Preparing for Christmas ~ Embracing the Orthodox Way

Dear Parish Faithful,

As mentioned last Friday, the Nativity Fast will begin tomorrow, November 15. Commit yourselves individually and as a family to embrace the “Orthodox Way” of preparing for Christmas. The “world” has really little to offer or add to our understanding of Christ’s nativity in the flesh. Rather, it’s the same old tired package of distractions that leave you “hungering and thirsting” for the very thing you may have neglected in frantically and frenetically trying to have a “merry Christmas.” We are again presented with a gift of forty days than can “profit our souls.” Fast now to feast then, rather than feast now to fizzle out then. Let your church calendar guide you into the Scripture readings, saintly commemorations and fasting discipline that lead us to the Winter Pascha of spiritual renewal.

Fr Steven