St. George Orthodox Cathedral
The Orthodox Church in America
Rossford, Ohio

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
Feb 1^st     Fore feast of the Meeting; Martyr Tryphon of Campsada; Ven. Bridget of Ireland
                 1 John 2:18-3:20                                         Mark 11:1-11, 14:10-42
Feb 2^nd     ENTRANCE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST INTO THE TEMPLE
                 Hebrews 7:7-17                                          Luke 2:22-40  
Feb 3^rd     After feast of the Entrance; Holy & Righteous Simeon the God-bearer, and Anna the Prophetess  
                 1 John 3:21-4:6                                           Mark 14:43-15:1
Feb 4^th     After feast of the Entrance; Venerable Isidore of Pleusium
                 1 John 4:20-5:21                                         Mark 15:1-15
Feb 5^th     After feast of the Entrance: Holy Martyr Agatha of Palermo
                 2 John 1:1-13                                              Mark 15:22-25,33-41
Feb 6^th     Memorial Saturday; Meat fare Saturday; After feast of the Entrance
                 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17                              John 5:24-30

Activities/Services this Week:
Rossford/Toledo Book Club: Monday, February 1^st, 10 AM at Dedes home
Vesperal Liturgy: Feast of the Entrance/Lord, Monday, February 1^st, 6:30 PM, at the church
Memorial Liturgy: Saturday, February 6^th, 10 AM, at the church
Great Vespers: Saturday, January February 6^th, 5 PM, at the church
Ensemble Kitka Pot Luck: Saturday, February 6^th, 6 PM, at the church hall
*There will be no Compline this week on Wednesday* 

Happy Birthday this week to: Pando Pappas (Feb 2), Kyle Timofeev (Feb 3); God grant you many years!

The Sanctuary Lamp is burning this week for the health of Jordan Ostas who celebrated her birthday on January 30^th. 

Last Sunday, January 24^th, 45 Adults and 9 Youth attended Divine Liturgy. 

For the month of February, please bring cans of chili in whatever amount you can afford to donate for the All Saints Food Pantry. A collection will be taken up for the food pantry today. If donating by check, make it out to "All Saints Food Pantry." Thanks to all for being so generous. 

The next meeting of the Rossford/Toledo Book Club will be on Monday, February 1^st, 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 February 4^th, at 6:30 PM at Grounds for Thought on Main St. in Bowling Green. We will study Chapter Six and Seven of the same book. Please read the material so we can properly discuss it.

Why do we fast before receiving communion? "The purpose of fasting from midnight before Holy Communion it to heighten our awareness so that from the moment we awaken, the desire to be united with our Lord in Holy Communion should be the uppermost theme in our lives. Nothing if more important than that, including food." Fr. Meletios Webber, taken from Bread & Water & Wine & Oil, p. 73. 

If you plan on receiving communion at the Vesperal Liturgy for the Entrance on Monday, February 1^st, please fast after partaking of your noon meal. 

Greg Kostraba will be performing as part of the trio "Quelque Chose" at Rosary Cathedral, 2535 Collingwood Blvd. in Toledo, on Sunday, February 7th at 3:00 p.m. This free concert includes music by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Charles Koechlin, Sir Lennox Berkeley, Johann Friedrich Nisle, and the story of Ferdinand the Bull. A free will offering to support the Concert Series will be taken. Ample parking is available.

Ensemble Kitka and St. George Bulgarian-Macedonian Dancers Reunion Potluck
Saturday, February 6, 2010, 6 p.m. at the Church Hall;   Last names beginning with:
A - I Bring a Dessert                J - R Bring a Salad                   S - Z Bring a Hot Dish
Please provide your own beverage. Paper products will be provided. For more information, email
Cosmo Timofeev, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Please help the people of Haiti!

• Make an online gift to assist the victims of disasters around the world, like the Haiti Earthquake, by giving to the IOCC International Emergency Response Fund, at www.iocc.org.
• Assemble hygiene kits and emergency clean-up buckets to be shipped to places like Haiti - or wherever disasters strike. For information on hygiene kits, go to www.iocc.org/kits.
• Pray for the people of Haiti and those who have lost loved ones in this disaster and for the safety of those who are working to assist them. See: http://www.iocc.org/prayers

Anticipation and Encounter with the Lord in the Temple
How striking and beautiful an image, the old man holding the child in his arms, and how strange are his words: "For my eyes have seen thy salvation..." Pondering these words we begin to appreciate the depth of this event and its relationship to us, to me, to our faith. Is anything in the world more joyful than an encounter, a meeting with someone you love? Truly, to live is to await, to look forward to the encounter. Isn't Simeon's transcendent and beautiful anticipation a symbol of this? Isn't his long life a symbol of expectation, this elderly man who spends his whole life waiting for the light which illumines all and the joy which fills everything with itself? And how unexpected, how unspeakably good that the long awaited light and joy comes to the elderly Simeon through a child! Imagine the old man's trembling hands as he takes in his arms the forty-day-old infant so tenderly and carefully, his eyes gazing on the tiny being and filling with an outpouring of praise: "Now, You may let me depart in peace for I have seen, I have held in my arms, I have embraced the very meaning of life." Simeon waited. He waited his entire long life, and surely this means he pondered, he prayed, he deepened as he waited so that in the end his whole life was one continuous "eve" of a joyful meeting.

Isn't time that we ask ourselves, what am I waiting for? What does my heart keep reminding me about more and more insistently? Is this life of mine gradually being transformed into anticipation, as I look forward to encountering the essential? These are the questions the Meeting poses. Here, in this feast, human life is revealed as the surpassing beauty of a maturing soul, increasingly liberated, deepened and cleansed of all that is petty, meaningless, and incidental. Even aging and demise, the earthly destiny we all share, are so simply and convincingly shown here to be growth and ascent toward that one moment when with all my heart, in the fullness of thanksgiving, I say: "let me now depart." I have seen the light which permeates the world. I have seen the Child who brings the world so much divine love and who gives himself to me. Nothing is feared, nothing is unknown, all is now peace, thanksgiving, and love. This is what the Meeting of the Lord brings. It celebrates the soul meeting Love, meeting the one who have me life and gave me strength to transfigure it into anticipation.
Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Celebration of Faith: The Church Year Pp. 72-73