Today’s Readings:

Epistle: Acts 16:16-34

Gospel: John 9:1-38

 

Schedule of Services: 

Thursday, May 25th, Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord at 10am.

Saturday, May 27th, Great Vespers at 4pm.

Sunday, May 28th, Divine Liturgy at 10am. Hours begin at 9:40am.

 

Announcements:

-Please enjoy some fellowship downstairs after Divine Liturgy.  Coffee is available.

-Today we have Church School for the children.

-Also, we have a Parish Council Meeting.

-Don’t forget the needy. Shop Rite gift cards or non-perishable foods are greatly appreciated.

-We will be celebrating the Feast of the Ascension this Thursday at 10am. This is one of the Major Feasts of Christ that we celebrate during the Church Year.

-Fr. George is at Mary Heart Rehabilitation Center in Randolph, NJ. He is doing well and should be discharged by the end of this week. He sends greetings to everyone here!

 

Prayers for: 

Living: Archpriest George, Steven, Paul, Charles, Archpriest Paul, Melissa, Helen, John, Stephen, Michele, Janet, Teresa, Irina, Alla, Ira, Victor; Vinni, Caroline, Tyler, and Aubrey, 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 Palestine. 

 

 

 

Words for the Day:

He healed others by a word…But the Lord bestowed sight on the one who was blind from birth—not by a word, but by an outward action. He did this neither casually nor simply because this was how it happened. He did it this way in order to show it was the same hand of God here that had also formed man at the beginning. And therefore when his disciples asked him why he had been born blind, whether by his own fault or his parents’, Jesus said, “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him.” The work of God is, after all, the forming of man. He did this by and outward action, as Scripture says, “And the Lord took clay from earth, and formed man.” Notice here too how the Lord spit on the earth, and made clay and smeared it on his eyes, showing how the ancient creation was made. He was making clear to those who can understand, that this was the same hand of God through which man was formed from clay. For what the creating Word had neglected to form in the womb, this he supplied openly. He did this so that the works of God might be evident in him, and so that we would now seek for no other hand than that through which humanity was formed. Nor should we seek another Father, knowing that the hand of God which formed us in the beginning, and forms in the womb, has in the last times sought us lost ones out. He is gaining his own lost sheep and putting it on his shoulders and joyfully restoring it to the fold of life. 

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 5.15. 2

 

Next Week’s Readings:

Epistle: Acts 20:16-18, 28-36. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all.

Gospel: John 17:1-13.  When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.