Today’s Readings:
Epistle: 2 Corinthians 9:6-11
Gospel: Luke 8:5-15
Schedule of Services:
-Saturday, October 22nd, Great Vespers at 5pm.
-Sunday, October 23rd, Divine Liturgy at 10am. Hours begin at 9:40am.
Announcements:
-Memory eternal to George Bartosh, Sudeacon Alex’s younger brother.
-Thank you to Mila for hosting today’s coffee hour. Your efforts are greatly appreciated!
-In January we will need to find a new cleaning person. If anyone is interested or knows of someone who is reliable, please contact Pam H.
-Please remember those in need. We are especially in need of Shop Rite gift cards. Place them in the blue box on the candle stand.
-Date change for Adult Education. Instead of next Sunday, Fr. Tristan will offer an adult education sessions at coffee hour on Sunday, Nov. 6th and Sunday, Dec. 4th. This makes a little bit more of logistical sense due to the upcoming Nativity Fast and Christmas.
-Matushka Mary will offer a Sunday school lesson for children today after Divine Liturgy.
-This week, from October 17th to the 21st, Fr. Tristan will be visiting his mother in Pittsburgh. If there is any immediate need, please contact Fr. George at 973-970-4205. Let Nellie know, as well. If there is a serious emergency, Fr. Tristan will try to get back as soon as possible.
-In regards to the pierogi making workshop, potato peeling and set up will occur on Thursday, Oct. 27 at 9 a.m. Our pierogi making will take place on Sat. Oct. 29. Please write these dates in on your calendar and also put your name down on the sign-up sheets on the freezer. Our thanks for Mila for sending the request and for picking up the ingredients.
Prayers for:
Living: Melissa, Helen, John, Darlette, Steven, Janet, Teresa, Irina, Alla,
Ira, Victor, Reader Christopher, Sandy; the suffering people of Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, and Ethiopia.
Departed: George, Metropolitans Kallistos and Herman
Words for the Day:
God gives His communion to all who love Him. Communion with God is life and light and sweetness with all the good things that He has. But those who of their own will forsake him he rewards with separation from Him, which they themselves have chosen. As separation from light is darkness, so also alienation from God is deprivation of all good things which He has. But the good things of God are eternal and without end, so that the loss of them is eternal and without end. Thus sinners shall be the cause of their own torments, just as the blind do not see the light, although it is shining on them.
(St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, V.27)
God abides in each commandment by His gracious power. "God is hidden in His commandments", says St. Mark the Ascetic. God helps everyone who strives to keep His commandments. That God abides in us we know by the Spirit, which He has given us. This means that a Christian is never alone, but that he lives and works together with the Thrice-Holy God.
(St. Justin Popovich, Explanation of I John, 3:24)
Next Week’s Readings:
Epistle: 2 Corinthians 11:31-12:9. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands. I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or
out of the body I do not know, God knows—and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses—though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Gospel: Luke 16:19-31. “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”