Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves the parent loves the child.

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. [1 John 5]

 

The Responsibility of Love

Metropolitan  Ieronymos of  Larisa and Tyrnavos

We were in debt to such an extent that nothing could act as a counter-weight to our sinful apostasy or give us any hope of salvation. And yet the Creator didn’t become enraged with His creation. If creators- painters, poets, artists, composers, sculptors or writers- don’t like what they’ve created, when it doesn’t meet their expectations, when it’s failed, they have the right to destroy it and start something else. God didn’t do this, though, when His creation didn’t meet His expectations and when it rose up and made war against Him. He sent His Only-Begotten Son and Word, so that, through His incarnation, He could refashion the human race, not simply granting forgiveness of sins but bestowing something very much greater: sanctification, deification, eternal restoration in the kingdom of heaven.

Read more HERE

 

“A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun” (Rev. 12:1). In the bodily “translation” of the Virgin, the Church recognizes a “great sign.” A prophetic sign, that speaks to us of our destiny, of the meaning of death, of bodies, of human relations.

This sign tells us: death is not the final end of the human being. We are not lastly, as the philosopher Heidegger thought, only “being-unto-death.” Finite time and death are not our ultimate horizon. The mother of Jesus was “translated unto life.”

This sign tells us: a “heaven” of pure spirits is not our last estate. Christians are not Platonists! The body is not the soul’s prison, a cocoon to be sloughed off for the “true self” to emerge like a butterfly. Plato was wrong: our true person, as God intended it, is not just soul, but also body. Salvation of the person means salvation of the body.

This sign tells us: through the resurrection of Jesus, each one of us will rise again in our body, restored, as we were also once conceived in our mother’s womb: as male or female. And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun (Rev. 12:1). Risen to glory, Mary is still Woman.

Read more HERE

Please plan to join us for a Parish Family Luncheon this Sunday after Divine Liturgy!

Every time we celebrate the Dormition of the Mother of God it’s as though we have Easter again. The summer Easter.

Our Lady the Mother of God prepares Easter for us. A glorious crossing ‘from death to life’.

A second Easter, holy, spotless, giving life to the human race, because today, in truth ‘ the laws of nature are overcome’. Read more HERE

Services this week:

Monday, August 2nd Paraklesis 6p

Wednesday, August 4th Paraklesis 6p

Thursday, August 5th Bible Study 11a

Friday, August 6th Holy Transfiguration Orthros 8a; Divine Liturgy 9a; Paraklesis 6p

Saturday, August 7th Vespers 6p

Sunday, August 8th Orthros 9a; Divine Liturgy 10a