Newsletter September 13, 2024

God and Man, Part Two
To Receive the World as a Gift

Humanity has known various images of God. Different spiritual, religious, and philosophical movements in the world often depicted the image of God based on the image of man, which resulted in a faded, deficient and distorted image of God because the starting point was the creature and not the creator.

Christianity did the opposite. God revealed Himself to humans so they could know their value to Him and their role in creation. Movement in Christianity is from top to bottom, from heaven to earth. It is a divine providence, not a human endeavor. This forms, in Orthodox Christianity, man’s quest to constantly rise to the level that befits him as a creature with the breath of God in him.

Read the entire article: https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2170

Kari has asked to take a break from leading the Women’s Group. So,for the present. Women’s Group will not be meeting. I know that the women who attended were very blessed by her leadership and wisdom and love.

I wish to express my very deep and sincere thanks to Kari for stepping forward and volunteering to lead the group. In order to truly grow into maturity as a community, we need people like Kari and Jim and Alex to step up and join in the leadership of our beloved family. Many thanks!

Professor Jim is offering and leading a class on the Old Testament Scriptures.

Reading the Old Testament with St Irenaeus (c. 130–c. 202)
Saturdays 9:30am-11:00am
September 7–November 16, 2024

If you are interested in participating in this class, please email Jim Lindsay JEL1451@gmail.com so he can send you PDFs of the course readings. All are welcome.

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 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: MARK 8:34-38; 9:1

The Lord said: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.

The Way of Shame and the Way of Thanksgiving

Fr. Stephen Freeman

There is nothing precise that we can identify as the “self” in such a manner that we “empty it.” We could identify desires, thoughts, plans, wealth, energy, and the like as things that we might choose to deny or give up. And this has been a well-worn path in asceticism and monastic life through the centuries. But it still concentrates our efforts on an absence, leaving us with nothing within. Such an absence is ultimately a misunderstanding of self-emptying.

Like many things in the Christian life, “emptying” is a paradoxical phrase. We do not and cannot “empty” the self without reference to another. Christ’s own offering on the Cross was not an act of isolated renunciation. It was profoundly an act of love in which He emptied Himself but also filled Himself in union with our brokenness. A key to understanding Christ’s self-emptying is found in Hebrews. In many ways the passage is a parallel to the Philippians passage.

[Christ], for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb 12:2)

Read the entire article: https://glory2godforallthings.com/2024/09/05/the-way-of-shame-and-the-way-of-thanksgiving-3/