St. Elizabeth Orthodox Church Woodstock, GA August 30, 2020 THE ST. ELIZABETH NEWS A Loving Community of Orthodox Christians St. Elizabeth Orthodox Church Reverend Father Matthew Dutko Pastor/Administrator 2265 E. Cherokee Drive Woodstock, GA 30188 Father Deacon Steven Hanes & Father Deacon Andrew Wythe a mission parish of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese Phone: 404-268-6359 Email: [email protected] Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Ruling Hierarch: His Eminence Metropolitan Gregory of Nyssa www.stelizabethga.org 12th Sunday After Pentecost Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Gospel: Matthew 19:16-26 Christ is among us! He is and always shall be! Welcome to St. Christ is Among Us! He is and Always Shall Be! Elizabeth Orthodox Church and thank you for celebrating the Divine Liturgy with us!! What a joy it is to have so many of you back together again in God’s House. Whether or not you are here with us, or in your homes because of the pandemic, remember that the Church is far more than just the building. You are all members of the Body of Christ, you are the Church. If you are here today or far away, your prayers are always necessary! The Divine Liturgy is the work of the people, and that means we need your prayers. Thank you for coming together to pray with your parish family no matter where you are. We pray for the day that things fully return too normal, when all of us can join our voices together in singing the joyous hymns of the Church. Please feel free to ask Fr. Matthew any questions you might have! This Week’s Music… Tropar & Kondak Tone 3- Page 87 Tropar & Kondak For The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist- Page 172 Icon of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist The St. Elizabeth News Christ is Among Us! 1 St. Elizabeth Orthodox Church Woodstock, GA August 30, 2020 The Beginning of the New Church Year- Fr. THADDAEUS HARDENBROOK We’ve completed our annual cycle of remembering, celebrating, and entering into God’s plan for our salvation: the prophecies, His birth, life, death, Church Services Are Open to the resurrection, and Public! Services Will Continue to be ascension, the gift of the Holy Streamed on Facebook Live Spirit at Pentecost, and the sacramental presence of His body, the Weekly Schedule Church. From a human perspective, we can be tempted with frustration at Monday 8/31 6:00 pm- Great Vespers: times when moving from the end of something back to its beginning—doing it over again. Yet in the case of the liturgical Beginning of the Church New Year year, we give thanks to God that we can once again joyfully Wednesday 9/2 6:00 pm- Orthodoxy Class celebrate His benevolence towards us. For in our finite state we need fresh starts, and this is one of them. From the culmination of Friday 9/4 6 pm- Great Vespers for the Feast Pascha, Ascension, Pentecost, and Transfiguration, we move back our Patron Saint Elizabeth to the beginning events, the Nativity of the Mother of God and the Nativity of the Son of God Himself. We start this life-giving cycle Saturday 9/5 Divine Liturgy or the Feast our over again, and the Holy Spirit, to the degree that we participate, Patron Saint Elizabeth further increases in us the sacramental realities that propel our salvation. 4 pm- Great Vespers God, who created and loves us, knows our human frailty and our Sunday 8/30 10 am- Divine Liturgy need for renewal. Marriages have their anniversaries, children their birthdays, the departed their memorials, and the saints their Click Here for the Online Calendar! feasts. These are milestones of progress and sources of motivation for us, seasons of opportunity as we spiral ever upward towards heaven. Notice that the last great feast of the closing year is the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, while the first great feast of the New Year is her Nativity. Christ is the beginning and end of all things Christian. Yet the Theotokos is the chosen passage, the gate through which the incarnate Son entered into the world and opened the way of salvation for all mankind. Therefore her birth and death, that is her entire life, encapsulate the earthly life of Christ, as her womb mysteriously circumscribed Him. The Church celebrates this day by thanking God for the spiritual and material harvests of the past year, beseeching Him for fair weather, seasonable rains, and an abundant harvest of grace and physical well-being in the year to come. This is a good time for each of us to do the same. Take a moment during personal prayers, driving in the car alone, when the kids are napping, or at any other convenient time, and thank God for what the last year offered in both blessings and challenges. Happy New Year! The St. Elizabeth News Christ is Among Us! 2 St. Elizabeth Orthodox Church Woodstock, GA August 30, 2020 A Few Announcements… • We will miss you!