Sunday Services: Orthros-8:45 a.m. Divine Liturgy-10:00 a.m. Sunday School after Distribution of Holy Communion. Holy Day Services As announced in weekly bulletins.
Sunday December 8th, 2019
Ushers: Michael Fowler & Jack Kaler
Epistle Reader: Erynn Sturgon
Prophoro: Sharon Mavridoglou
Coffee Hour: Sharon Mavridoglou
One Year Memorial for: Virginia Cora of Blessed Memory
Sunday School Classes meet every Sunday after the distribution of Holy Communion
Michaele Glisson- president, Leslie Zouboukos-vice president, Sophia Cox-treasurer, Ellen Hontzas – recording secretary, Jean Hare-corresponding secretary, Monique Polles and Betta Miller board members.
Socks for Seniors – collecting new socks and lap blankets to donate to local nursing homes. Please place your donated items in the holiday box located in church hall. Please join us for the upcoming Christmas caroling and spreading joy to our loving seniors.
Prayers and loving visit requests for Maria Psaris and family. She is currently at Lakeland Nursing Home and rehab. 3680 Lakeland Lane, Jackson room 102,
Sunday school Christmas party – December 15.
Check bulletin board for upcoming events.
Nativity Fast Began on November 15th
Annual Parish Christmas Card - We encourage you to participate and to also use the form to help us update our parish directory, You should have received the form by e-mail last week. Forms are availabe at church.Thank You!
Our Holy Trinity-St. John the Theologian Prayer List:
"Remember Lord, those whom each of us calls prayerfully to mind" Chuck Odom, Nicholas & Maria Psaris, William Abihider, John Botes, Christ Castanis, George V. Pinchuk, Chris Grillis, Lambryne Angelo, Jane Kountouris, and Callie McDole, Malissa and Pat Zouboukos have asked that we pray for their friend Bill Hardin, Paula Fowler, Victoria Lepsa (Cristina Nica's mother in Romania), Tatianna Koufopoulos Quick of Phoenix Arizona, Diane Chaffins (Leslie Zouboukos's mother).John Woolard, Please keep Costa Glennis's daughters Wanda Parker and Frankie Glennis Crechale in your prayers, Gus Mavridoglou (Theo's brother) needs our prayers.
Our December Birthday List: Chris Grillis-December 1st, Panayiotis (Pat) Zouboukos-December 2nd, Hutson Hontzas-December 3rd, Heather Hontzas-December 5th, Alexis Valsamakis Hood-December 9th, George Pinchuk-December 11th, Nicholas Nelson-December 14th, Sammie Baggett-December 26th, Chris Zeppos-December 30th, Christina Valsamakis Childers-December 30th Anthony Panos -December 30th. PLEASE LET FATHER ANDREW KNOW OF ANY ADDITIONS OR CORRECTIONS Thank You
PLEASE LET FATHER ANDREW KNOW OF ANY ADDITIONS OR CORRECTIONS
Important Notice - in trying to keep our parishioners, as they say "in the loop", we ask the leaders of the various parish ministries - Sunday School, Philoptochos, Parish Council, Stewardship, etc. to submit any information about up coming events or other activities that they want included in the monthly and/or weekly Bulletin. Information should be submited from the middle of each month to the last Tuesday of the month.
Without your donations and constributions it becomes difficult to meet our budgeted expenses. Our monthly expenses include salaries, Gas, Electricity, Water, Archdiocese commitments, and from time to time extra expenses to repair items in the church proper. Please remember that your donations help us to meet these monthly expenses of $10k.
Spyridon, the God-bearing Father of the Church, the great defender of Corfu and the boast of all the Orthodox, had Cyprus as his homeland. He was simple in manner and humble of heart, and was a shepherd of sheep. When he was joined to a wife, he begat of her a daughter whom they named Irene. After his wife's departure from this life, he was appointed Bishop of Trimythus, and thus he became also a shepherd of rational sheep. When the First Ecumenical Council was assembled in Nicaea, he also was present, and by means of his most simple words stopped the mouths of the Arians who were wise in their own conceit. By the divine grace which dwelt in him, he wrought such great wonders that he received the surname 'Wonderworker." So it is that, having tended his flock piously and in a manner pleasing to God, he reposed in the Lord about the year 350, leaving to his country his sacred relics as a consolation and source of healing for the faithful.
About the middle of the seventh century, because of the incursions made by the barbarians at that time, his sacred relics were taken to Constantinople, where they remained, being honoured by the emperors themselves. But before the fall of Constantinople, which took place on May 29, 1453, a certain priest named George Kalokhairetes, the parish priest of the church where the Saint's sacred relics, as well as those of Saint Theodora the Empress, were kept, took them away on account of the impending peril. Travelling by way of Serbia, he came as far as Arta in Epirus, a region in Western Greece opposite to the isle of Corfu. From there, while the misfortunes of the Christian people were increasing with every day, he passed over to Corfu about the year 1460. The relics of Saint Theodora were given to the people of Corfu; but those of Saint Spyridon remain to this day, according to the rights of inheritance, the most precious treasure of the priest's own descendants, and they continue to be a staff for the faithful in Orthodoxy, and a supernatural wonder for those that behold him; for even after the passage of 1,500 years, they have remained incorrupt, and even the flexibility of his flesh has been preserved. Truly wondrous is God in His Saints! (Ps. 67:3 5)
Saint Herman (his name is a variant of Germanus) was born near Moscow in 1756. In his youth he became a monk, first at the Saint Sergius Hermitage near Saint Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland; while he dwelt there, the most holy Mother of God appeared to him, healing him of a grave malady. Afterwards he entered Valaam Monastery on Valiant Island in Lake Ladoga; he often withdrew into the wilderness to pray for days at a time. In 1794, answering a call for missionaries to preach the Gospel to the Aleuts, he came to the New World with the first Orthodox mission to Alaska. He settled on Spruce Island, which he called New Valaam, and here he persevered, even in the face of many grievous afflictions mostly at the hands of his own countrymen in the loving service of God and of his neighbour. Besides his many toils for the sake of the Aleuts, he subdued his flesh with great asceticism, wearing chains, sleeping little, fasting and praying much. He brought many people to Christ by the example of his life, his teaching, and his kindness and sanctity, and was granted the grace of working miracles and of prophetic insight. Since he was not a priest, Angels descended at Theophany to bless the waters in the bay; Saint Herman used this holy water to heal the sick. Because of his unwearying missionary labours, which were crowned by God with the salvation of countless souls, he is called the Enlightener of the Aleuts, and has likewise been renowned as a wonderworker since his repose in 1837.
