I appreciate the feedback but if you would please leave the feedback on the show website at www.shepherdofsouls.com that would be great. Thanks!
Last night was Vince Gill & Amy Grant with a concert of Christmas music. What a fantastic evening it was and really put me in the Christmas spirit. There was some question as to weather the concert would happen or not because of the ice storm we had overnight but all was well. The place was not filled and I am wondering if they just did not sell the tickets or if people just stayed home for fear of ice and the cold.
Anyway thanks to WESO for the tickets it was a great night.
Just a couple of photos from around the area yesterday from the pages of the Worcester Telegram.
Episode 2 is now online.
After the live program I will return here to the rectory and record my show Shepherd of Souls. This week I have an interview with Fr. Nicholas Apostola on the Orthodox View of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I will not give anymore details so you will have to listen.
This week has been a busy one and I am fighting a cold again so prayers would be appreciated.
Last Saturday night I met a group of 20 somethings at a local watering hole for another round of Theology on Tap. This was a great night of meeting with a different age group in their own surroundings. We need to do more of this and take the Gospel to where they are and meet them where they are. We had a great discussion and after I process more of my thoughts I will write something more about it.
Sunday was the celebration of the Feast of St. Nicholas at our Sister parish here in Southbridge. I have written about the situation here in Southbridge before. We are a town of about 12,000 people and have three Orthodox Churches in this little town. Well we hope to rectify this starting very soon. We have agreed to meet to begin a discussion about merging two of the three parishes. please pray for us as we continue this very important work.
Tonight I continue my adult religious education program on the theme of Orthodox Spirituality. If you are a listener to Shepherd of Souls in iTunes you got the extra episode this week with my lecture. I plan to do the same this week so stay tuned. If you do not subscribe please take a moment to go on over to iTunes and search for the show.
Well it is that time of year when The Pious Sodality of Church Ladies chooses your patron saint for the year 2009. Mine is listed below. If you wish to have your own patron for the year go on over to the site and leave a comment. Remember to check back to get your saint.Pray for deacons
The proposal was acceptable to the whole community, so they chose Stephen, a man filled with faith and the holy Spirit, also Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch, a convert to Judaism. [Acts 6, 5]
Apolytikion in the Third Tone
O Holy Apostle Philip, intercede with the merciful God that He grant unto our souls forgiveness of offences.
Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
Since thou wast enlightened by the Holy Spirit, thou enlightenest the earth and all its fullness with the beams of thy wise teachings and miracles, Apostle Philip, thou sacred initiate.
His Holiness Patriarch Alexiy II, a conservative who led a revival of Russia’s Orthodox Church and opposed Catholic missionary activities in Russia and Ukraine, died on Friday, a church spokesman said. He was 79.
A spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church said Alexiy, who headed the powerful church for 18 years, died at his residence in Peredelkino outside Moscow.
The Church never commented on Alexiy’s health and did not immediately disclose a cause of death. But diplomats in Moscow had said he was suffering from cancer.
In a sign of his importance, Russian state television immediately ran a film showing highlights from Alexiy’s life, accompanied by the sound of tolling church bells.
“This is an irreplaceable loss for all Russian Orthodox people, wherever they live,” said Sergei Mironov, speaker of the upper house of parliament.
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia since 1990, the Estonian-born Alexiy was a powerful and influential figure with close links to the Kremlin.
He oversaw a major religious revival in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with hundreds of new churches built across the country, monasteries reopened and seminaries filling with new priests.
Russia’s Orthodox Church is by far the biggest of the churches in the Eastern Orthodox communion and is the majority religion in Russia.
During his 2000-2008 presidency, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy under communism, was often seen with Alexiy attending major religious ceremonies and President Dmitry Medvedev has continued the tradition.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said he was “so shocked that it is very hard for me to find words on the spot”, Interfax news agency reported. “I respected him deeply”.
Medvedev, who was on an official visit to India, was expected to make a statement shortly.
Deeply conservative
An unapolegetic conservative, Alexiy was outspoken in his defence of traditional Russian values and was critical of the Catholic church for what he said was its efforts to win converts among Russian Orthodox believers.
He stood in the way of a visit to Russia by the Polish-born leader of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II.
Both churches said they were open in principle to an historic meeting between the Russian Patriarch and Pope Benedict, who was elected in 2005. But despite several rounds of dialogue between bishops from both churches, Alexiy felt the obstacles were too great.
“Problems remain on the agenda for our bilateral relations with the Roman Catholic Church which demand real solutions,” Alexiy said in a speech in June to the Council of Bishops.
“Among them is the question of missionary activity of Catholics in traditionally Orthodox Russian lands”.
In a first reaction from the Catholic Church to Alexiy’s death, Bishop Brian Farrel, secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, said:
“Patriarch Alexiy had to lead the Church in a period of great transformation. He knew how to carry out this task with a great sense of responsibility and love for Russian tradition.”
We could not get the live stream to work but we are going to try again maybe next week so stay tuned for that. If you are interested, I recorded this weeks show and I will put a link at the end of this post. The show is an hour long so plan for it. Thanks for listening.
First off I am not against Christmas decorations I am against rushing the season! For those in the western world the season of advent runs from the Sunday after Thanksgiving until the 24th of December. Then the Christmas season begins and runs until the 6th of January. Okay with that said it is fine if you wish to decorate and put all your Christmas decorations out just don’t forget what the advent season is all about. It is about preparing.
In the Orthodox Church this is called Christmas Lent and is a time set aside, just like Great Lent before Easter, as a penitential season. Notice the vestment color changes to red, and in the western church the priest wears purple. This is a time for remembering and preparing for the birth of the Christ Child. Yes in our modern western consumer driven world we need to start celebrating the season right after Halloween so we can buy all the junk that three months after Christmas we have broken, forgotten about, or thrown away, or my favorite re-gifted!
So That’s all I was saying. Don’t loose advent in the rush of Christmas! Don’t forget the preparation before the feast. Slow down and just be for a time and think about what is to come. Not the parties and all of the other holiday hoopla just meditate on what the season in all about. JESUS!
Now before you start with the hateful comments and misunderstanding me, some of this is tongue and cheek so take a step back and relax!
