WE’LL KICK OFF A NEW CHURCH SCHOOL year on Sunday, Sept 8, at 9 am, with a Family Hour. All ages come together as our parish family around Father Paul and Mother Nancy, and Father, with Mother’s help, gives a lesson for all ages (of ages!).

OUR ST HERMAN’S WEBSITE CALENDAR shows classes for catechumens and inquirers beginning on Saturday, Oct 5, at 1015 am. These classes are open to all.

ST HERMAN’S BOOK CLUB meets next on Saturday, August 24th, at 9 am, at the church.  Our current book is Athonite Flowers: Seven Contemporary Essays on the Spiritual Life , by Monk Moses.  Please read the first four essays.

IN CELEBRATION OF the Jubilee of the Tomos of Autocephaly granted to the OCA on Apr 10, 1970, and of the canonization of St Herman of Alaska, cruises to Alaska over the summer of 2020 are being sponsored by each diocese of the OCA. Details are on the flyer on the bulletin board downstairs.

ST GEORGE GOC FESTIVAL. St. George Greek Orthodox Church in St. Paul is holding its annual Greek Festival on Saturday, August 17 from 11 am-9 pm and Sunday August 18 from 11 am-6 pm. Please join us at 1111 Summit Ave Saint Paul, MN for wonderful Greek Food, Greek Dancing, music, pastries, church tours and FUN! For more info or to purchase tickets, click the link on our website: www.stgeorgegoc.org.

ST MARY’S COPTIC Church announces its upcoming festival, Aug 24-25. The festival includes a cultural program with short movies, presentations, music, church tours, and Egyptian food and bakery items, a bazaar, and an ancient Egyptian photo booth. For more information, go to stmarymn.org.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR with Twin Cities in Motion, whom none of us know as far as we know, has sent a note enlightening us with the following intelligence: Twin Cities Marathon is Sunday, Oct 6. Go to twincities.org to get a map of the marathon route, to see if you may want to find an alternate route to St Herman’s that morning.

Sometimes we are dazzled by worldly people, but we forget that all their marvelous palaces are built on sand. One day, they will watch them collapse into a heap of dust (Mt 7:26-27). Souls without ideals, without any striving for a higher spiritual life can only be described as dead souls.

For those of us who want to be living hearts, on fire with higher ideals, what are the principles that should govern our spiritual life? First and foremost, for us to be spiritual people, for our lives to be true, we must live a sacramental and mystical way of life. What does that mean? Was any of us born of our own accord? No. all of us received the gift of life from our parents. In the same way, no one acquires the gift of the spiritual life by his own efforts, try though he may. No matter how much I stretch myself, I’m not going to get any taller, however much I struggle. In the same way, I’m not going to create a spiritual life for myself. Even if I exhaust myself trying, if I toil and weep, or undertake long fasts, the spiritual life is a gift granted to me by the Holy Spirit (cf. Eph 2:8-10).

It follows, then, that a basic condition for the spiritual life is that we should understand that, on our own, we can do absolutely nothing. No matter how hard we try, the spiritual life is something that is given to us. And this “someone else” is the Spirit of God. Of course, sometimes we get confused and think that to be spiritual means to be a “good person’; not to steal, not to kill, not to go to bad places or with bad friends, to go to church on Sunday, to read spiritual books, and so on.

But no, this is not the spiritual life. A spiritual person, a true Christian, is someone whose entire life is sworn to God. Initially, by means of his baptism, and later, in his heart, such a person swears an oath to God, to live for God and to remain with God forever. A spiritual person is an athlete who has burst into life, who runs with all the speed of his soul to heaven. He is not a “good man”. A spiritual person knows that, in order to succeed, he needs strong wings, the wings of the Holy Spirit.

A spiritual person must therefore do everything possible to attract, to win over, the Spirit of God, because only the Holy Spirit, God Himself, has the gifts of eternal life. According to St Gregory of Nyssa, the distribution of the royal gifts of the Holy Spirit takes place in the Church through the sacraments.

Archimandrite Aimilianos, The Church at Prayer, pp.  116-117