Newsletter Dec. 8, 2022

The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America announces a Special Convention on Jan. 13, 2023 to nominate candidates for its next Metropolitan-Archbishop. The convention will be held at the Hyatt Regency Dallas-DFW International Airport

Read the entire article:
https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/1418

I would like to create the opportunity to deepen / expand our spiritual life. I am going to start with a men’s group because there has already been some expressed interest. However, I am planning also to develop and start a similar group for Women. From the reading that I have been doing in this regard, it is clear that men and women experience and express their spiritualtity differently and that it is there beneficial to both that unique settings exist for both. I need to hear input from all of you. Please help me discern and formulate what these groups will function / look like. Let me hear from you!

The Nativity Fast began on Tuesday Nov. 15.

This Fast is divided into two periods: The first is November 15th through December 19th when the traditional fasting discipline (no meat, poultry, eggs, dairy, fish, wine, and olive oil) is observed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with katalysis for wine and olive oil (some also permit fish) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and for fish, wine, and olive oil on Saturdays and Sundays. The second is the period of the Forefeast, December 20th through 24th, when the traditional fasting discipline is observed Monday through Friday, with katalysis for wine and olive oil on Saturday and Sunday.

(katalysis means change or exception …)

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

Full schedule:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Prosphora/Docs/prosphora sched 2023 web.pdf

Full schedule:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Altar/Docs/epistle readers for 2023.pdf

Epistle: ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE COLOSSIANS 3:4-11

Brethren, when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. In these you once walked, when you lived in them. But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.

Gospel: LUKE 14:16-24

The Lord said this parable: “A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many; and at the time of the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for all is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I go out and see it; I pray you, have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must go to examine them; I pray you, have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported this to his master. Then the householder in anger said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and there is still room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. For many are called, but few are chosen.'”

Finding Your Place
Fr. Stephen Freeman

Among the many things we desire, an important one is a “place to belong.” With the fragmentation of the extended family, and so much else, a growing number of people are becoming accutely aware that they do not “belong” anywhere. Our highly franchised suburban world often has the strange effect that places separated by miles (even states), all look the same, have the same stores, the same restaurants, and an overall sameness that only accentuates the sense of alienation in that it “looks the same” but is “not ours.”

…

We live in a dessicated society where the medieval sythesis long ago perished, now replaced by incompetent servants of wealth and power and the diseased madness of political philosophies hatched from the brains of broken little men.

We were created to dance with God and the angels, to move in circles of meaning that renew and return us to the place we belong. There is a Liturgy in which all are, even now, participating. Angels and archangels, guardians, and the whole synaxis, watch over us, invisibly maintaining the structures of the universe and keeping open the paths that direct us to our place and to the homeland of paradise.

Read the entire article:
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2022/12/05/finding-your-place/