Today’s Readings:
Epistle: Ephesians 4:7-13
Gospel: Matthew 4:12-17
Schedule of Services:
-Saturday, January 14th, Great Vespers at 4pm.
-Sunday, January 15th, Divine Liturgy at 10am. Hours begin at 9:40am.
-Saturday, January 28th, Hierarchical Divine Liturgy at 10am.
Announcements:
-Enjoy a cup of coffee and fellowship after Liturgy today.
-A coffee hour sign-up sheet for 2023 has been posted on the freezer. Please consider hosting one.
-After Liturgy today we will be putting away Christmas decorations. Please stay and help.
-Please keep Steve and Michele Lelo in your prayers. Steve will be having a procedure done on his arm, which he recently fell on, on Wednesday, the 11th. They will both be homebound for the foreseeable future as Michele needs to stay home to take care of Steve.
-The month of January has been designated by our Diocese for each church to have a special collection for relief to the Alaskan Diocese, which desperately needs financial assistance. If donating by check, please make a check out to the church, but dedicate it to the Alaskan Diocese Relief.
-Don’t forget the needy. Shop Rite gift cards or non-perishable foods are needed and greatly appreciated.
-Annual Parish meeting is scheduled for Jan. 22nd. Snow date: Jan. 29th
-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. Nevertheless, please RSVP Corrado at corradino51@gmail.com.
-Merry Christmas to our brothers and sisters in our midst and those throughout the world who are celebrating the Nativity of Christ this weekend! Christ is born!
-Finally, house blessings are underway. There is a house blessing sheet in the back of the church. Father’s best days to bless houses are on Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays (before or after Vespers at 4pm). Otherwise, please call him and schedule a time if you would like. Please note that this Tuesday (January 10th) Father will be unavailable.
Prayers for:
Living: Paul, Melissa, Helen, John, Stephen, Michele, 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:
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” The paradox of our relationship to God is that obedience in our relationship to Him does not enslave us – but sets us free. It is the same as the paradox of the Cross. Christ said of the Cross, “No man takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own self” (John 10:18). Our own salvation can be no different. No one can take our life from us – we must lay it down of our own self. We lose our life in order to find it. We lose a false self in order to find the true. The saint is the most free of all human beings. What a strange wonder. Fr. Stephen Freeman, St. Gregory Palamas, Freedom, and the Self.
Love sinners, but hate their deeds, and do not disdain sinners for their failings, so that you yourself do not fall into the temptation in which they abide... Do not be angry at anyone and do not hate anyone, neither for their faith, nor for their shameful deeds... Do not foster hatred for the sinner, for we are all guilty... Hate his sins, and pray for him, so that you may be made like unto Christ, who had no dislike for sinners, but prayed for them. (St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 57,90)
Adorn yourself with truth, try to speak truth in all things; and do not support a lie, no matter who asks you. If you speak the truth and someone gets mad at you, don't be upset, but take comfort in the words of the Lord: Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of truth, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 5:10). St. Gennadius of Constantinople, The Golden Chain, 26,29.
Next Week’s Readings:
Epistle: 1 Timothy 1:15-17. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Gospel: Luke 18:18-27. And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”