Newsletter March 16, 2024

Navigating the Storm

Our Holy Fathers have often compared the Church to a ship sailing on the salty sea of this world. By the “salty sea,” they indicate the storms, waves, and winds that hit and attack this ship. The Church of Christ constantly faces all kinds of wars waged by demons because Satan does not want to see it strong and growing—destroying his power in this world and saving the souls of many whom he wants to destroy. As for the Lord of the Church, He often allows turmoil and persecution in order to discipline His faithful children and purify His Church.

Loud is the voice of those who view and consider the Church as an institution of this age rather than the living Body of Christ, composed of believers seeking to sanctify their lives. We may find some who sow doubts and spread unreliable opinions and teachings with their unsubstantiated words, which strengthen the spirit of division and attack and stir the soul with anger and hatred. In this way, the fires of doubt are fueled, and the spirit of discord and division is sown.

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My beloved, the Church can only be built with a spirit of prayer, peace, wisdom, and patience. Whoever seeks to make the Church a bride of Christ, without blemish or wrinkle, must be patient, peaceful, humble, and wise, knowing how to think and plan, and willing to be nailed to the cross. My hope is that you will have these qualifications whenever you discuss ecclesiastical and spiritual issues. This is how you will invoke the Lord’s grace and blessings on you and the Church.

Read the entire article: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/1983

All services at 5:00 PM

These are also listed on the parish calendar.

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 2024 web.pdf

Full schedule: https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Altar/Docs/epistle readers for 2024.pdf

Epistle: ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE ROMANS 13:11-14; 14:1-4

Brethren, salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. As for the man who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions. One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains pass judgment on him who eats; for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for God is able to make him stand.

Gospel: MATTHEW 6:14-21

The Lord said, “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

What We Really Want

Fr. Stephen Freeman

There are choices to be made in our lives – decisions in which we must consider significant differences one way or another. These choices are actions of what the Fathers (especially St. Maximos the Confessor) described as the “gnomic” will. They are the results of deliberations. Interestingly, such deliberations, in the Fathers, are thought of as being a result of our fallen state. The uncertainty behind them is a function of our ignorance (at the very least). And, though fallen, this gnomic will is still of great value. Far greater, however, is the place of the “natural” will. What is it that my human nature wants? What is it that is rightly proper to my nature as a human being?

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The spiritual life can be characterized as the struggle to unite the deliberative (gnomic) will with the natural will. It is not a struggle to make us into what we are not – but to become what we truly are. Another way to say this is that Christ Himself is the image of what it looks like to be truly human.

So, how do we experience this on the level of our daily willing? The ascetical efforts of the Church (prayer, fasting, almsgiving, etc.) have a goal of “waking us up” – waking us from the slumber of life-in-the-passive-voice. The “natural will” of modern culture is economic. It wills for us to produce and consume, frequently without regard for consequences. It does not think about what it means to be human.

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Our every action throughout the day can be rightly united to prayer, particularly if its energy is love.

Of course, all of us struggle with love. It is a struggle that, when seen in focus, reveals to us how far our lives have lost touch with their meaning and purpose – how far our deliberations have wandered from the fundamental ground of our existence.

Read the entire article: https://glory2godforallthings.com/2024/03/15/what-we-really-want/