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Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
Publish Date: 2020-08-16
Bulletin Contents
Napkin
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Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church

General Information

  • Phone:
  • (970) 242-9590
  • Street Address:

  • 3585 North 12th Street

  • Grand Junction, CO 81506


Contact Information




Services Schedule

8:45am - Orthros, 10am - Divine Liturgy


Past Bulletins


Message from your Priest

Beloved in Christ,

What is faith?

Despite being so central to the Christian life, there is little understanding or agreement today about what faith is. All Christians agree that faith is crucially important in our relationship with Christ, since, as St. Paul says, "by grace you have been saved through faith," (Eph. 2:8). We all know that our faith in Jesus Christ is supposed to define our lives as Christians. But we also know that "faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead," (James 2:17). We also know that "if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing," (1 Cor. 13:2).

So, what is faith?

Until we are redeemed in Christ, our lives consist of the endless pursuit of self-serving desires in order to increase ourselves apart from God. So much of our lives today are based around getting what we want, regardless of what we need to do and who we need to harm to reach our goals. In our inflated egotism, we seek power and advantage over our fellow human beings so that we can continue to satisfy our selfish appetites.

As long as our way of life is based around these patterns of behavior, God cannot work through us. If we are always seeking to increase ourselves, then we leave no room in our lives for God's presence. We need, instead, to reverse these usual patterns of behavior. Christ's pattern of life was a way of self-emptying; Christ sought not his own glory, but the glory of his Father. When we follow Christ's example, when we deny ourselves and empty ourselves so that God can fill us, then our lives become signs of God's glory. When we give up our own pursuit of power, then God's power works through us.

St. Maximos the Confessor tells us that faith is given to us as a gift in response to an "unshakeable assurance about God in both the intellect and reason." Faith is not something that we can achieve on our own, but it is the gift of God's working through us, which is given to us in response to our self-emptying reliance on God alone. Jesus tells us in today's Gospel that even if you have only a tiny amount of this faith, "you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you," (Matt. 17:20).

Jesus gives the disciples the tools to increase their faith: prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting are acts of humility that seek to decrease ourselves and our self-reliance so that we can begin to rely on God. Through prayer and fasting, we recognize the most basic fact about ourselves: that our lives are sustained by God's grace, and that everything we have in this life is a gift. "What do you have that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7). Prayer and fasting are self-emptying acts through which we make room in our lives for God's action and God's presence. When we express our reliance on God in this way, God responds with the gift of faith.

There is nothing that is impossible when we allow God to work through us. When we empty ourselves in our humility, then God gives us the gift of faith. There are endless possibilities for the person whose life is defined by the fullness God's presence. Let us, then, ask God to increase our faith through prayer and fasting, so that through us he will move mountains.

In Christ,

Fr. Jeremy

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Hymns of the Day

Resurrectional Apolytikion in the First Mode

The stone that had been sealed before Your tomb by the Jews, and the soldiers guarding did watch oe'r Your pure and sacred body. O Savior, the third day You arose, and unto all the world did You give life. Whereby all the heavenly powers did proclaim that You are the giver of life. Glory unto our resurrected Christ. Glory unto Your Kingdom. Glory to Your dispensation O You alone who loves all.

Apolytikion for Holy Napkin in the Second Mode

We venerate Your immaculate icon, O good Lord, and entreat You to forgive our offences, O Christ our God. By Your own choice you were pleased to ascend the Cross in the flesh, to deliver us, whom You created, from our slavery to the foe. Therefore we cry to You with gratitude: You have filled all things with joy, O our Savior, by coming to save the world.

Apolytikion for Afterfeast of the Dormition in the First Mode

You gave birth yet preserved your virginity. You fell asleep in death yet did not desert the world, O Theotokos. You were transported to life, as you are Mother of Life and, by virtue of your intercessions, deliver our souls from death.

Apolytikion of Saint Nicholas in the Fourth Mode

An example of the faith and a life of humility: • as a teacher of abstinence you did inspire and lead your flock, • and through the truthfulness of your deeds • were exalted to greatness through your humility, • uplifting all, and by poverty gaining wealth. • Father and hierarch Saint Nicholas, • intercede with Christ our God • that our souls may be saved.

Seasonal Kontakion in the Second Mode

The grave and death could not hold the Theotokos, who is unsleeping in her intercessions and an unfailing hope in her mediations. For as the Mother of Life she was translated to life by Him who dwelt in her ever-virgin womb.
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Gospel and Epistle Readings

Matins Gospel Reading

Tenth Orthros Gospel
The Reading is from John 21:1-14

At that time, being raised from the dead, Jesus revealed himself to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he revealed himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat; but that night they caught nothing. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, have you any fish?" They answered him, "No." He said to them, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, for the quantity of fish. The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his clothes, for he was stripped for work, and sprang into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.


