Newsletter October 23, 2026

For our celebration of our patron Saint:
Tonight (10/23)
Orthros: 5:00 PM
Liturgy: 6:00 PM
Parish Dinner (potluck) following.

Please come and pray and bring a little food to share and spend some time in fellowship!

Saint Maria Skobtsova of Paris

She was a rare personality, overflowing with strength and energy. She lived the commandment to love one’s neighbor in an extraordinary way. She knew life in all its stark reality. She experienced marriage and divorce, as well as a mother’s grief at the death of her children. She consecrated her life to monasticism in “the desert of this world.” Her life resembled the ministry of a deaconess who washed the feet of the suffering and destitute, especially her fellow countrymen who had fled Russia and found themselves displaced in Paris. She rebelled against every form of stagnation. She wrote poetry, delivered theological and philosophical lectures, and interpreted contemporary reality in the light of evangelistic love. She died in a Nazi concentration camp, consumed by fire, shortly before the end of the Second World War.

Read the entire article: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2981

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 2026 web.pdf

Full schedule:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Altar/Docs/epistle readers for 2026.pdf

Epistle: ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE GALATIANS 2:16-20

Brethren, knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified. But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we ourselves were found to be sinners, is Christ then an agent of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again those things which I tore down, then I prove myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Gospel: LUKE 8:26-39

At that time, as Jesus arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, there met him a man from the city who had demons; for a long time he had worn no clothes and he lived not in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me.” For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him; he was kept under guard, and bound with chains and fetters, but he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When the herdsmen saw what happened, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how he who had been possessed with demons was healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gadarenes asked him to depart from them; for they were seized with great fear; so he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but he sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

Gerontissa Makaria (Desipri): Mother of All Who Suffer, Part 2

Nun Alexandra (Markova)

In 1950, the blessed Gerontissa Makaria, surrounded by the first nuns who came, began to revive the old monastery and, through many years of effort, struggle, hardships, labors, and exploits, turned this modest monastery into a great Orthodox pilgrimage center, through the Divine grace that our Lord and the Theotokos bestowed upon her and the miraculous power of St. Ephraim.

People who knew Mother Makaria said she was a woman of few words, with an expression of “bright sadness” diffused in her sweet and gentle gaze, full of love and humility. All the various different spiritual gifts that the Lord bestowed upon her, she always carefully hid with great humility behind the work of venerating St. Ephraim. The faithful felt Mother Makaria to be and referred to her as an angel of love and the mother of all who suffer.

Read the entire article: https://orthochristian.com/180576.html