- This Sunday will be our last Sunday with Deacon Andy and Davina. We have been blessed to have Deacon Andy and Davina as part of our parish family since their wedding last year and we thank you both for all that you have contributed to your parish family here at Saint Elizabeth’s! May God grant Deacon Andy and Davina health, happiness, wisdom, and strength in their ministry and the good things of Jerusalem all the days of their lives! • Next Sunday we will be honoring the Feast Day of Saint Elizabeth! Hopefully the weather will cooperate with us and we can try again to begin having an outdoor coffee hour! Tents will be set up and the coffee will be ready! God Grant Them Many Years! • Starting on Sunday September 13th we will be holding Church School classes for the children directly following the Divine Liturgy. The class will be held outside under a tent (weather permitting) or inside the Church. • Procession Next Sunday After the Liturgy in Honor of our Patron Saint’s Feast Day! • Updated Coronavirus Prayer List on pages 7-10. • Eternal Memory!- Our heartfelt love and prayers go out to Galina and her family as they mourn the loss of her younger sister Natalie+. Natalie+ has been on our prayer list since she was diagnosed with cancer just a few months ago. Please remember Natalie+, Galina and their family in your prayers! Grant rest O Lord to the soul of Your servant Natalie in the bosom of Abraham, Issac, & Jacob. Forgive her all of her sins both voluntary and involuntary and place her into Your Heavenly Mansions where there is no pain, sorrow, or suffering, but life everlasting. May Her Memory be Eternal! The St. Elizabeth News Christ is Among Us! 3 St. Elizabeth Orthodox Church Woodstock, GA August 30, 2020 Our Patron Saint…Feast Day on September 5th St. Elizabeth is the cousin of Mary, the Birthgiver of God (Luke 1:36). We know that her husband was the prophet Zachariah, and that they were not blessed with children until they were old in age (Luke 1:7). Zachariah and Elizabeth are the parents of St. John the Baptist and Forerunner of the Lord, who began his ministry as the forerunner while still in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:41). At that same time, Elizabeth recognized the coming of the Messiah while Mary was pregnant; that Mary was “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43). Outside of Scripture, Church Tradition tells us more about the life Elizabeth, and her Husband Zachariah. After St. John the Baptist was Born, Zachariah who had previously lost his speech because he did not believe the angelic message he heard about the birth of his son, St. John the Baptist, he regained his speech and returned to the Temple. King Herod was by this point searching for Messiah, who was born just a few months after the birth of St. John. Herod’s soldiers questioned Zachariah in the temple and when he refused to answer him, they murdered him where he stood. Following her husband’s brutal and untimely passing, Elizabeth took her young son into the wilderness to hide from Herod’s reach. Elizabeth prayed before a mountain side for protection and a cave opened up before her eyes. A stream appeared along with a fruit tree to provide for Elizabeth and her son. Forty days later Elizabeth joined Zachariah and fell asleep in the Lord. An Angel cared for John until he grew up and began his ministry. We know all this from the Scriptures and Holy Tradition, and to most this would be more than enough to see St. Elizabeth as both holy and righteous. But is this the only reason we love her? The only reason we look up to her. Of course not! St. Elizabeth and her saintly life is an example to all of us. St. Elizabeth was an old woman by the time she got pregnant with St. John (Luke 1:5- 25). In the ancient Jewish tradition, the people blamed the sinfulness of the couple for a lack of children. We of course know that this is not the way God interacts with his children. Nonetheless, this means the Elizabeth and Zachariah often suffered from the gossip of their community. In quiet corners people whispered about how they must be sinful people. But God had great plans for them. St. Zachariah and St. Elizabeth were to be honored as the parents of the forerunner of the Lord, the greatest man born of woman according to our Lord.