Epistle Reading

Prokeimenon. First Mode. Psalm 32.22,1.
Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us.
Verse: Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous.

The reading is from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 4:9-16.

Brethren, God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are ill-clad and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the off-scouring of all things. I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.


Gospel Reading

10th Sunday of Matthew
The Reading is from Matthew 17:14-23

At that time, a man came up to Jesus and kneeling before him said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him." And Jesus answered, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move hence to yonder place,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. But this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting." As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, "The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day."


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Saints and Feasts

Napkin
August 16

Translation of the Image of Our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ

When the fame of our Lord Jesus Christ came to Abgar, the ruler of Edessa, who was suffering from leprosy, Abgar sent a messenger named Ananias, through him asking the Savior to heal him of his disease, while bidding Ananias bring back a depiction of Him. When Ananias came to Jerusalem, and was unable to capture the likeness of our Lord, He, the Knower of hearts, asked for water, and having washed His immaculate and divine face, wiped it dry with a certain cloth, which He gave to Ananias to take to Abgar; the form of the Lord's face had been wondrously printed upon the cloth. As soon as Abgar received the cloth, which is called the Holy Napkin (Mandylion), he reverenced it with joy, and was healed of his leprosy; only his forehead remained afflicted. After the Lord's Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, the Apostle Thaddaeus (see Aug. 21) came to Edessa, and when he had baptized Abgar and all his men, Abgar's remaining leprosy also was healed. Abgar had the holy image of our Savior fixed to a board and placed at the city gate, commanding that all who entered the city reverence it as they passed through. Abgar's grandson, however, returned to the worship of the idols, and the Bishop of Edessa learned of his intention to replace the Holy Napkin with an idol. Since the place where it stood above the city gate was a rounded hollow, he set a burning lamp before the Holy Napkin, put a tile facing it, then bricked up the place and smoothed it over, so that the holy icon made without hands was no longer to be seen, and the ungodly ruler gave no further thought to it.

With the passage of time, the hidden icon was forgotten, until the year 615, when Chosroes II, King of Persia, was assaulting the cities of Asia, and besieged Edessa. The Bishop of Edessa, Eulabius, instructed by a divine revelation, opened the sealed chamber above the city gate and found the Holy Napkin complete and incorrupt, the lamp burning, and the tile bearing upon itself an identical copy of the image that was on the Holy Napkin. The Persians had built a huge fire outside the city wall; when the Bishop approached with the Holy Napkin, a violent wind fell upon the fire, turning it back upon the Persians, who fled in defeat. The Holy Napkin remained in Edessa, even after the Arabs conquered it, until the year 944, when it was brought with honor and triumph to Constantinople in the reign of Romanus I, when Theophylact was Ecumenical Patriarch. The Holy Napkin was enshrined in the Church of the most holy Theotokos called the Pharos. This is the translation that is celebrated today.


20_gerasimos
August 16

Gerasimus of Cephalonia

Saint Gerasimus was from the Peloponnesus, the son of Demetrius and Kale, of the family of Notaras. He was reared in piety by them and studied the Sacred writings. He left his country and went throughout various lands, and finally came to Cephalonia, where he restored a certain old church and built a convent around it, where it stands to this day at the place called Omala. He finished the course of his life there in asceticism in the year 1570. His sacred relics, which remain incorrupt, are kept there for the sanctification of the faithful.


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Parish Information

Here at St. Nicholas we are blessed to be able to welcome our community back to public services with the following directives in place:
 
-Individuals who have been exposed to the Coronavirus, or are at high risk as defined by the CDC (those 65-years or older, those with compromised immune systems, those with respiratory illness, heart conditions, or other underlying medical conditions) are encouraged to stay at home. Our livestream will still be active for the time being.
-A distance of six feet must be observed between families at all times.
-Use of non-medical masks is required for all attendees.
-There will be no fellowship hour following Liturgy. Parishioners are asked to depart the Church in an orderly fashion family-by-family following the dismissal.
-Icons are to be venerated by crossing oneself and bowing. Please do not kiss the icons.
-Distribution of antidoron will not take place.
 
If you do not currently receive emails from our parish, please give Fr. Jeremy your name and email address to be added to our list.
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This Week at St. Nicholas

  • Wednesday, August 19: 6pm Paraklesis, 7pm Adult Ed
  • Thursday, August 20: 6pm Vespers
  • Friday, August 21 Apostle Thaddeus: 8am Orthros, 9am Divine Liturgy
  • Saturday, August 22: 6pm Great Vespers
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