Newsletter Feb. 10, 2023

Beloved Brother Hierarchs, reverend Clergy, and Christ-loving Faithful,

Greetings to you in the Name of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ.

This week we learned with heavy hearts of the devastation wrought by the powerful earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The toll of death and destruction is only slowly coming to light, but it is clear that thousands have died and the lives and livelihoods of many have been wrecked. In these moments, as our hearts break for our fellow man—especially for our brothers and sisters in the Faith—we feel acutely what St. Paul said about the Body of Christ: “When one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it” (1 Cor. 12:26).

Brethren, the same apostle teaches us to share what we have with those who are now in need, knowing that a time may come when they can help us. He writes, “It is not that you should be burdened so that others might have it easy. Rather, out of equality, your abundance should now go toward their need, so that their abundance might someday supply your need, so that there might be equality” (2 Cor. 8:13–14). This openhearted sharing is an affirmation of our bonds with those now suffering. It is also an expression of love, which always takes the burden of the beloved upon one’s own shoulders. I call upon all our parishes to collect contributions each Sunday throughout the month of February for the relief of those suffering as a result of this earthquake. Immediately after each Sunday, each parish should mail a check for the funds collected that Sunday to our archdiocese headquarters and email the total amount to Mr. Daniel Nehme at our headquarters (dnehme@antiochian.org), which will allow us to distribute the funds more quickly. Individuals can also contribute online at antiochian.org/earthquake. We will forward the collected funds to His Beatitude Patriarch John X as they come in, as a demonstration of our love, to be distributed through our patriarchal relief agencies to those affected by this disaster.

With love and prayers for you as we approach the holy struggle of Great Lent, I remain,
Yours in Christ,
+Metropolitan ANTONIOS
Metropolitan of Zahle, Baalbek, and Dependencies
Patriarchal Vicar of New York and All North America

https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/1497

The Denver area Orthodox Churches will again share a pan-Orthodox Vespres service each Sunday evening during Great Lent. The schedule is included here and on our website calendar.

March 5, Assumption Theotokos Cathedral, Denver 6:00 PM
March 12, Holy Transfiguration Cathedral, Denver 5:00 PM
March 19, Ss. Peter & Paul, Boulder 5:00 PM
March 26, St Spyridon, Loveland 5:00 PM
April 2, St Elias, Arvada 5:00 PM

Father Andrew Stephen Damick at St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Chruch
March 03 – 05, 2023
https://saintspyridon.church/common/ePost.php?EVID=284

In this time after the Feast of Theophany and before Great Lent (1/6 – 2/27) 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.

As I am still working a secular job, 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 prefer not being invited to a meal. 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.

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 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.'”

A Wild Christianity
Paul Kingsnorth

Through the mouth of the cave I watched the storm front move in from the east. I could already hear the approaching thunder; the low bank of cloud was gray with it. I was perched on a low ledge inside the cave, which was just long enough to accommodate a human body laid prone. I had filled the place with candles, which guttered and danced in the wind that was rising now with the coming storm.

…

Is it a desert time again? Of course I think so: I’m the sort of weirdo who spends his birthday in a cave. But I feel like I am being firmly pointed, day after day, back toward the green desert that forms my Christian inheritance, toward that “ardent and active solitude.” Back to the song that is sung quietly through the land by its maker, the song that is in the stream running, in the mist wreathing the crags, the growling of the rooks, the thunder over the mountains. Back to the caves, to the skelligs, to the deserts green and brown, to stretch out my arms crossfigel and recite the great prayer of St. Patrick’s Breastplate: “The light of the sun, the radiance of the moon, the splendor of fire, the speed of lightning, the swiftness of wind, the depth of the sea . . .” I feel that in another time of crisis and confusion we need to go back to our roots, both literal and spiritual. To flee from the gaze of a civilized center that denies God and launches salvo after salvo daily against the human soul. To seek out a wild Christianity, which will see us praying for hours in the sea as the otters play around us. To understand—to remember—that the Earth and the world are not the same thing.

None of this is going to happen on its own, of course. If we want it, we are going to have to build it. Saints don’t just turn up. They have to be created. Maybe we are able to take only one small step in this direction. Maybe we can’t manage a full night alone in the rain—not yet, at least. But let us start walking, down the track toward the crag. We can’t put off this pilgrimage forever. The cave awaits.

There is a wild-haired man in the desert clad in camel skin. He is the start of things. He lives on honey and insects and he calls us to prepare for the coming of one who will baptize not with water but with fire. God, he says, will come in human form. He will be born in a cave, he will walk on the water and battle in the desert and when he comes to the city it will kill him. But that will not be the end of the story. We can’t write the ending to this story. We can only trace the lines on the page in the dim light of the cave mouth. We can only wait patiently for the storm to come over and for the lightning to come down, and illuminate everything.

Read the entire article:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/03/a-wild-christianity