AUGUST 1, 2021 BULLETIN – 6TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST & 6TH SUNDAY OF MATTHEW THE OF THE LIFE GIVING CROSS

[email protected]  (831) 336-2228  P.O. Box 458, Ben Lomond, CA 95005 Deadline for Bulletin Submissions – 10:00 am Wednesday  website: https://ssppaoc.org/

This Week @ Ss. Peter & Paul –August 1-6, 2021 Many Years – Birthday 8/2 Mon 6:00 pm - Paraklesis John Ivancovich August 3 8/3 Tues 6:00 am – Readers Orthros George and Kriss Saad August 4 8/4 Wed 6:00 pm – Paraklesis Leanne Albers August 5 8/5 Thurs 6:00 am – Men’s Reading Group Dn. Anthony Livingston August 5 Barbara Schmidt August 7 6:00 pm- Vesperal for the Transfiguration followed by a fasting potluck & EXIT INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CHURCH 8/6 Fri 6:00 pm - Paraklesis Now that work on the Narthex has 8/7 Sat 8:00 am - Men’s Fasting Breakfast begun, please remember to enter the 9:00 am- Narthex Demolition Workday church by the north side door (choir 6:00 pm – Great Vespers & Compline side) and exit by the south side door followed by a fasting summer BBQ (larger parking lot side). 8/8 Sun 8:20 am – Orthros 9:30 am – Divine Liturgy – 7th NARTHEX Sunday after Pentecost & After-feast of the Transfiguration of DEMOLITION

Christ Saturday, August 7 – 9:00 am to No Church School 1:00 pm after the Men’s Breakfast. Lunch will be provided

Looking ahead— August 9 Paraklesis August 11 Paraklesis August 13 Paraklesis COMMUNITY DINNER August 15 Dormition of the August 18 Parish Council TODAY August 22 Community Dinner at 2:00 pm Youth Group Donations of non-perishable food items and THANK YOU! helpers to make and distribute the dinner needed. Please leave food items in the parish Thank you to all the helpers who had the hall kitchen/industrial refrigerator marked for fulfilling job of helping take apart the Community Dinner. Contact Kriss Saad to Narthex! It is so nice to see all the volunteer at (831) 419-2677. planning paying off and being able to move forward with the beautification of our Church! Glory to God for All Things!

of all women in history was chosen not only DORMITION FAST (August 1-14) to hear His Word but give birth to it (Him). Fasting is intended to bring us to the So while we fast in contemplation of her life, realization of “the one thing needful.” It is to we are simultaneously preparing ourselves help us put God first and our own desires to live a life in imitation of her. That is the second, if not last. As such it serves to purpose of the Dormition Fast. prepare us to be instruments of God’s will, When the assumption of thine undefiled as with Moses in his flight from Egypt and on body was being prepared, the Apostles Mt. Sinai, as well as our Lord’s fast in the gazed on thy bed, viewing thee with wilderness. Fasting turns us away form trembling. Some contemplated thy body ourselves and toward God. In essence it and were dazzled, but Peter cried out to helps us become like the Theotokos, an thee in tears, saying, “I see thee clearly, O obedient servant of God, who heard His Virgin, stretched out, O life of all, and I am word and kept it better than anyone else has astonished. O thou undefiled one, in whom or could. the bliss of future life dwelt, beseech thy So why do we fast before Dormition? In a Son and God to preserve thy people close-knit family, word that its matriarch is unimpaired.” on her deathbed brings normal life to a halt. after the Gospel, Orthros

Otherwise important things (parties, TV, (Taken from The Word magazine, June 2008) luxuries, personal desires) become unimportant; life comes to revolve around the dying matriarch. It is the same with the Orthodox family; word that our matriarch is SAVE THE DATE on her deathbed, could not (or at least should not) have any different effect than the Cicily Oakes and Randall Nacamuli are one just mentioned. The Church, through getting married October 16 and would the Paraklesis Service, gives us the like you all to save the date! opportunity to come to that deathbed and = eulogize and entreat the woman who bore God, the vessel of our salvation and our chief advocate at His divine throne. And as, All of our loved ones in the earthly family, daily routines and the in personal wants should come to a halt. Fasting, in its full sense (abstaining from food and desires) accomplishes this. Less time in leisure or other pursuits leave more time for prayer and reflection on she who gave us Christ, and became the first and greatest Christian. In reflecting on her and her incomparable life, we see a model Christian life, embodying Christ’s retort to the woman who stated that Mary was blessed because she bore Him: blessed rather are those who hear His word and keep it. Mary did this better than anyone. As Fr. Thomas Hopko has stated, she heard the word of God and kept it so well, that she