Newsletter Feb. 17, 2023

Let’s keep our recent tradtion of having a Cheese-fare Sunday cheese-fest pot-luck lunch! Bring your favorite cheesey thing to share.

Next Sunday Feb. 26

Since we have a large group of people preparing for Baptism/Chrismation this Lent, we will reserve our Wed. evening classes during Lent for just the current catechumens only. After Pascha, the classes will again be open to everyone.

Note: There will be no class on Wed. March 1 since well be praying the Great Canon of Repentance that evening.

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

We missed the opportunity to have discussion about establishing a Women’s Spirituality Group since the regular Women’s Group meeting was cancelled this week due to the snow. We will simply reschedule to the next Women’s Group meeting this Tuesday February 21.

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 8:8-13; 9:1-2

Brethren, food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. Only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol’s temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

Gospel: MATTHEW 25:31-46

The Lord said, “When the Son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Finding the Father’s House
Hieromonk Gabriel

All of us are born into this world with a deep and insatiable longing for Paradise. Perhaps we are not even aware of it. Most of us bury it beneath the mire of our passions; we try to satisfy this pure and holy desire with the trinkets and amusements of this fallen world. We become as ships tossed to and fro, as wanderers amid the wasteland of this life, consumed by a gnawing hunger for we know not what. But no matter how we might try to slake our endless, unquenchable desire, we all — like the Prodigal Sons that we are — always end up finding ourselves enslaved to our passions, perishing with hunger, and very, very far away from home.

We are exiles. And precisely so: we have been banished, driven out of our ancestral home, barred by a flaming sword from the Tree of Life, condemned to a life of suffering and of ceaseless toil for the sake of mere husks of bread. It is the life that we ourselves have chosen — and still choose, countless times each day, with every sin we commit and every passion we embrace.

But sometimes there is given to us a moment of grace, a moment when we “come to ourselves,” and remember that this life that we have chosen is not the only life that we can choose. We remember the Father’s House, we remember the Paradise we have forsaken, we remember that Christ our God has taken away the flaming sword guarding the gates of life, and that at any moment of our lives we can choose finally to return again to our true home. Great Lent is just such a moment of grace, an opportunity for us to remember our first love and our true life, a chance to return at long last to the embrace of the Father and the joy of His House.

…

So during the Lenten season ahead — and throughout all our remaining life in this present world — when we see our sinfulness, when we come face to face with our brokenness, when we begin to learn by bitter experience just how terribly we have gone astray — let us not despair. Let us not be dismayed at it. Let us not ask: “where is the Lord?” He is walking this path of exile beside us. He is with us in every dark place our sinfulness might bring us, even down to the lowest depths of hell. He did not send us into this fallen world so that we would perish, but precisely so that we might find the one and only path that leads back to His Father’s House.

Read the entire article:
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/rememberingsion/2023/02/12/finding-the-fathers-house/