Newsletter February 7, 2026

The Fathers of the Church

The mental makeup of people today has become more focused on knowledge than on living it. Modern man approaches God with his intellect, not his heart. Schools of faith and theology have always existed, and sermons have been fundamental to worship services since the beginning of Christianity. The error lies not in seeking religious knowledge, but in pursuing it without concern for its application and lived experience. Believers today, due to the ease of information dissemination, are susceptible to the temptation of seeking religious knowledge more than living it, and this leads to the inflation of the intellect at the expense of the heart, rendering the religious institution dry and lifeless. Isn’t this one of the reasons why so many are turning to monasteries in search of a living, not a packaged, faith? Indeed, many are now seeking inner peace in religious practices from the Far East devoid of Christ.

The benefit would be far greater if we helped people live in Christ and share His teachings in an understandable way, rather than simply filling them with religious information.

Read the entire article: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2723

In this time after the Feast of Theophany and before Great Lent (1/6 – 2/20) we bring the Holy Water newly blessed during Theophany services to each of our homes and celebrate the service of the Theophany Home Blessing. I would love to celebrate it at everyone’s home (catechumens included!) this year.

Weekday evenings are the prefered time. Please contact me via phone or email to schedule a time. Also, while I appreciate everyone’s hospitality, I would ask that there be no food. We can celebrate the service and then have a visit over a cup of tea (or other refreshment).

For the celebration of the service, I simply need a small space near your icons. I will bring everything required with me. If you would like to light a candle and carry it around during the blessing that would be great. The service is simple: we will say the few prayers and a litany, and then we will walk through the home and bless each room with the Holy Water.

Let’s continue our recent tradition of celebrating Cheese-fare Sunday with a parish feast after the Liturgy (February 22). Everyone bring some of your favorite cheese, dairy, egg, (yes, ice cream too) dish to share together.

Silouani would like to start up a new women’s book study group. She has offered her home as the gathering place. The first gathering will be on Tuesday February 17 at 7:00 PM. and meet monthly thereafter.

The first book will be “On the Mystical Life, The Ethical Discourses: St. Symeon the New Theologian, Volume I: The Church and The Last Things”. Here is a link to the publisher:
https://svspress.com/on-the-mystical-life-the-ethical-discourses-st-symeon-the-new-theologian-volume-i-the-church-and-the-last-things/

Let’s continue our recent tradition of celebrating Cheese-fare Sunday with a parish feast after the Liturgy (February 22). Everyone bring some of your favorite cheese, dairy, egg, (yes, ice cream too) dish to share together.

Please remember that our full calendar continues to be available at our parish web site. Here is a link:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Calendar/calendar.php

Full schedule:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Prosphora/Docs/prosphora sched 2026 web.pdf

Full schedule:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Altar/Docs/epistle readers for 2026.pdf

Epistle: ST. PAUL’S FIRST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS 6:12-20

Brethren, “all things are lawful for me, ” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me, ” but I will not be enslaved by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” — and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two shall become one flesh.” But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body and in your spirit which belong to God.

Gospel: LUKE 15:11-32

The Lord said this parable: “There was a man who had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.’ And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his belly with the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to make merry. Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'”

Elder Pavel of Taganrog

Priest Michael Moibenko

On the easternmost corner of the sea of Azov stands Taganrog. In this unassuming, albeit once great, city is a cemetery with a chapel built around the grave of one of the greatest Russian saints of the nineteenth century—Elder Pavel. Pavel Pavlovich Stozhkov (1792- 1879) despite the many miracles attributed to his intercessions and his great renown as an ascetic and clairvoyant, was not a monk or a clergyman—he was a simple layman. By the elder’s prayers, many were cured of countless diseases: epilepsy, drunkenness, and illnesses that no medical doctors at the time could diagnose. His holy way of life was a light that drew to it many people from across the Don, so much so that a community formed around him. The community that was formed in his cell, known as his Kelia, lived by the elder’s strict rule and teachings.

The elder taught that the ascetic life is not something reserved for monks in faraway monasteries but is something that all Orthodox Christians must participate in regardless of who they were or where they lived. The Christian life was a spiritual life, a life of fasting, prayer, regular church attendance, piety, and pilgrimage. First and foremost, the elder’s life was a witness of faith, hope, and love in a time and place full of great pain and woe. As the elder was approaching death he told his visitors, “Though I will die, don’t ever forget my place,” and after his death many continued to visit his grave for healing and consolation.

Read the entire article: https://orthochristian.com/175495.html