Schedule for April 18th-April 25th
- Sunday, April 18th: 8:30am Orthros, 9:30am Divine Liturgy
- Sunday, April 18th: 12pm Church Clean Up following Divine Liturgy
- Monday April 19th: 6pm Church Clean Up
- Tuesday, April 20th: 5pm Confessions heard
- Wednesday, April 21st: 5pm Jesus Prayer, 5:15pm Presanctified Liturgy
- Wednesday, April 21st: 6:45-7:45pm The Relationship Project for HS youth
- Friday, April 23rd: 3:45pm Jesus Prayer, 4pm Presanctified Liturgy
- Friday April 23rd: 6pm Church Prep for Lazarus Saturday
- Lazarus Saturday, April 24th: 8am Orthros, 9am Divine Liturgy, followed by pancake breakfast, palm cross folding, and church decorating
- Saturday, April 24th: 5pm Great Vespers for Palm Sunday, Confessions heard following
- Palm Sunday, April 25th: 8:30am Orthros, 9:30am Divine Liturgy, Procession with palms following
- Sunday, April 25th: 6:30pm Bridegroom Matins of Holy Monday
Commemorations This Week
St. Mary of Egypt, The Fifth Sunday of Great Lent
Our holy mother Mary was born in Egypt. She had left her parents at the age of twelve to go to Alexandria, where she spent the next seventeen years in debauchery and the greatest profligacy. Living on charity and linen-weaving, she nevertheless offered her body to any man, not being forced to it by dire necessity as were so many poor women, but as though she were consumed by the fire of a desire that nothing was able to appease.
One day, seeing a crowd of Lybians and Egyptians moving towards the port, she followed them and set sail with them for Jerusalem, offering her body to pay her fare. When they arrived in the Holy City, she followed the crowd that was thronging towards the Church of the Resurrection, it being the day of the Exaltation of the Cross. But, when she reached the threshold of the church, an invisible force prevented her entering in spite of repeated efforts on her part, although the other pilgrims were able to go in without hindrance. Left alone in a corner of the narthex, she began to realize that it was the impurity of her life that was preventing her approaching the holy Wood. She burst into tears and smote her breast and, seeing an icon of the Mother of God, made this prayer to her: "O Sovereign Lady, who didst bear God in the flesh, I know that I should not dare to look upon thine icon, thou who are pure in soul and body, because, debauched as I am, I must fill thee with disgust. But, as the God born of thee became man in order to call sinners to repentance, come to my aid! Allow me to go into the church and prostrate before His Cross. And, as soon as I have seen the Cross, I promise that I will renounce the world and all pleasures, and follow the path of salvation that thou willest to show me."
She felt herself suddenly freed from the power that had held her and was able to enter the church. There she fervently venerated the Holy Cross and then, returning to the icon of the Mother of God, declared herself ready to follow the path that the Virgin would show her. A voice replied to her from on high: "If you cross the Jordan, you will find rest."
Leaving the church, she bought three loaves with the alms a pilgrim had given her, discovered which road led to the Jordan and arrived one evening at the Church of Saint John the Baptist. After having washed in the river, she received Communion in the Holy Mysteries, ate half of one of the loaves and went to sleep on the riverbank. The next morning, she crossed the river and lived from that time on in the desert, remaining there for forty-seven years without ever encountering either another human being or any animal.
During the first seventeen years, her clothes soon having fallen into rags, burning with heat by day and shivering with cold by night, she fed on herbs and wild roots. But more than the physical trials, she had to face violent assaults from the passions and the memory of her sins and, throwing herself on the ground, she implored the Mother of God to come to her aid. Protected by God, who desires nothing but that the sinner should turn to Him and live, she uprooted all the passions from her heart by means of this extraordinary ascesis, and was able to turn the fire of carnal desire into a flame of divine love that made it possible for her to endure the implacable desert with joy, as though she were not in the flesh.
After all these years, a holy elder called Zosimas (April 4), who, following the tradition instituted by Saint Euthymios, had gone into the desert across the Jordan for the period of the Great Fast, saw one day a human form with a body blackened by the sun and with hair white as bleached linen to its shoulders. He ran after this apparition that fled before him, begging it to give him its blessing and some saving words. When he came within ear-shot, Mary, calling by name him whom she had never seen, revealed to him that she was a woman and asked him to throw her his cloak that she might cover her nakedness.
At the urging of the monk, who was transported at having at last met a God-bearing being who had attained the perfection of monastic life, the Saint recounted to him with tears the story of her life and conversion. Then, having finished her account, she begged him to come the following year to the bank of the Jordan with Holy Communion.
When the day arrived, Zosimas saw Mary appearing on the further bank of the river. She made the sign of the Cross and crossed the Jordan, walking on the water. Having received Holy Communion weeping, she said: "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation" (Luke 2:29). She then took leave of Zosimas, asking him to meet her the following year in the place where they had first met.
When the year was past, Zosimas, going to the agreed spot, found the Saint's body stretched on the ground, her arms crossed and her face turned towards the East. His tearful emotion prevented him from noticing at once an inscription traced on the ground by the Saint, which read: "Abba Zosimas, bury here the body of the humble Mary; give what is of dust to dust, after having prayed for me. I died on the first day of April, the very night of the Passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, after having partaken in the Holy Eucharist." Consoled in his grief by having learned the Saint's name, Zosimas was amazed to discover that she had, in several hours, covered a distance of more than twenty days' march.
