Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
1-13-16
One more time I would like to express my thankfulness to all of you who participated in
the great event of the Blessing of the Waters at Rio Del Mar State Beach last Saturday.
The event was marvelous and the weather was nice. The ocean was quiet (regardless of
El Nino :)) with lots of faithful people, eight clergymen, tasty food and inspirational
atmosphere during lunch. So many people came to our church and remained for lunch
after the service. Everyone enjoyed our community and hospitality.
Glory be to God! We have a busy schedule, just finished with blessing of the waters and
our next event is coming. On February 5th, we have a concert at our church performed by
our guests from Saint- Petersburg.
As you know, we do have other services, not only on Sunday. Almost every Friday we
have Paraklesis. On Saturdays we have Vespers. Both services start at 5:00 pm. We have
Divine Liturgies during the weekdays. Next one is on Monday, the 18th, for the feast of
St. Athanasios and Cyril of Alexandria. The Orthros begins at 9:00 AM and Divine
Liturgy at 10:00 AM. I have started blessing your homes, and it is a great joy for a priest
to bless the home of his parishioners, to see you in a different atmosphere and to hear
from you ideas and suggestions for the further growth of our great community.
We have an active youth group that is growing in numbers. Also, we have plans to reopen
our Sunday school and organize a Brotherhood that will help us to take care of our
church. One of the first actions will be to clean and reorganize our bookstore. Soon you
will receive an email about this project.
But the most important thing is that we have a living community participating in the
sacramental life of the church. Last Sunday, our church was full of faithful people. Glory
be to God! We see more people in our church for Divine Liturgies. A few weeks ago we
had fifteen people for the Vespers Service. Glory be to God!
As we can see, God blesses our community and embraces us with numerous blessings,
strength, love, unity, strong faith and enthusiasm to continue our ministries, but again, we
can only continue to do all of these great things if we have our source, our roots in the
Divine Liturgy, in the Holy Mysteries, and Life of Prayer. This is what makes us
Orthodox Christians, and all other aspects of our life reflects this core.
Do not forget that this coming Sunday we will cut a Vasilopita. What a great
tradition to begin the New Year with a prayer, with asking for God's mercy and
blessings to have a successful and blessed year in front of us. Please come and
participate in this blessed tradition. Please come and find a coin as the sign of joy,
happiness, and prosperity. Let us not miss our chance to get the coin and enjoy the
taste of the Vasilopita.
Come and bring your children, your friends, your neighbors, your loved ones to
show them how we cut a Vasilopita, and how we pray to God for His mercy on all of
us. Come, do not miss your chance to get a coin.
Come and see how our community breathes and lives sharing the love of Christ. Be
a living part of the Body of Christ, a living steward of the Church.
DO NOT MISS THE CHANCE TO GET THE COIN FROM A VASILOPITA
AND HAVE A FULL YEAR OF BLESSINGS AND PROSPERITY WITNESSING
CHRIST IN EVERY DAY LIFE.
With love in Christ,
Fr. Milutin