Reading is under copyright and is used with permission, all rights reserved by: Holy Cross Press
Reading is under copyright and is used with permission, all rights reserved by: Holy Transfiguration Monastery
Third Orthros Gospel
The Reading is from Mark 16:9-20
When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.
After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.
Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they sat at table; and he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."
So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it. Amen.
Prokeimenon. Plagal Fourth Tone. Psalm 75.11,1.
Make your vows to the Lord our God and perform them.
Verse: God is known in Judah; his name is great in Israel.
The reading is from St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians 4:1-7.
Brethren, I, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
10th Sunday of Luke
The Reading is from Luke 13:10-17
At that time, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your infirmity." And he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the sabbath, said to the people, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be healed, and not on the sabbath day." Then the Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?" As he said this, all his adversaries were put to shame; and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
I went to bed in a quandary. After several days of thinking about today’s Gospel and trying to pound out a sermon, I had come to a dead end. I had nothing to say. Nothing! Remember those dreams where you are on stage and forget your lines? Well, that’s where I thought I would find myself when it came time to preach today except that I had the lines, only they weren’t worth saying! So I woke up suddenly at five, jumped out of bed, grabbed THE ROOTS OF CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM, turned to the chapter on the God-Man (since we are getting ready for Christmas after all) and read this from Gregory of Nyssa:
“That God should have clothed himself with our nature is a fact that should not seem strange or extravagant to minds that do not form too paltry an idea of reality. Who, looking at the universe, would be so feeble-minded as to not believe that God is all in all; that he clothes himself with the universe, and at the same time contains it and dwells in it?”
Then it occurred to me. Open your mind and see the bigger picture. This little snippet of Gospel is not just an historical event – Jesus walks into a synagogue, teaches, heals an old woman, and chastises the leader of the synagogue – nothing to see here, move on. But it is not just an example of Jesus defying the law by healing on the Sabbath, setting the synagogue leader’s teeth on edge, laying him out in lavender with the people who were probably sick of the leader’s obnoxious ego, doing a unified cheer at the end. No there is much, much more going on.
In this little, story, Jesus reveals his cosmic nature. His presence is a healing presence to both the woman and the leader and its nature is, as always, Love. To one, his loving presence is paradise, to the other it is hell. The woman receives healing, the leader gets clobbered, but in his chastisement, he too is healed. At this moment Jesus determines our understanding of heaven and hell. Both heaven and hell are God’s love. Whether we are in heaven or hell is determined by our internal state.
The woman’s ego, no doubt, had died a million deaths because of her infirmity and her 18 years of suffering. She seems to have come to grips with her situation so much so that with the great Healer there she doesn’t even ask for healing. Jesus notices and reaches out to her. She, like the Woman with the Issue of Blood, had been humbled by life. If the Lord had not healed her, she would have gone on just the same, at peace with her circumstances.
The synagogue leader needed another kind of treatment. His ego was firmly in place. Life had not humbled him. He held a position of power and no doubt lived a comfortable life. We know this because his reaction to the healing is so strong! He reacts to this wonderful miracle with anger! Why? Because Jesus upset his apple cart. The Lord ruffled his feathers and altered his world. Who would the people now look to for their spiritual needs? He was so sick that he needed urgent car; the spiritual equivalent of surgery, immediate and forceful.
A little note to all of us. The power of our reactions reveals the strength of our egos. I wonder how I would react if a person walked in here in the middle of Divine Liturgy and healed one of you. What would I do? How would I react? I hope not like the leader of the synagogue, “Who are you who disturbs the solemnity of my Liturgy!” I hope not.
Thomas Merton once wrote, “God seeks Himself in us, and the aridity and sorrow of our heart is the sorrow of God who is not known in us…”
Jesus saw himself in the woman and healed her. He could not see himself in the leader so he performed spiritual surgery on him. St. Maximos the Confessor wrote this which explains what Merton means, “Christ is the great mystery, the blessed goal, the purpose for which everything was created…with his gaze fixed on this goal God called all things into existence. Christ is the point to which Providence is tending, together with everything in its keeping, and at which all creatures accomplish their return to God.”
In other words, God is moving all things toward the goal of union with him, little old, infirm ladies as well as prideful and egotistical religious leaders and whatever must be done to bring that about, He will do. Some will experience his lovingkindness as paradise and others as hell, but both are the same and the goal is that everyone will come to see his love for what it truly is, ParadiseThis page is generated by BULLETIN BUILDER
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