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WELCOME! If you are a first time visitor to Saint George’s today. We are glad to have you! Please stay for the coffee social in the parish hall after liturgy so we can get acquainted.
SCRIPTURE READINGS THIS WEEK
Jan 11th After feast of Theophany; Venerable Theodosius the Great, the Cenobiarch
James 2:14-26 Mark 10:46-52
Jan 12th After feast of Theophany; Martyr Tatiana of Rome and companions
James 3:1-10 Mark 11:11-23
Jan 13th After feast of Theophany; St. Hilary, Bishop of Poiters
James 3:11-4:6 Mark 11:23-26
Jan 14th Leave taking of Theophany; the Holy Fathers slain at Sinai and Raithu
James 4:7-5:9 Mark 11:27-33
Jan 15th Venerable Paul of Thebes and John Calbytes; Venerable Prochorus of Bulgaria
1 Peter 1:1-2, 10-12; 2:6-10 Mark 12:1-12
Jan 16th Veneration of the Precious Chains of the Holy Apostle Peter
1 Thessalonians 5:14-23 Luke 17:3-10
Activities/Services this Week:
Council Meeting: Tuesday, January 12th, Time to be announced, at the church
Great Vespers: Saturday, January 16th, 5 PM, at the church
*There will be no Compline this week on Wednesday*
The Sanctuary Lamp is burning this week for the health and well being or our church council. There are openings for January 17th & the 31st.
Last Sunday, January 3rd, 33 Adults and 10 Youth attended Divine Liturgy.
For the month of January, please bring pancake or waffle mix in whatever amount you can afford to donate for the All Saints Food Pantry. Thanks to all for being so generous.
The next meeting of the Rossford/Toledo Book Club will be on Monday, January 25th, 10 AM at the home of Mary Dedes in Toledo. We will discuss Chapters 11 and 12 of “Bread, Water, Wine, & Oil; an Orthodox Experience of God”. The Bowling Green Book Club will meet next on Thursday January 21st at 6:30 PM at Grounds for Thought on Main St. in Bowling Green. We will study Chapter Four and Five of the same book. Please read the material so we can properly discuss it.
Please save your icon prints from your 2009 Calendar. If you don’t need them bring them to church and give them Fr. Paul. He can take those to St. Gregory’s monastery and they can mount them and laminate them for selling them. This helps the monastery to raise income to support itself.
Fr. Paul will being contacting people this week to ask if they want their home to be blessed. He will begin blessing homes in the Oregon area, and then move to the West Toledo area, and South Toledo. When he does come to your home, please have a list of names of both departed and living people you want to be remembered during the blessing, a bowl, an icon, and a candle ready for the service.
On Wednesday, January 6, the Diocesan Chancellor received a communication from the secretary of the Holy Synod of Bishops, Bishop TIKHON of Eastern Pennsylvania. In that communication the Chancellor learned that on 23 December 2009 the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in American met in Chicago. At that meeting they released His Beatitude, Metropolitan JONAH, from his responsibilities as Locum Tenens of the Bulgarian Diocese. Effective on that date the Holy Synod appointed as Locum Tenens of our diocese His Grace, Bishop MELCHISEDEK, Bishop of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. In liturgical commemorations, in the Litanies, His Grace is to be commemorated in this manner: “For His Grace, Bishop MELCHISEDEK,...” At the Great Entrance and at ‘Among the first...,’ he is to be commemorated in this manner: “His Grace, MELCHISEDEK, Bishop of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, Locum tenens of the Bulgarian Diocese...”
Our annual meeting is scheduled for Sunday, January 24, 2010 after Divine Liturgy.
On January 12 and 13 we read from the letter of James (3:1-4:6), who writes about the gift of speech. He describes the power speech can have for good or evil, depending on how we use it. Though the tongue is a very small instrument, he writes, it is a fire, and even a huge forest can be set ablaze by a tiny fire.
James strikingly contrasts the two ways we can use our tongues to speak: "With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine yield figs? No more can salt water yield fresh" (3:9-12).
But it is not only the way we speak that's important. We also need to be sure that the particular words we choose are meaningful, and faithful to the truth. Empty words, meaningless chattering words, are a waste of the gift of speech, and lies of course are violations of the purpose of speech. On the 13th we remember a saint who wrote about the need for meaningful and truthful words. He is Hilary of Poitiers. Here is what he said:
"... that we should always and in all places give thanks, pay our vows, and consecrate our gifts to Thee, O Holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God. Who of old didst choose Thy blessed confessor Hilary for Thyself to be a prelate of sanctified confession, shining brightly with radiance vast, mighty in the meekness of his ways, burning with the fervour of his faith, flowing with the fountain of his speech. For the One in Whom his glory lay, is revealed by the multitudes thronging his sepulcher, the purification of those that hasten to it, the healing of the diseased there, the signs of astonishing miracles…”
Born in Poitiers, France, Hilary had an excellent education which included Greek—unusual for a fourth-century Western European. Married and a father, he was so admired in Poitiers that he was elected bishop in about 353. But only three years later he was banished to Phrygia for several years. This was the result of his arguments against heretical Arian teachings. His writings, and his defense of Saint Athanasius, were so compelling that he is sometimes called the “Athanasius of the West.” But the emperor was not pleased, and allowed Hilary’s enemies to banish him.
Even in exile, Hilary continued to govern his diocese in France. It was during this time that he studied some of the Eastern Fathers’ writings, and deepened his understanding of the Church’s teachings about the Trinity. This enabled him to write about the importance of using the right words, both meaningful and true, to speak about the Three Divine Persons: “For one to attempt to speak of God in terms more precise than He Himself has used—to undertake such a thing is to embark upon the boundless, to dare the incomprehensible. He fixed the names of His nature: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whatever is sought over and above this is beyond the limits of perception, beyond the embrace of understanding.”
Saint Hilary would object to the modern effort to find words other than Father, Son and Holy Spirit to identify the Persons of the Trinity. He would agree with James that words and speech are important, because both have been given to us by God.
(Taken from the Christian Education section of the OCA Web Page: www.oca.org )
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