THE JOY OF THE FEAST be with all of you! Today is the Feast of Pentecost. It is the Eighth Sunday of Pascha (Eight is a symbol of the New Creation effected by the LORD’s Resurrection). Because of the wedding this afternoon, we will conclude the Divine Liturgy this morning with the kneeling prayers normally said at the Pentecost Vespers.

FAST-FREE WEEK this week following Pentecost!

BLESSED FATHER’S DAY to all our fathers, grandfathers and godfathers.

JUBRAN-WESCHE WEDDING happens this afternoon, June 20, at 3 pm. Fr Paul and Presbytera will hand their Katie off to Jarrius, member of St George Antiochian Orthodox Church.

COFFEE HOUR following Divine Liturgy has resumed. People are welcome to bring treats to go with our coffee, if they wish.

NATIVITY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST is the feast on which Fr Paul was ordained to the holy priesthood by then Bishop Job 33 years ago, at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in Crestwood, NY. We’ll serve the feast with Vigil and Litya on Wednesday, June 23, and Divine Liturgy on Thursday at 630 am.

OUR FOURTH QUARTER CHARITY is ZOE, a ministry of the Orthodox Church for unwed mothers. Note that the fourth quarter ends with the month of June.

CONGRATULATIONS to Dan and Megan Thweat on the birth of Elizabeth, 530 am on Friday, June 18. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 12 oz, and measured 19 3/4” long.

REMEMBER Alessa Rother in your prayers. She is now stationed in Texas for a month before she flies to Kuwait as part of her duties with the National Guard. She will be assigned to Kuwait for 12 months. It will be 13 months, then, before we see her again.

FR CHRISTOPHER AND HIS FAMILY are now moved to Georgia. Their new address is:

The Macioleks

417 Collins Glen Ct.

Lawrenceville, GA 30043

FR PAUL OFFERS AN ADULT EDUCATION class this coming Saturday, June 26, from 10 am – 12 Noon, outside in the portico, weather permitting. We’ll consider, “The Theology of Ascension.” All are welcome to join us. Be sure to bring your bibles!

LATEST WORD ON OUR ANNUAL PARISH PILGRIMAGE to Holy Dormition Monastery in Rives Junction, MI has not changed from last week. The monastery is not permitted to receive more than 10 guests. Our pilgrimage this year therefore will not happen as a ‘pilgrimage’ but more as a ‘work trip’. Mother Abbess Gabriella wants us to help clean the pavilion which involves the need for strong backs and hard workers. And, she is asking if the ten workers from St Herman’s would come the first week of August.

AS WE MOVE INTO THE SUMMER, expect our service schedule to slow down to give Fr Paul (and anyone else) a chance to catch his breath and re-fuel.

PARISH COUNCIL NOTES. We are moving ahead with our plan to install a railing on our front steps, and a bike rack. The Council also directed our treasurer to begin the process of investing $25k into OCCIF, as we discussed at our annual parish meeting in January. Our Archbishop was very pleased to learn of this when Fr Paul told him at the bishop’s council this last Thursday. Our hierarch is directing the Diocese also to investigate the possibility of working with OCCIF on the diocesan level.

Christianity is not a philosophy, not a doctrine, but life. Just as every rationalistic system has its logical sequence, its dialectics, so the spiritual world has—if we are to apply the conventional terms—its structure and its dialectics. But the argument of spiritual experience is peculiar to itself and does not follow the ordinary process of reasoning. Rationalists may, therefore, find it strange that the Staretz [St Silouan—his icon is on the south wall of the nave] should regard the presence of love for enemies as the criterion of true faith, of true communion with God, and a sign of the real action of grace.

…When he spoke of ‘enemies’ the Staretz was merely using current language. His own attitude was different. He would say that for Christ there are no enemies—there are those who accept ‘the words of eternal life’, there are those who reject and even crucify; but for the Creator of every living thing there can be no enemy. So it should be for the Christian, too, who ‘in pity for all must strive for the salvation of all.’

God is love in superabundance embracing all creation. By allowing man actually to know this love the Holy Spirit reveals to him the path to fulness of being. To say ‘enemy’ implies rejection. By such rejection a man falls from the plenitude of God. Those who have attained the Kingdom of Heaven and abide in God in the Holy Spirit behold every abyss of hell, for there is no domain in all existence where God could not be. ‘The whole paradise of saints lives by the Holy Spirit, and from the Holy Spirit nothing in creation is hid,’ writes the Staretz. ‘God is love and in the saints, the Holy Spirit is love. Dwelling in the Holy Spirit, the saints behold hell and embrace it, too, in their love.’

Archimandrite Sophrony, The Monk of Mt Athos,  Staretz Silouan, 1866-1938, pp. 69&70