Newsletter March 28, 2025

Father Lev Gillet: A Monk of the Eastern Church, Part One

Father Lev Gillet (1893-1980) was a lover of Christ and the purity of His gospel. He spent his life in constant pursuit of the glory of the Church of Christ and living the simplicity of His gospel in a poverty that made him as light as a bird. He was a confessor of the highest caliber. His focus on the living body of Christ which, enlivened only by the Holy Spirit, transcends nationalities, cultures, and denominations made him seek the unity of the Church of Christ wherever he worked. His longing for the unity of the Church contributed to his playing an inspiring role in many genuine pan-Orthodox and ecumenical movements. He also worked for the unity of the Orthodox of the West and to provide the West with the inspiration of the East. He was a loyal friend to the Church of Antioch until his death, even stopping his pilgrimages to the Holy Land after 1967 in solidarity with his friends there.

Read the entire article: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2383

Denver area Lenten Sunday evening pan-Orthodox Vespers will be held again this year. All services begin at 5:00 P.M.

Sunday of Orthodoxy (9 March): Assumption Cathedral, Denver
St. Gregory Palamas (16 March): Transfiguration Cathedral, Denver
Sunday of Cross (23 March): St. Elias, Arvada
St. John of the Ladder (30 March): St. Luke, Erie
St. Mary of Egypt (6 April): St. Herman, Littleton (co-hosted by St. Tikhon Mission)

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

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

Epistle: ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE HEBREWS 6:13-20

BRETHREN, when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore to himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. Men indeed swear by a greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he interposed with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Gospel: MARK 9:17-31

At that time, a man came to Jesus kneeling and saying: “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit; and wherever it seizes him it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” And they brought the boy to him; and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has he had this?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse; so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he would not have any one know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.

Spiritual Self-Destruction and Renewal

Fr Seraphim Aldea

This is who we are, as merely humans. And yet, as Christians, we have a different vocation. We are not called to destroy, but to create. We are not commanded to abuse and devastate nature, but to bless and restore it. In the fulness of our vocation, we are called to do even more than restore nature. Just as our own vocation is not merely to return to the state of Adam, but to go beyond that measure and reach the state of the New Adam, Man as He was revealed in Jesus Christ Himself, so also with nature. God entrusted us not only with its upkeep and restoration to the state it had in Eden, but to bless and perfect it.

…

Each of us have found our Life through dying with Christ in Baptism. Our descent into the waters of the font symbolise our voluntary death with Him, so that we may be resurrected with Him. When we come out of the waters of our baptism, we are not a ‘patched up’ version of our previous selves, but a new being. We come out of our death and resurrection with Him with a new identity, a new name, a new Life – the Life of God Himself becomes our reality, our proper state of being in eternity.

Read the entire article: https://blog.mullmonastery.com/spiritual-self-destruction-and-renewal/