May 4, 2014,

Your Nativity, O Christ our God, has shone to the world the Light of wisdom! For by it, those who worshipped the stars, were taught by a star to adore You, the Sun of Righteousness, and to know You, the

Orient from on High. O Lord, glory to You!

Holy Nativity of the Lord

Christ is Risen!! www.OrthodoxChristians.org

Greetings on this the Feast Day of Righteous Job the Long-suffering! The Orthodox Church reads the book of Job, the first of the seven wisdom books of the Old Testament, during Holy Week, drawing a parallel between Job and Christ as righteous men who suffered through no fault of their own. God allowed Satan to afflict Job so that his faithfulness would be proven. Christ, the only sinless one, suffered voluntarily for our sins. The Septuagint text of Job 42:17 says that Job “will rise again with those whom the Lord raises up.” This passage is read on Great and Holy Friday, when the composite Gospel at Vespers speaks of the tombs being opened at the moment the Savior died on the Cross, and the bodies of the saints were raised, and they appeared to many after Christ’s Resurrection (Mt.27:52). Job lost his children, his wealth, his glory, and every consolation all at once. His entire body became a terrible wound covered with boils. Yet he remained steadfast and patient in the face of his misfortune for seven years, always giving thanks to God. May we also be found faithful when our plans do not work out the way we expected or wanted and our wills have to conform to that of God…the One who loves us and is with us in the midst of our sufferings. With pastoral blessings, fr Jason

By Your divine intercession, O Lord, as

You raised up the paralytic of old, so raise up my soul, paralyzed by sins

and thoughtless acts; so that being saved I may sing to You: “Glory to

Your power, O compassionate Christ!”

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Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Fast Day

No Service

Please keep Fr. Jason in

your prayers

Fast Day Vespers at St.

Nicholas

Mother’s Day

Divine Liturgy at

St. Nicholas

Weekly Service Schedule

Birthday, Anniversaries & Name Days: Laura Taylor May 6th

Please Keep in Your Prayers:

Sick & Suffering: Faud Hamdan, Jenny Booras, Nick, Alan, Ettie, Horne Family, Met Paul, Mar Gregorius, those suffering in Egypt, Crimea & the Ukraine.

Catechumens: Travis, Jennifer, Jack, Jane, and Murray Henley, Kevin & Mara Alexander, Dane, Elizabeth, Aubré, and Jude Shillings

Expecting/ New Mothers: Reneé Collins

Newly Departed: Metropolitan Philip, Fr. Alexander, Sofia

(If anyone is left off the list please let Fr. Jason know!)

Service A reminder to those who have serve Holy

Nativity this week. Your service is greatly appreicated!

There wil l not be a Wednesday night meal or Coffee Hour this week.

Ascetic Lives of Mothers

Annalisa Boyd on how mother or not, every woman has a calling to embrace the life Christ has called us to. Read

more:

http://www.pravmir.com/ascetic-lives-mothers/

Sunday of the Paralytic

On this, the fourth Sunday of Pascha, we make commemoration of the Paralytic and, as is meet, we celebrate the miracle wrought for him. The word of Christ was strength for the paralytic; ���And thus this word alone was his healing. Jesus healed the Paralytic at the Sheep’s Pool, located near the Sheep’s Gate of Jerusalem, where people sacrificed their beasts and washed their insides. The pool had five sides, with a porch and arch on each. A number of people, afflicted with various diseases, passed through them, waiting at the water for an angel to come down and stir it. Once it moved, whoever stepped into the water first was instantly healed. One poor man, whose story is recounted in today’s Gospel lection in the Divine Liturgy, waited 38 years for someone to lower him into the water, because he was unable to move into the water himself. However, the Savior merely commanded the man to get up and walk, and he was healed.

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Choir Notes

No Choir Practice this week.

St. Emilia’s Society

May 15th Movie & Dinner

We will be meeting at Chili’s at 5:00 on Youree Dr.

Movie, “Moms’ Night out”, starts at 7:15, Tinsel Town!

The Beautiful Christian Disposition to Life As long as you are on earth, consider yourself a guest in the household of Christ. If you are at table, it is He who honors you. If you breathe air, it is His air you breathe. If you bathe, it is in His water you bathe. If you travel, it is over His land that you travel. If you amass goods, it is His goods you amass. If you squander them, it is His good that you squander. If you are powerful, it is because He allows you to be strong. If you are in the company of men, you and the others are His guests. If you are out in nature, you are in His garden. If you are alone, He is present. If you set out somewhere, He sees you. If you do anything, He remembers it. He is the most considerate Householder Who ever hosted you. Be considerate then toward Him. In a good household, the guest is required to behave. These are all simple words, but they convey to you a great truth. All the saints knew this truth, and they governed their lives by it. That is why the Eternal Householder rewarded them with eternal life in heaven and with glory on earth.

St. Nicolai of Ochrid and Zica, The Prologue

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For the kids… The Legend of the Cross follows the journey of

the tree that would become the Cross of Christ. From the Garden of Eden to Golgotha. Grown

from seeds gifted from the heavens, a magnificent tree participates in ancient history

before becoming the crowning symbol of Christianity.

