Newsletter October 9, 2025

In the Orthodox Conscience

When you approach matters of faith, information alone is not enough. You need a spiritual mindset to approach religious issues. This mindset is formed gradually, through your living connection with God and His Church. The more you experience life in the pure face of the Lord’s Church, the more the “Orthodox conscience” takes root in you. This in turn shapes your mind to become truly Orthodox.

There is no school or textbook that can teach you how to acquire this conscience, mindset, or spiritual sense. The only school is your life in the heart of the Church, your humility, and the work of the Holy Spirit in you. If you pursue humility, it shapes your entire being, not just your mind, so that you are truly open to the Holy Spirit, to your brothers and sisters, and to those around you in the world. Then, the action of the Spirit appears in the way you approach every Church matter: with humility and detachment, seeking God’s will and mind, not your own ideas or desires. His action toward your brothers and sisters shows itself in your dealings with them in love. This allows you to distinguish between individual persons and their opinions, enabling you to understand them, even if you disagree. Only then is real dialogue possible. Without it, you reject not only their opinions but also the persons themselves.

Read the entire article: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2586

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 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.

The Antichrist is a Nice Guy

Fr. Zechariah Lynch

Soon, the cult of progress professed that Christianity was but an innovation of men, an innovation that added very little material “good” to society. True heavenly life was slipping from the earth. A fundamental precept of antichrist was germinated, tended, grown, and firmly established: humanity should work for “the good” on its own, and even find a new salvation through its own powers. The pursuit of the “good life” in an exclusively mundane and base sense emerged as the greatest goal of human existence. In reality, it is the pursuit of “the goods life,” or more clearly, a materialistic life.

This basic principle is common to all modern governance, no matter the seemingly diversified names they bear: democracy, communism, socialism, capitalism, and so forth. The gospel of material salvation has been preached with fervor by the European West for the past few centuries. There is nothing greater than material well-being! This well-being is always just around the corner.

…

A “good” person is no longer one who is seeking God above all else. In fact, one may be good and nice without God. Devoid of the unchanging and eternal revelation of God as the Good, “the good” is endlessly restructured according to the fleeting and subjective desires of those who hold power. This path almost certainly leads to tyranny. The “anti-good” can only be maintained through force and tyranny. Accept a little more tyranny, and “the good” just around the corner may be gained!

Antichrist is the concentrated corporate desire of humanity to replace the God-Man, Jesus Christ. St. John Maximovich says, Antichrist is a man who desires to be in place of Christ, to occupy His place and possess what Christ should possess. He desires to possess the attraction of Christ and authority over the whole world.

Antichrist will be a nice guy. He will personify humanity’s deep desire for a “goodness”–a niceness–devoid of God. This “goodness” that excludes the Holy Trinity will seemingly be achieved in Antichrist.

Read the entire article: https://substack.com/home/post/p-174969312