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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 18th Ss. Athanasius the Great, and Cyril, Archbishops of Alexandria
1 Peter 2:21-3:9 Mark 12:13-17
Jan 19th Venerable Macarius the Great of Egypt; St. Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus
1 Peter 3:10-22 Mark 12:18-27
Jan 20th Venerable Euthymius the Great; Martyrs Innas, Pinnas & Rimmas
1 Peter 4:1-11 Mark 12:28-37
Jan 21st Venerable Maximus the Confessor; Martyr Neophytus of Nicea
1 Peter 4:12-5:5 Mark 12:38-44
Jan 22nd Apostle Timothy of the 70; Monk Martyr Anastasius the Persian
2 Peter 1:1-10 Mark 13:1-8
Jan 23rd Hieromartyr Clement, Bishop of Ancyra & Martyr Agathangelus
2 Timothy 2:11-19 Luke 18:2-8
Activities/Services this Week:
Bowling Green Book Club: Thursday, January 21st, 6:30 PM at Grounds for Thought
Great Vespers: Saturday, January 23rd 5 PM, at the church
*There will be no Compline this week on Wednesday*
Happy Birthday this week to: Mike Olmstead (Jan 23); God grant you many years!
The Sanctuary Lamp is burning this week for the health of George Popoff. There is an opening for January 31st.
Last Sunday, January 10th, 37 Adults and 11 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.
Our annual meeting is scheduled for Sunday, January 24, 2010 after Divine Liturgy.
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.
BALTIMORE, MD [IOCC/OCA] -- International Orthodox Christian Charities [IOCC] is responding to the most devastating earthquake to hit the island nation of Haiti in 200 years on January 12, 2010.
Authorities have not put an estimate of how many were killed by yesterday's magnitude 7.0 earthquake, but thousands are feared dead. People are still trapped in destroyed buildings and leveled shantytowns and there is growing concern about the lack of sanitation, water and electricity.
IOCC has mobilized its disaster response team and is coordinating with its Orthodox and ecumenical partners to monitor and respond to the emerging needs in Haiti.
"Our prayers are with the people of Haiti who have lost loved ones in this disaster that has brought even more suffering to one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere," said IOCC executive director and CEO, Constantine M. Triantafilou. "IOCC will be working with our fellow ACT Alliance members who are already in place to provide humanitarian aid to those affected by the earthquake."
Orthodox Christian faithful can help the victims of disasters around the world, like the Haiti Earthquake, by making a financial gift to the IOCC International Emergency Response Fund, which will provide immediate relief as well as long-term support through the provision of emergency aid, recovery assistance and other support to help those in need. To make a gift, visit www.iocc.org, call toll free at 877-803-IOCC [4622], or mail a check or money order payable to IOCC, PO Box 630225, Baltimore, MD 21263-0225.
Parish and faithful also are encouraged to assemble hygiene kits and emergency clean up buckets to be shipped to Haiti. For information on hygiene kits, log on to www.iocc.org/kidspage/healthkit_frameset.aspx. For information on emergency clean up buckets, visit www.iocc.org/kidspage/bucket_frameset.aspx.
"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when His glory is revealed."
Peter here reminds us that if we are to share life forever with Christ, we must expect that first we will be tested in this world that rejects Him. Peter goes on, "If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you." On this Thursday we remember two Christians who lived centuries later than Peter, and who underwent their own "fiery ordeals" and tests of faith. (Go to back cover)
The first, Saint Agnes, was a Roman maiden born to a Christian family in the late third century, when the Christian-hating Diocletian reigned as emperor. Agnes refused to marry a pagan and give up her faith, and so at a very young age she was brutally tortured and finally died. Her story is similar to those of other female martyrs.
Maximus the Confessor, who lived in seventh-century Constantinople, had a brief career in public service, and then chose to enter a monastery. Political upheaval forced him to flee to Carthage, where he became embroiled in a controversy about the divine and human wills of Jesus Christ. He insisted that Christ had two wills, and not just His divine will, as some were asserting. Without a human will, Maximus said, Christ could not be truly human.
In the year 658, Maximus' position endangered him. The Patriarch of Constantinople accepted the one-will teaching, and the Emperor had been persuaded to do the same. Maximus was exiled as a heretic. Four years later his tongue was cut out and his hand was cut off so that he could no longer speak or write his "false" teachings. He died a few years later.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council, convened in 680, declared that Christ being perfect God and perfect Man did have both a divine will and a human will. All charges against Maximus were posthumously dropped. He would become a saint of both the Eastern and Western Churches.
To be misunderstood, as Maximus was, is a painful human experience that many of us may share, though not at so great a price as the one he paid. Or we may find ourselves in a hostile environment, as Agnes did, though it may not take our life as it took hers. We will have our own ordeals, and they'll seem fiery enough. It will be hard, when we are going through them, to believe that one day we will "shout for joy." Perhaps it was hard for Agnes and Maximus too, but now they stand ready to shout with us when the great day comes.
(Taken from the Christian Education section of the OCA Web Page: www.oca.org )
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