You can buy

The Legend of the Cross on Amazon.com

Baby Shower! For: Reneé Collins

When: May 18th, 2:00

Where: Angela Cory’s House

260 Harders Crossing Blvd.

Reneé is registered online at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/registry/baby/N2S0S47WGA4F

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“There once lived a most devout priest; (this incident was narrated to me by the blessed departed Gerontas (Spiritual Elder) Gabriel, who for a great period of time was the Abbott at the Holy Monastery of Dionysios on Mount Athos). Even though he barely knew how to read and write, he was a priest, a clergyman of strong faith, great virtue and of many spiritual struggles. He used to stand up-right for hours during the Proskomedia, despite the fact that the veins of his feet had been affected and were hemorrhaging. There were times when one could see the blood running down since he was standing up-right commemorating the names of numerous people. He was a man of sacrifice to his last breath; in fact, his soul departed just after the Divine Liturgy. As he barely knew how to read and write, by some misundertsanding he did not place the portions on the Holy Diskos properly. When we place the portion of the All-Holy (Panagia) Theotokos on top of the Holy Diskos, we say: “The queen stood at thy right hand…” The gerontas priest was under the impression that, since he said “at thy right hand”, the portion of the All-Holy (Panagia) Mother of God must be placed on the right side of the Lamb (as he was looking at the Holy Diskos); in other words, he was placing the portions backwards. Once a hierarch visited the Holy Monastery for the ordination of a deacon. During the Pslams of Praise when the hierarch enters the Holy Altar, he vests, then later goes to the Proskomedia, which has already been prepared up to a certain point, from then

on he alone, is the first one to continue commemorating. Thus, the archpriest noticed that the portions had been placed backwards by the priest. -You did not place the pieces properly, father, he told him. Father, come here for a minute. The All-Holy (Panagia) Theotokos is placed over here and the Orders are placed over there. Hasn’t anyone told you, hasn’t anyone seen how you do the Proskomedia? -Certainly, Your Emminence replied the geronta Priest. Every day, when I celebrate (for a day did not go by unless he celebrated the Divine Liturgy), the Angel who serves me sees what I am doing but does not tell me anything at all. I apologize, illiterate as I am, for making such a mistake; I will be careful from now on. -Who did you say? Who did you say serves you here? Asked the bishop. Isn’t he a monk who serves you? -No, answered the priest, an Angel of the Lord.The bishop fell silent, what

could he have said, anyway?! He was

astonished and certainly realized that a holy priest was standing before him.

At noon, following the meal in the Trapeza (refectory of a monastery or parish community), the bishop said goodbye to the Abbott as well as the rest of the monks, and departed. The following day, as it was still night, when the geronta Priest went to the Holy Altar in order to hold the Proskomedia the Angel of the Lord came down. During the act of breaking the Lamb, the Angel noticed that the priest had placed the portions properly. -Fine, he told him, father! Now you have placed them properly! -Yes, you knew the mistake I used to make for so many years! And why didn’t you tell me anything, why didn’t you correct me? He asked. -I could see it, but I do not have the right to tell you anything. I am not worthy to correct a priest. God, the Angel continued, commands me to serve the priest. Only the bishop has the right to correct you!”

from Fr. Anagnostopoulos’ Experiences During the Divine

Liturgy

The Story of a Pious Priest and the Angel Who Served with Him in the Altar

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DATE: July 8-11 Set up July 7th

Volunteers Needed!

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We Have Complete Freedom – and That’s the Challenge

The Saints repeatedly tell us that each of us has complete freedom in our choices to respond to God, or to reject Him. It is strange then, that in our modern day, we have become almost enslaved to the idea that we can do very little about the condition of our life, or the condition of our soul. Psychologists speak of something called “learned helplessness”, a condition in which a person feels almost paralyzed in their capacity to think or act for themselves. In many ways, our world is afflicted with a kind of spiritual learned helplessness – we are trapped in the assumption that we simply “are what we are”, and that our habits or patterns of life can’t be changed. Some even go so far as to blasphemously say that our sinful condition (in whatever form it takes) is “the way God made me”, completely forgetting that the Likeness of God in which we were made was completely lost when mankind fell away from communion with God. St. Dorotheos of Gaza tells us that even the grace of God which we receive through the Holy Mysteries is something which we receive voluntarily, and that “nothing is offered in the Church… Without the agreement and personal struggle of the believer.” What a loss of God’s grace it is when we simply refuse to struggle to push aside our own selfish ego to make way for the work of the Holy Spirit! Where God offers us everything we could ask or imagine, are we not required to at least make some small effort to receive Christ, and to be changed by Him? St. Dorotheos further tells us that there are really only two states in which we can find ourselves: one is laying down on the spiritual battlefield of life, defeated, while the other is struggling to achieve the victory, even when it appears that we are complete failures. Elder Paisios tells us that there is a name for those who are struggling to lead a faithful life – Christ calls them, “the righteous”. It might amaze us that it would be possible to be seen in this life as “righteous” in the eyes of God – yet it is quite possible. To be a righteous Christian person is not beyond the strength of any one of us, if we are willing to use our freedom, to crush our own egotism, to turn away from our rebellion against God, and to drag ourselves up from defeat each time we fall. All it requires is that we try. And perhaps that is the reason so many souls give up on it. - Priest Geoffrey Korz

Holy Nativity of the Lord Mission Rev. Fr. Jason Foster, Pastor Visit or contact us at: 5940 Barksdale Blvd, Bossier City (Barksdale Federal Credit Union) Email: frjasonfoster@gmail.com,318-455-4219

Book Club! Wounded by Love

The Life and the Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios

*Elder Porphyrios was declared a Saint by the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on November 27th 2013.

“Love Christ and put nothing before His Love. He is joy, He is life, He is light. Christ is Everything. He is the ultimate desire, He is everything. Everything beautiful is in Christ.” - Saint Porphyrios

Please let Pres. Ashley know if you will be participating.