Newsletter May 31, 2024

Thoughts on the Fullness of Life, Part Two

Many people searched for and found in the person of Christ the meaning the meaning of life in general, and for their own lives in particular. Some of them, such as the great novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, made this discovery, saying, “If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.” Not all these people are monks and hermits. The history of the Church is full of saints and lovers of God and His gospel from all categories: married and celibate, high and simple in education, men and women, the elderly and children, kings and rulers, free and slaves, rich and poor.

Why don’t all human beings believe in this truth? Why don’t they search for it, especially all Christians? One contemporary theologian says: “The problem isn’t that there are few saints, but that not all Christians are saints!” I wonder if the reason lies in humans’ fear of facing what they can’t handle or comprehend, so they prefer to stay in the shallows rather than soar? Could it be the pride rooted within them, a product of subconscious fear, the barrier preventing them from liberating themselves from their constraints and embarking on the vastness of life to which they are inherently called? Or is it the economic consumerist grind that absorbs their energy, potential, and all that’s beautiful in them, making them chase after requirements the current media falsely portrays as essential, causing further estranging from themselves?

Read the entire article: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2059

Christ is Risen! Thank you all for your attendance, prayers, and help during all of out Lenten, Holy Week, and Paschal services.

I am going to take a break over the summer and postpone our Wednesday evening classes. We will still have Liturgy on Wednesdays (at 5:30) but no classes aferward.

The Parish Council has established a system for processing and receiving gifts electronically. The system accepts credit cards and bank transfers. It is run my one of the major major processors of electronic giving for non-profits. The company is called Helcim. All of the processing takes place within their system. St. James provides a link into their system and then receives the funds into our account and a report listing names and amounts. We do not see nor handle any credit card or bank account information.

There is a ‘Donate’ page listed in the menu of the website where all of the information is listed, and here is link directly to the page:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Giving/giving.php

Thank you for your ongoing financial support of our little parish family. We hope that these new features will facilitate the giving process.

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: ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 11:19-30

In those days, those apostles who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number that believed turned to the Lord. News of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad; and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a large company was added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul; and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church, and taught a large company of people; and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians. Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabos stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world; and this took place in the days of Claudius. And the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brethren who lived in Judea, and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

Gospel: JOHN 4:5-42

At that time, Jesus came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw. Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he. Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, “What do you wish?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the city and were coming to him. Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him food?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard ourselves, and we know that this is indeed Christ the Savior of the world.

Revelation: Removing the Veil (Part 10)
Holding Fast to the Name of Christ

Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

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Put yourself in God’s hands. If you trust God then you’ll find peace. And no matter how much you resist and fuss, nothing will change. You won’t be able to calm down. Don’t be afraid, because you’re in God’s hands. That’s how you’ll learn to stay peaceful. That’s the secret. Those of us who are afraid, who are covered by these fears, must learn this secret, must learn this key—putting ourselves in God’s hands. Then our fears will go away and we’ll calm down. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you’ll have an easy life, that everything will be great for you, that you’ll wake up every morning with a smile. No. You’ll go through tribulations, but God will see your tribulations. And your tribulations will last “ten days,” not indefinitely. Perhaps you’ll die, God will let you die, He won’t save you from death; He’ll let you be torn into a thousand pieces. But we’re not looking for deliverance from this. In any case, the first death awaits everyone. If you escape this time, you’ll die another time. Those who rose from the dead died: Lazarus rose, but he died again; others were healed and then died; they all died. Fear the second death. Think about it, about separation from God, the true Life. This is a real problem.

The second lesson we learn from this, which is constantly being talked about, is whether we hear what God is talking about. Are our ears open? If our ears were open and we truly heard the word of God, would we really be who we are? Would we live the way we live? Would we think the way we think? Would we be deceitful, avaricious, merciless, cruel, inhuman, would we justify ourselves and our cruelty, our insensitivity and a thousand other things that we justify in ourselves just to avoid taking one step towards virtue? The truth is that people who have opened their ears and heard the word of God have made a leap in their lives, while the rest of us are treading water. We run, run, run, but we’re running in place. Actually, it would be good if we stayed in place, but it turns out that we’re rolling backwards. But we think we’re running.

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Read the entire article: https://orthochristian.com/160225.html