After having vainly tried to break up the earth with a stick, he suddenly saw a lion approaching Mary's body and licking her feet. On the orders of the Elder, the beast dug a hole with its claws, in which Zosimas devoutly placed the Saint's body.
On his return to the monastery, he recounted the marvels that God had wrought for those who turn away from sin and move towards Him with all their hearts. From the hardened sinner that she had been, Mary has, for a great many souls crushed under the burden of sin, become a source of hope and a model of conversion. This is why the Holy Fathers have placed the celebration of her memory at the end of the Great Fast as an encouragement for all who have neglected their salvation, proclaiming that repentance can bring them back to God even at the eleventh hour.
The feast day of Saint Mary of Egypt is April 1, the day of her repose, however the Orthodox Church also commemorates the Saint on the Fifth Sunday of Lent.
Holy St. Mary, pray for us!
Sunday, April 18th Epistle and Gospel Readings
St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews 9:11-14
BRETHREN, when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
The Gospel According to Mark 10:32-45
At that time, Jesus took his twelve disciples, and he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise." And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him, and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." And he said to them, "What do you want me to do for you?" And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" And they said to him, "We are able." And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant of James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, "You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Click below to access recent homilies
from Father Jeffrey
Parish Events and Announcements
Please take note of the upcoming Holy Week Schedule:
Lazarus Saturday, April 24th: 8am Orthros & Liturgy. Pancake breakfast, palm cross folding, and church decoration following.
Saturday, April 24th: Great Vespers for Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday, April 25th: 8:30am Orthros & Divine Liturgy, procession with palms
Sunday, April 25th: 6:30pm Bridegroom Matins
Holy Monday, April 26th: 6:30pm Bridegroom Matins
Holy Tuesday, April 27th: 8:30am Presanctified Liturgy
Holy Tuesday, April 27th: 6:30pm Bridegroom Matins
Holy Wednesday, April 28th: 8:30am Presanctified Liturgy
Holy Wednesday, April 28th: 630pm Service of Holy Unction
Holy Thursday, April 29th: 9:30am Vesperal Liturgy of The Mystical Supper
Holy Thursday, April 29th: 6:30pm Matins of Holy Friday, Service of the 12 Passion Gospels
Holy Friday, April 30th: 10am Royal Hours
Holy Friday, April 30th: 3:30pm Vespers of Holy Friday, Taking Down of Christ from the Cross
Holy Friday, April 30th: 6:30pm Matins of Holy Saturday, The Lamentations Service, Procession of the Funeral Bier
Holy Saturday, May 1st: 10am Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil
Holy Saturday, May 1st: 11pm Nocturnes, followed by Paschal Matins, Procession, & Divine Liturgy
Pascha Sunday, May 2nd: Christ Is Risen! 12:30pm Agape Vespers, The Gospel read in many languages
Bright Monday, May 3rd: Celebration of our Parish Feast Day! 9:30am Orthros & Liturgy for St. George
Church-Wide Spring Cleaning
Sunday, April 18th after Liturgy, and this Monday, April 19th at 6pm
Spring Cleaning!
Thank you so much to all who helped out with the Clean-Up this past Sunday! We had a great turn-out, some good laughs, and were able to accomplish our goals (plus more!) in under 2 hours! There are two opportunities left for folks to help with our Spring Cleaning. Come join us as we care for our place of worship!
12pm This Sunday, April 18th
(icons and wooden items)
6pm This Monday, April 19th
(oil lamps and brass items)
Things to know:
- Our usual safety measures will be in place. Masks will be provided
- Clean up will last just a couple of hours each date
- We have a checklist of tasks for all ages and abilities. While it largely depends on how many folks show up, the general guideline divides the cleaning as noted above
- Cleaning supplies and gloves will be provided
- Feel free to bring your own sack lunch or snack to eat in the courtyard. Water bottles (and coffee on Sunday) will be provided
- Altar servers are especially encouraged to attend
Many hands make light work! We hope to see you there!
How Can You Help During Holy Week?
Thank you to all who have offered their help during Holy Week! Laura Scott will be in touch with you soon to coordinate tasks. If you haven't completed the emailed survey, please do so soon, by clicking below.
Blessing of the Church Land
Mark your calendars: At 1:30pm, on Thomas Sunday (the Sunday following Pascha), May 9th, Father Jeffrey will be blessing our church land on Rosser Street, the future home of St. George Orthodox Church. More details to come.
Community Events
People Who Care
Volunteer Informational Meeting
Wednesday, April 21st
1:30-3:30pm
People Who Care Office
147 Grove Avenue
Prescott
928-445-2480
People Who Care volunteers provide caring non-medical assistance for adults unable to drive due to age-related and/or physical limitations. This allows an individual to continue living in their own homes and remain independent as long as safely possible.
People Who Care is a community-based nonprofit with programs in Prescott, Prescott Valley, Dewey and Chino Valley. Volunteers help in the community where they and enrolled Neighbors live. The majority of our Neighbors live alone.
People Who Care offers volunteer assistance with a one to one situation by helping
with transportation to healthcare/business appointments, grocery shopping, personal paperwork, visiting, caregiver relief, and more.
People Who Care requests wearing of masks, and social distancing.
Metropolis Events
