Newsletter October 10, 2024

I will be sharing in Kailyn & Connor’s wedding on Saturday. We will have Sunday services as usual.

The Mother of All Vices, Part One

Some people believe that pride lies only in condescension toward others, in vanity and self-aggrandizement. In fact, these are merely superficial aspects of pride, which Christian spiritual literature considers the mother of all evils and vices.

The main pitfall of pride is that it blindfolds the individual from viewing reality, so the person no longer sees anyone but himself or herself, blinded by self-aggrandizement, excess and overconfidence.

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Our contemporary Saint Sophrony Zakharov (+1993) enumerates the combined aspects of pride in detail and in psychological terms. He says: “Pride is the root of sin. All the manifestations through which evil can appear collectively exist in pride: pretense, vainglory, love of power, carelessness, cruelty, indifference to the suffering of one’s neighbor, daydreaming, wild imagination, the demonic expression of the eye, the demonic character of every appearance, anxiety, despair, hatred, contempt, envy, and the inferiority complex. For many, the latter is the gateway to physical lust, tormenting inner turmoil, stubbornness, fear of death – or on the contrary, the longing to end life by suicide – and finally complete derangement of the mind, which is not uncommon… These are the signs of demonic spirituality. However, many people do not realize these detrimental processes of pride because they act discreetly and pass silently. That’s when the enemy attacks to destroy the soul.”

Read the entire article: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2204

Our patronal feast day is Wednesday Oct. 23. We will celebrate Orthros at 5 PM and Liturgy at 6 PM. We will also (tentatively) be joined again by Gabriel’s dad: Fr. Christopher!

Afterwards, let’s have a community dinner together! Bring something celebratory to share!

Thank you!

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 TITUS 3:8-15

Titus, my son, the saying is sure. I desire you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to apply themselves to good deeds; these are excellent and profitable to men. But avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels over the law, for they are unprofitable and futile. As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned. When I send Artemas or Tychicos to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. Do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they lack nothing. And let our people learn to apply themselves to good deeds, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not to be unfruitful. All who are with me send greeting to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Amen.

Gospel: LUKE 8:5-15

The Lord said this parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell along the path, and was trodden under foot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns grew with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold.” And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.” As he said these things, he cried out “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Fair as the Moon, Bright as the Sun, Terrible as an Army Set in Array

Igumen Gabriel

My brothers and sisters, today’s feast is the turning point of all human history. Absolutely everything that came before — from the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden up until this great and holy day — had one purpose, and one purpose only: to bring the Most Holy Mother of God into the world. St. John Damascene tells us: “It is with justice and truth that we call holy Mary the Theotokos; for this name embraces the whole mystery of the Economy of salvation.”

Truly, the “whole mystery of… salvation” today begins to be revealed. Every promise that God ever made — from Adam to Noah, from Abraham to David, from the patriarchs to the prophets — now finally begins to be fulfilled, in the person of the Most Holy Theotokos. St. Andrew of Crete declares that She is the “clear fulfillment of the whole of prophecy, of the truth of Scriptures inspired by God, the living and most pure book of God and the Word in which, without voice or writing, the Writer Himself, God and Word, is everyday read.”

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So on this day of Her birth, let all of us look to Her with hope and run to Her with faith and love. Let us never cease from entreating Her never to allow us, Her sinful children, to perish, but rather that where She is now, we too might all one day be. Through Her intercessions may “we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).

Read the entire article: https://www.rememberingsion.com/p/sermon-nativity-theotokos-2024