Today’s Readings:
Epistle: Ephesians 2:4-10
Gospel: Luke 12:16-21
Schedule of Services:
-Monday, November 21st, Divine Liturgy at 10am for the Feast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple.
-Saturday, November 26th, Great Vespers at 4pm.
-Sunday, November 27th, Divine Liturgy at 10am. Hours begin at 9:40am.
Announcements:
-Memory eternal to George Bartosh. Today is the 40th day of his repose. Memory eternal, as well, to Emmanuel, the father of Valli, who reposed 25 years ago.
-Thank you to Valli for hosting coffee hour today. We all appreciate the good food and fellowship that you helped provide.
-Matushka Mary will hold Sunday school today. Fr. Tristan has been asked to play a part in today’s lesson for the kids.
-For our coffee hour on Nov. 27th (this upcoming Sunday), please bring a left over from your Thanksgiving table to share with others. Fasting rules do not have to be followed.
-Next Sunday, Nov. 27th is also the deadline for gifts and gift cards for the St. Nicholas Project. Please have the gifts wrapped, labelled, and brought to church by that date. Gift options are still available. Please see the board with the Christmas tree, in the front of our dining hall for details.
-Please don't forget the needy! Shop Rite gift cards and non perishable staples are greatly needed and appreciated
-The next adult education session is scheduled for Dec. 4th. Please come.
-Please don't forget the needy! Shop Rite gift cards and non perishable staples are greatly needed and appreciated.
-Tomorrow we will celebrate the Divine Liturgy for the Entry of the Theotokos at 10am.
Prayers for:
Living: Paul, Melissa, Helen, John, Darlette, Steven, Janet, Teresa, Irina, Alla, Ira, Victor, the Reader Christopher; the suffering people and innocent victims of the Ukrainian/Russian war; the suffering people of Yemen, Syria, and Palestine.
Departed: George, Emmanuel.
Words for the Day:
It is joyful to feel that we do not and cannot have any enemies among men, but only unhappy brethren, who are deserving of pity and help, even when, through misunderstanding, they become our enemies and fight against us. Woe! They do not understand that the enemy is found within ourselves, and that first of all one must cast him our of oneself, and then also help others to do the same. We have only one enemy: the devil and his evil spirits. But man, no matter how far he has fallen, never loses certain sparks of light and goodness which may be blown into a bright flame. But for us there is no reason to fight against people, even when they consistently send against all kind of blows and rebukes ... To fight against people is to take a false position of our enemies. Even if we succeed, we gain nothing from this fight, but rather become estranged from our own success.
(Martyr Roman Medved, Letter to His Daughter from the Gulag, 1932).
With all your power, ask the Lord for humility and brotherly love, because God freely gives His grace for love towards one's brother. Do an experiment on yourself: one day ask God for love towards your brother, and another day - live without love. You will see the difference.
(St. Silouan the Athonite, Writings, XVI.8)
Next Week’s Readings:
Epistle: Ephesians 2:14-22. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby
killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Gospel: Luke 13:10-17. Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.