CONFESSIONS. Let’s make every effort to give our confession before Palm Sunday. Fr Paul hears confessions before the evening services during the week and before Vigil on Saturday. Sign up sheets to facilitate scheduling were on the bulletin board downstairs, which is now in the furnace room to make way for the basement renovation. So, until the bulletin board is able to go back up, perhaps just let Fr Paul know when you’d like to come give your confession.

BASEMENT RENOVATION. The renovation of our basement is done enough that we can serve Coffee Hour this morning. The workers, however, encountered a fundamental law of physics that prevented them from finishing: an object cannot be installed if it isn’t there. The object not there in this case is all the new lights, which will be really fancy! They’re on order and we expect them to be here perhaps toward the end of this week. At Coffee Hour this morning, we’ll be under the work lights used by the workers. They’re very bright! But, as you squint from the bright lights, be sure to note the difference in the acoustics!

ADULT ED (Lives of the Saints) meets upstairs in the Nave this morning (9 am). The two Church School classes will meet downstairs in the basement – since the classrooms are filled with stuff right now because of the basement renovation.

CATECHISM CLASS finishes up this Tuesday, Mar 28, until after Pascha sometime. Catechism classes are open to everyone. They are recorded and uploaded to our St Herman’s website. To view the recordings, click on the Resources tab on our home page, then scroll down and click on ‘Uploads of Fr Paul’s Sermons/Classes.’

DONATIONS FOR FLOWERS to adorn the temple for Pascha may be made in memory of departed loved ones. The names of departed loved ones, in whose memory flowers are donated, are posted at the Vesperal Liturgy of Great and Holy Saturday.

TRAVEL ASSISTANCE for one of our St Herman parishioners who lives a distance from the Twin Cities may be given to Marisa, our treasurer. Assistance is toward purchase of bus-fare.

LIFE OF ST MARY OF EGYPT will be read by candlelight, by Fr Paul from the Synaxarion this Thursday evening, at 7 pm. We gather in the nave to hear this story of the Church.

THE AKATHIST TO THE THEOTOKOS is this Saturday. We will serve Matins with the Akathist on Friday evening, at 7 pm, and Divine Liturgy for the Akathist on Saturday at 9 am. This means that we’ll serve Friday’s PreSanctified Liturgy at 630 am this Friday morning.

A WORD FROM IOCC, our 1^st quarter charity: Following the devastating locust infestation in Ethiopia, IOCC has helped locals get the supplies they needed to grow and harvest new crops. One of these farmers is Solomon, a 42-year-old father of three who lives in the country’s Amhara region. Like many farmers across Ethiopia, he lost his entire crop to the locust infestation. Thanks to your support, IOCC provided Solomon with 10 kilograms of mung bean seed, and now Solomon’s farm can once again support his family. “Desert locusts brought devastation,” Solomon told IOCC, “and I have suffered multiple losses. I am a small farmer, and the locusts impacted my family and me negatively. However, it also brought organizations like IOCC that helped me to recover from this situation.” Our recovery efforts continue today as families look to rebuild their lives. Your support helps people like Solomon, neighbors across the ocean. Join IOCC in making a difference for people like him this Great Lent.

LENTEN SUNDAY VESPERS:

Today: St Michael’s Ukrainian

April 2: Sts Anargyroi (Rochester)

April 9: Bridegroom Matins, St Herman’s

We plan to receive Tom Kolden, Erika Roland, and Matthew Homan into the Church through Holy Chrismation at the Divine Liturgy on Lazarus Saturday morning. After a pancake breakfast following the Divine Liturgy that morning, everyone is invited to help with a thorough spring-cleaning of the Temple that day.

ON PALM SUNDAY afternoon, when we host the MEOCCA Bridegroom Matins, we also will serve our guests a delicious fish dinner. Ask Caleb or Jonathan how you might help!

ST GEORGE ANTIOCHIAN Orthodox Church serves the 47^th Annual Fr John Khoury Falafel Dinner on Sunday, Apr 2, from Noon – 3 pm. $12 for adults, $6 for kids under 12, dine-in or take-out.

To know the truth about God, every believer must become the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, and be guided by Him, for He is the source of the knowledge of God. St Symeon the New Theologian says that God gives assurance to the faithful just as He did to the Apostles, through the sending and presence of the Holy Spirit. For the knowledge of Christ’s mysteries, and the understanding of the mystery of His divine economy come to us only through the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The abundant light of the All-holy Spirit is needed for the comprehension of God’s hidden mysteries.

God is totally incomprehensible in His essence, not only to men but also to the angels. John the Evangelist says that ‘No one has ever seen God’ (Jn 1.18), which means that the holy Godhead is by essence completely ineffable and unknown.

Nevertheless, although God is incomprehensible in His essence, He can be known through His energies. However, for man to know the divine energies, he must make himself a pure vessel of divine grace. For ‘with the mind man cannot grasp the divine energies if he not first practice ascesis and live the divine energies that the grace of God might be energized within him.’ (St Paisios of the Holy Mountain)

Hieromonk Gregorios of the Holy Mountain.

The Orthodox Faith, Worship and Life, pp. 11 & 12