms. So please mark your calendars and put a note in your phones and reserve, Sunday, October 26, and Sunday, December 14. On those days, Sandi will have all sorts of projects for all sorts of skill levels all laid out. We will just need to show up and go to work, so let’s help Sandi—and our parish—achieve this important goal.
Our Moment of Grace and Courtesy
We should always put something in the offering bowl whenever we attend the Divine Liturgy. Even if we support the parish through automatic bank draft, we should still place something in the offering bowl, because it's not just about supporting the parish, it's about expressing our on-going gratitude to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This Week’s Recommended Baby Name
Since we have so many babies, all of us at One Take Productions thought it would be helpful if we highlighted a saints’ name each week to help with the process of name selection. So, straight out of the Synaxarion, this week’s Certified Orthodox Baby Name is Ia.
an unworthy priest
aidan