Brothers and Sisters,
Happy Feast!
Today, Monday, February 2, we will wrap up this forty day festal season with The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord and Master in the Temple. We will serve Great Vespers on Sunday, February 1, no later than 1pm, and then, on the day of the feast, we will offer Orthros at 5am and Divine Liturgy at 7am. Please join us as we bring this joyous season to a conclusion.
The reports for our Annual Meeting this Sunday, February 8, have been available for almost two months now. If you haven’t yet, please go ahead and read through them this week so you will be informed and up to date going into our time together. (You can find the reports in the announcement channel on Discord.) The meeting will begin as soon as we can set up the tables following the Divine Liturgy.
Fasting Days
There is no fasting during the first week of the Triodion (Wha-hoo!)
Daily Services
Monday, February 2-Friday, February 6: Orthros 5am; Vespers 5pm (but note the festal services, and please also note that 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 Hymns of Paradise by St Ephrem the Syrian. 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.
Monday, February 2 The Feast of the Presentation
Orthros 5am
Divine Liturgy 7am
Tuesday, February 3
The Inquirer’s Class 7pm
Saturday, February 7
St Thomas School 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Sunday, February 8 Sunday of The Prodigal Son
Orthros 8am
Church School 8:15am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Our Annual Community Meeting will immediately follow Fellowship Hour
Coming Up
This year, Great Lent begins on Monday, February 23. Please take a look at the website calendar and start planning how you will fast and when you will make your confession. We also need to be thinking about which Lenten services we will attend, what kind of spiritual reading we want to do, how we will help others, and how much we want to increase our giving. If we will plan ahead, we will be able to take full advantage of these special seasons.
This year, the Saturdays of Souls fall on February 14, March 7, and March 14, as well as on May 30. On those Saturdays, we pray for our departed friends and loved ones, but we also prepare for our departure from this life, and our Burial Society can help us with a lot of those practical details. Members of the society will be present on each Saturday, and they can answer all your questions and help get you started on that process that so very many of us just try to postpone. Since there are four Saturdays of Souls, our hope is that all of us will attend the Divine Services on at least one of those days, so look at your calendar and go ahead and pick a Saturday on which you can join us.
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.
an unworthy priest
aidan