Newsletter Oct. 27, 2022

The newsletters are sent out via a mail list. Hopefully everyone is receiving them. If you know someone who is not receiving them, or if you ever want to read tem and you are away from email, they are all posted at the website. The link is not presdently posted on the website menu, but you can read them directly with this link:
https://stjfc.org/newsletter/

Thanks to everyone: I thought it was a beautiful and enjoyable extended time of fellowship!

Kari Halseide – Birthday: 10-31
Anna Haas – Birthday: 11-01

May God grant you many years!

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

Epistle: ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE GALATIANS 1:11-19

Brethren, I would have you know that the gospel which was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it; and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.

Gospel: LUKE 16:19-31

he Lord said, “There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazaros, full of sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Lazaros in his bosom. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazaros to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazaros in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses, and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to them, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’

Prostrations and Depression
Fr. Michael Gillis

“When in times of darkness, kneeling [prostrations] is more helpful than anything,” so says St. Isaac the Syrian. “If our thoughts are cold and murky,” he goes on to say, “we ought to persist in long kneeling [prostrations].” In fact, he goes so far as to say, “And although our hearts should be dead at those times and we should not even have a prayer or know what we ought to say, since no words of supplication come to us, nor even a petition, still we ought to remain continually prostrate upon our faces, though we keep silence.”

Prostrations are a powerful means by which we can draw near to God when we are depressed or sad or overwhelmed in some way and find that we can’t seem to make ourselves pray. Usually when I do a few prostrations, I say the Jesus Prayer and make the sign of the cross as I do them. However, sometimes I have no prayers to say. That is, my mind is so troubled or deadened that I can’t seem to make myself say the words to any prayer. At those times the prostration itself becomes the prayer.

Human beings are complicated creatures. What troubles our mind is sometimes not even known. It can be like my mind is blank, like I’m a machine going through motions. And yet, deeply buried beneath my consciousness, I have a sense, a hunch, a faint hope that God is there, even though I have no feeling or thought of Him. At such times, since my experience seems so much like a machine, I offer God my machine-like prayer: prostrations.

Read the entire article:
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/prayingintherain/2022/10/prostrations-and-depression/