Newsletter December 12, 2025

On Marital Relations

In the Orthodox wedding service, the bride and groom are crowned in the Name of the Holy Trinity. Their union is not merely a legal contract or social institution, but a vocation to grow in communion with Christ in every aspect of their common life. Joined together as “one flesh” in the Body of Christ, they are called to the martyrdom of dying to the slavery of their passions through their sacrificial, faithful love for one another. The desires of their hearts are purified as they learn to love and serve Christ through and in one another. The many petitions for the blessing of children in the marriage ceremony reflect the expansive nature of the love of God in which they participate as embodied persons. The opportunities for healing from the passions through the ascetical struggles of submitting to one another, caring for their children, putting the interests of the family before their own, and conveying the hospitable mercy of the Lord to their neighbors are virtually endless. As the pastoral letter of our Antiochian Patriarchate Family, the Joy of Life states, “Conjugal love is not exclusively expressed in sexual relations, but in everyday mutual love and respect and self-giving that touches upon every aspect of life, bestowing upon it its glorious splendor” (paragraph 33). St. John Chrysostom taught that husbands and wives who respond faithfully to the opportunities for growth in holiness through marriage may attain a level of “perfection [that] will rival the holiest of monks” (Homily 20[1]).

Read the entire article: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2668

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 2025 web.pdf
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Prosphora/Docs/prosphora sched 2026 web.pdf

Full schedule:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Altar/Docs/epistle readers for 2025.pdf
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Altar/Docs/epistle readers for 2026.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.'”

The Days are Evil. Save Your Soul Before It Perishes

Metropolitan Luke (Kovalenko)

To “redeem the time” means to give to the world everything required of us—honestly fulfilling our duties as Christians and citizens—while preserving the one thing needful: faith. The faith that no one can take from us unless we ourselves give it away = by yielding to the spirit of the age. When God is at the center, everything else falls into place. Evil days are not a sentence, but a challenge and an opportunity to overcome evil. We do not choose the time in which we live, but we choose how to live. We cannot abolish global evil, but we can redeem our own time by changing our own heart.

Today’s reality is heavy and contradictory. But this is our “marketplace.” Our task is to make evil days good, sowing now the seeds that will sprout in eternity. As St. Symeon the New Theologian said:

“Let us redeem the time of our life… that we may be granted to enter the stormless haven of God.”

Let this become our desire, our labor, and our path.

Read the entire article: https://orthochristian.com/174396.html