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The Holy Fire from the Lord's Tomb in Jerusalem was brought to St Herman's and burns on our altar and on our "Golgotha" Table. |
CONFESSIONS. Please note that Fr Paul will make himself available to hear confessions on Sundays at 830 am. Let him know if you would like to come give your confession, to make sure there is an opening.
OUR CHARITY for the second quarter is ZOE, an Orthodox ministry for unwed mothers. Today is the last Sunday for this quarter. Our charity for the next quarter is Holy Dormition Monastery.
FR PAUL’S SERMON for this morning has been recorded on our St Herman’s YouTube channel. The link is: https://youtu.be/DRaE52f5DYA
WE LOOK FORWARD to the Baptism and Chrismation of the Thweat family on Saturday, July 11, at 5 pm (to accommodate work schedules). This will be followed by Great Vespers at about 6 pm. Sunday Divine Liturgy, July 12, will be their first communion! At the Saturday morning Divine Liturgy, 9 am, on July 25, we will receive Alex W and Dan F into the Church through the sacraments of confession and Chrismation.
NEXT WEEKEND is July Fourth weekend. Next Sunday also is the next cycle in the three Sunday rotation. The names were all put back into the hat and drawn again. That means we’ve started a fresh drawing, and the luck of the draw may have some of us coming two Sundays in a row. But, given the possibility that a number of the names drawn may belong to persons who may be out of town next weekend, let’s give those names here and now. If your name was drawn for next Sunday, but you plan to be away for the weekend, let Fr Paul know as soon as possible, cuz it may take several drawings over several days before we come up with names belonging to folks who will be here next Sunday.
Tabelings
Presbytera
Knockes
Axvigs
Thweats
Alex W
Nicholas & Sebastian W
Tim & Thecla
Brad K
Rothers
Fred & Richie
Doug & Maureen
Rachel T
Katie W
PILGRIMAGE TO HOLY DORMITION will NOT happen this year. The monastery is officially closed and will likely remain so to the end of the year. Overnight guests and volunteers are not permitted. Mother Gabriella conveys the ‘heartbreak’ of the mothers and sisters of the monastery that they are not able to offer hospitality in a normal Christian way.
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Portaitissa Miracle-Working Icon, Iveron Monastery, Mt Athos |
Words of Wisdom from Mt Athos.
Christians during pandemic
Why do we need to pray to God when He says He knows more about what we need?
We need to understand that the first thing we need is the healing of the distortion of our will and, connected to this, the healing of our loneliness.
Our will is distorted because it continually tries to seek perfection outside of God.
In fact, this is the fall of Adam: separation from God.
From where comes our pain?
Our torment is not God’s punishment but our self-punishment through self-isolation.
We do not want to be quarantined to be separated from a virus, but we do want to quarantine ourselves to be separated from God.
Prayer and obedience are the main means through which we unite with God.
Why do we need to pray?
God, knowing that prayer and obedience are the source of our life and happiness, expects us to pray not only because He does not want to enter brutally into our lives, crushing our freedom, but also to be happy precisely because of prayer which is unity with Him. Fulfilling our desires expressed in prayer is a secondary phenomenon in our salvation.
God stands at the door and knocks. If we do not open through prayer, He will not come in and have dinner with us.
We need to pray not so much for our interests, that is, to obtain something—even if God, in His kindness, also accepts this kind of prayer—but to pray precisely to feel the joy of meeting with the perfect Creator and Father, the only one who can overcome the abyss of our loneliness.
