Today’s Readings:
Epistle: Ephesians 6:10-17
Gospel: Luke 17:12-19
Schedule of Services:
Saturday, December 16th, Great Vespers at 4pm.
Sunday, December 17th, Divine Liturgy at 10am. Hours begin at 9:40am.
Announcements:
-Memory eternal to our departed parishioners!
-Steve W is residing at Hunterdon Care Center in Flemington. His room number is C 120. He welcomes visitors. Please stop by and see him during this Christmas season.
-Next Saturday, December 16th, there will be a panikhida held for Nellie Eyerman’s parents, Anatol and Tamara, and Fr. Tristan’s father, Paul at 3:40pm, before Vespers.
-Many thanks to the Lopes’ for hosting today.
-A sign up sheet is located on the freezer for our December 24th “Holy Supper” meal at 3:30pm. Please consider bringing a dish to share. The meal will be followed by Great Compline and Matins for the Feast of the Nativity. Please plan to attend.
-2024 Church Calendars are now available. Please take one.
-The next Church School for children will be on December 17th.
-The St. Tikhon's Christmas Concert will be held next Friday, December 15 at 7 pm. Please see Brendan for more information.
-Choir rehearsal will be at 9:20 am on December 17.
-The OCA has another Bishop. His Grace, Bishop Benedict (Churchill) was ordained to the Holy Episcopate as the Bishop of Hartford and New England. Bishop Benedict was a priest in the Southern Diocese and served at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, translating and editing as a representative of SVS Press. Many years!
Prayers for:
Departed: Paul
Living: Elena, Janis, David, Robert, Karen, Steven, Archpriest Paul, Melissa, Stephen, Michele, Janet, Teresa, Irina, Victor; Metropolitan Onuphry and the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; the suffering people and innocent victims of the Ukrainian/Russian war and those being persecuted; the suffering people of Yemen, Syria and Turkey; and the suffering victims of the war in Israel and Palestine.
Departed Parishioners:
Fedora Trus 1.13.1997, Raymond Polansky 2.7.2003, Ireni Paraskevas 2.9.2003, Subdn. Michael Zolar 2.10.1993, Mary Zolar 2.10.1994, Richard Kloss 3.3.2017, Olga Piscadlo 4.3.2015, Gregory Teploff 4.12.1990, Nina Cavlier 4.26.2011, George Barnosky 5.11.1999, Anthony Ryan 6.3.2011, Helen Kolanage 6.17.2015, James Heitz 6.21.2014, Raymonde Djokic 7.23.2022, John Paraskevas 8.3.1993, Helen Russin Morris 8.3.2022, Archpriest Leonid Kuberski 8.19.2000, Maryanne Welenteychik 8.28.2018, Sylvester Trus 9.21.1995, Evan Kalenik 10.2.2011, Robert Bell 10.3.2015
Sharon Kloss 10.13.2015, Helen Stanley 10.16.1988, Dolores Barnosky 10.24.2002, Eleanor Barnosky 10.25.2014, Sophie Makarewicz 11.4.2012, Alexandra Meyendorff Teploff 11.9.2008, Pierre Djokic 11.20.2013, Edna Kalenik 12.29.2000
Words for the Day
Love is the fruit of prayer ... Patiently abiding in prayer signifies a man's renunciation of himself. Therefore the self-denial of the soul turns into love for God.
(St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily, 43)
If you find that there is no love in you, but you want to have it, then do deeds of love, even though you do them without love in the beginning. The Lord will see you desire and striving and will put love in your heart.
(St. Ambrose of Optina)
Next Week’s Readings:
Epistle: Colossians 3:4-11. Brethren, When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Gospel: Luke 14:16-24. Jesus told this parable, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”