Yesterday I gave the GPS system a work out and set my sites on Pittsfield, Massachusetts. This city is located 30 miles east of Albany New York. I set the little device to take me on the back roads and that it did. I think it took me more than two hours to get there, but I took the highway back and it was only an hour. Nice ride and a beautiful day. There is a little OCA parish there in the town St. Nicholas. Looks like a nice place. Might have to visit again.
Sunday Thoughts
This past Sunday we had a pretty good crowd in the church, and some of the regulars were in attendance. Usually people go away for the weekend but most people seemed to be around. It was good to see some people back from their summer off from church.
This week the theme was giving up. I should say that the Gospel verse for this Sunday, Riches and the Kingdom is often miss understood. In the story, Jesus tells the man to go and sell all that you have, give to the poor, and follow me. I don’t believe that Jesus is asking each of us to do this. I believe that Jesus is telling us not to love our possessions more than we love life, or more than we love God. Possessions are okay as long as they do not rule our life. For the man in the story it would seem that he loved his possessions more than God. We should be careful not to amass more than we need, and we also need to remember the poor. If any of you have a big plasma TV that you feel you need to divest yourself of let me know, it would look great in my TV room.
Red Sox
So it would seem that the Red Sox season is over. We are like 1,000 games behind the Yankees and now we begin to look forward to football season. It just was not in cards, so to speak, for the Sox to win this year. Many injuries and other things and now it is all over. Still a few more games to play, but just for fun now. I did look last night to see what tickets were selling for. The only seats available for the game tonight at Fenway were selling for $85.00 Man I can remember when it was like $20 and that was expensive. Oh well, it’s now a rich mans game. Of course we can only get the games on NESN so you have to have cable to watch them on TV. I guess you can always listen to them on the radio.
St. Giles
Today is the anniversary of the death of St. Giles patron saint of Edinburgh and Elgin in Scotland. More information can be found at the catholic encyclopedia site.
In short, this saint was born on Athens and moved to France. He established a monastery and set about to serve to beggars and down trodden in the area. Nice guy I think and maybe we all can learn something from his life.
Forgiveness
Yesterday the Gospel passage was about forgiveness. This is a hard lesson for people to learn. As Christians we have to forgive those who have harmed us. Some of us tend to carry a grudge around with us for years and we are never able to let go. Sometimes the harm is so devastating that we can not give it up. However, if we do not give this up, it harms us in a spiritual way. Spiritual sickness will sink in and we find ourselves being very negative towards many things. We all need to find away to forgive. In the Lord’s Prayer we as to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So it would seem that we are forgiven in the measure that we forgive. This was the theme of the Gospel passages yesterday. Pray for those who have harmed us, and pray that we are able to find the grace to be able to forgive.
Fruit Flies
Okay, I give up. Where do fruit flies come from? I had a banana on my counter and came home today and say fruit flies. How do they get in the house? Maybe they come from the planet Pluto, oh yea, we can’t call it a planet anymore…
Fire heavily damages Russian cathedral
This is sad to see!
Fire heavily damages Russian cathedral
By Irina Titova, Associated Press Writer August 25, 2006
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia –A fire raged through a 19th century cathedral in this former imperial capital Friday, collapsing the main rooftop dome and sending clerics scurrying to save treasured icons.
The fire erupted in the early evening and burned through scaffolding outside the soaring blue central dome of Trinity Cathedral, a duty officer at the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said.
The central dome collapsed and one of four smaller cupolas surrounding it — painted a striking light blue and in some cases spangled with gold stars — was also destroyed, St. Petersburg emergency department spokeswoman Lyudmila Rubasova said. There were no reports of injuries, she said.
Firefighters battled to save the other three cupolas as emergency workers and church employees removed icons and other religious articles. A helicopter brought in to fight the blaze dumped water on the historic structure.
About four hours after the blaze broke out, Rubasova said one of the three remaining cupolas had been damaged but that the fire was contained. A department spokesman later said the fire had been extinguished.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but acting St. Petersburg emergency department chief Leonid Belyayev said the blaze apparently started on scaffolding on the outside of the church, which was undergoing restoration.
He said the most valuable icons and other items had been saved, and that structural damage beneath the roof area was minor.
The cathedral was consecrated in 1835. State-run Rossiya television said the main dome was the second-largest wooden cupola in Europe, and Channel One said that writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky was married there.
It was used as a storehouse during the Soviet era and was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1990.
New Project
Today one of my guys and I drove to New Hampshire and picked up my new travel trailer. Well, it is not new. She is a 1977 Nomad Travel Trailer. So we took it back to the church property and I started working on it. She was a little dirty on the outside. A little Mr. Clean and a scrub brush and she cleaned right up. A little floor work and some wall paper replacement and she will be as good as new. Look for some pictures soon.
Sunday Sermon
Not that I think I am this great preacher, but I thought I would post some of my Sunday sermons here. In the past I written out the text and preached from that. Yesterday however, I took the chance and preached from the hip! I did have a text all worked out but while I was getting ready for liturgy the Holy Spirit put a new idea in my head. It actually began Saturday night when I flipped on Turner Classic Movie Network and my all time favorite move was on The Nun’s Story. Okay before you start to ridicule me, have you seen the movie?
Anyway it struck me that the movie is all about motivation. What motivates us to do what we do. Sister Luke, Audrey Hepburns character in the movie was not motivated to be a nun, but to be a nurse in the Congo. Not a bad motivation but she needed to be a nun first. Okay so where am I going with this… I don’t know.
So I took that into church with me and talked about our motivation for doing the things we do. When we give to the church, what is the motivation? When we come to church what is the motivation? All sin begins with the motivation.
I just finished teaching an ethics class and all ethics boils down to the motivation for doing something. If our motivation is pure than more than likely our ethics will be pure. Same thing in the church. If our motivation is pure than we cannot go wrong.
Okay this needs more work, but it is a place to start…