Newsletter September 1, 2023

Witnesses for Christ

The Christian is a witness for Christ, through whom people see Christ. To be a witness for Christ means that you are a witness to His Gospel, and this is not just a choice that concerns you alone, but a personal commission from the Lord to you. It is a fundamental commandment: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

When the Lord commissioned His disciples with those words, He commissioned all Christians through them, without distinction or discrimination. There is a distinction to be made between evangelizing – as a mission that requires full-time dedication – and witnessing. Evangelism is a special gift and mission, given by the Lord to those whom He had chosen to be His evangelists. The Gospel only mentions the presence of the twelve disciples of Christ when He gave them the practical instructions for the ministry of evangelizing, as detailed in Matthew 10.

The evangelist is a person set apart for this ministry. But we can all bear witness, and using our lives is one of the most important ways to do it.

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You have the choice to embrace absolute loyalty to your Lord and His Gospel, and thus to live in unending happiness; or to chase unreachable illusions that push you to chase other unreachable illusions, leaving you more exhausted.

The Gospel is before you; do not hesitate to embrace it.

Read the entire article:
https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/1731

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 2023 web.pdf

Full schedule:
https://stjfc.org/Pages/Ministries/Altar/Docs/epistle readers for 2023.pdf

Epistle: ST. PAUL’S FIRST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS 16:13-24

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love. I urge you, brethren – you know the household of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints – that you also submit to such, and to everyone who works and labors with us. I am glad about the coming of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, for what was lacking on your part they supplied. For they refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men. The churches of Asia greet you. Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the Lord, with the church that is in their house. All the brethren greet you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. The salutation with my own hand – Paul’s. If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. O Lord, come! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Gospel: MATTHEW 21:33-42

Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?” They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

The Summer Pascha

Hieromonk Gabriel

Today is the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, the “summer Pascha,” one of the greatest of all the Great Feasts, and a day of surpassing spiritual consolation and joy. It is called the “summer Pascha” not only because the height of its glory and the radiant splendor of its joy, but also precisely because on this day, all the divine promises of Pascha have now been fulfilled — not only in the theanthropic person of Christ, but also in the quintessentially human person of Mary, the Mother of God. Today the Queen of Heaven proves to us — beyond any shadow of doubt — that death has truly been put to death, that heaven has truly been opened to the whole human race, and that Christ our God has truly come to make even us lowly sinners into nothing less than “partakers of the divine nature” (2. Pet. 1:4), destined to come — just as she has — “unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Today, all the gifts and promises of Christ shine forth in the person of His Mother, as a pledge and a foretaste of the day on which they shall shine forth in us all.

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And so, as we gaze upon her holy face in the icon before us — filled even in the moment of her death with all the peace and power of the resurrection of her Son — let each of us resolve to make both her life and her death our own, crying out with all our hearts: “In giving birth thou didst preserve thy virginity. In thy Dormition thou didst not forsake the world, O Theotokos. Thou wast translated unto life, since thou art the Mother of Life; and by thy supplications dost thou deliver our souls from death.” Amen!

Read the entire article:
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/rememberingsion/2023/08/28/the-summer-pascha/