Today’s Readings:
Epistle: 2 Timothy 4:5-8
Gospel: Mark 1:1-8
Schedule of Services:
-Friday, January 6th, Divine Liturgy for the Feast of Theophany with the Blessing of the Waters at 10am.
-Saturday, January 7th, Great Vespers at 4pm.
-Sunday, January 8th, Divine Liturgy at 10am. Hours begin at 9:40am.
-Saturday, January 28th, Hierarchical Divine Liturgy at 10am.
Announcements:
-Thank you, Matushka Mary, for hosting coffee hour today!
-A coffee hour sign-up sheet for 2023 has been posted on the freezer. Please consider hosting one.
-Remember to bring your containers for holy water on Jan. 6th.
-A sincere thanks to all who participated in the 2022 Building/ Rectory Fund program. Donations totaled $3,650. A new sign-up sheet has been posted for 2023. Partial or full donations of $250
are received with gratitude.
-Don’t forget the needy. Shop Rite gift cards or non-perishable foods are needed and greatly appreciated.
-A "thank you" note from the Ryerson's, the family our church and Sisterhood sponsored for the St. Nicholas project, has been posted on the bulletin board. Their gratitude will put a warm feeling in your heart.
-Next Council meeting will be held on Jan. 8, after coffee hour.
-Annual Parish meeting is scheduled for Jan. 22. Snow date: Jan. 29
-A reminder that Subdeacon Corrado’s ordination to the Holy Diaconate will take place on Saturday, January 28th at 10am. A reception will follow Corrado’s ordination. However, details regarding the reception are underway. Stay posted.
Prayers for:
Living: Paul, Melissa, Helen, John, Stephen, Janet, Teresa, Irina, Alla, Ira, Victor, the Reader Christopher; the child of God, Gideon; the servant of God, Brendan; 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 Palestine.
Words for the Day:
The baptismal pilgrimage, and the struggle it entails, is summed up in a remarkable passage by the fourteenth century spiritual master, St Gregory of Sinai. The pathway of the baptized Christian is conceived as reproducing the various stages of Christ’s own earthly life: “Everyone baptized into Christ should pass progressively through all the stages of Christ’s own life, for in baptism he receives the power so to progress, and through the commandments he can discover and learn how to accomplish such progression. To Christ’s conception corresponds the foretaste of the gift of the Holy Spirit, to His nativity the actual experience of joyousness, to His baptism the cleansing force of the fire of the Spirit, to His transfiguration the contemplation of divine light, to His crucifixion the dying to all things, to His burial the indwelling of divine love in the heart, to His resurrection the soul’s life-quickening resurrection, and to His ascension divine ecstasy and the transport of the intellect into God.” This passage, as clearly as any other, makes the point that baptism is not merely a ritual of initiation, a liturgical “passport” into the life of the Church. Nor does it involve a mere “imitation” of Christ’s own baptism and the events of his life. As the work of the “two Hands of the Father” in the life of the believer and the entire community of the faithful, baptism offers us actual participation in Christ’s own death, resurrection and glorification. It offers, in the fullest sense, eternal communion in his divine life. Fr. John Breck, “Life in Christ”, Baptism in Christ, January 1, 2010
Seek the simplest in all things, in food, clothing, without being ashamed of poverty. For a great part of the world lives in poverty. Do not say, "I am the son of a rich man. It is shameful for me to be in poverty." Christ, your Heavenly Father, Who gave birth to you in the baptistery, is not in worldly riches. Rather he walked in poverty and had nowhere to lay His head.
(St. Gennadius of Constantinople, The Golden Chain, 24-25)
Next Week’s Readings:
Epistle: Ephesians 4:7-13. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says,“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Gospel: Matthew 4:12-17. Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.