Today: 8:30 am Matins; 9:30 am Liturgy & Special Benefit BBQ; Brief Parish Council Meeting following Brunch

Tuesday:  6:00 pm Vespers

Thursday:  6:00 pm Vespers

Saturday:  6:00 pm Vespers; Panikhida at Riverview Cemetery — carpool or caravan from church

Sunday: 8:30 am Matins; 9:30 am Liturgy & Coffee Hour

Wednesday, August 5: 6:00 pm Vespers & Blessing of Fruit

Thursday, August 6: 6:00 am Transfiguration Liturgy

Friday, August 14: 6:00 pm Vespers & Blessing of Herbage & Flowers

Saturday, August 15: 9:30 am Dormition Liturgy

You will find a packet of sticky notes and pencils on the tables in the Hall today.  Please use them to write down items on either or both of the charts on the wall: What we do well at St. Nicholas // What we do not do well at St. Nicholas  (You may jot down as many ideas as you want, but please only one per sticky note.  This information will be incorporated into the discussion at our next 5-Year Plan Forum.)

Please note the new Flower Sigh-up Chart in the narthex (above the Candle Desk). Just sign up for one or more of the areas for flowers for a Saturday/Sunday or a Feast Day, as indicated.  Thanks.

For a Biography of St. Jacob of Alaska:

http://ocafs.oca.org/FeastSaintsViewer.asp?SID=4&ID=1&FSID=102091

Today: 8:30 am Matins; 9:30 am Liturgy & Coffee Hour; Friday Fellowship Planning Meeting; 2:00 pm IOCC Metropolitan Committee Meeting

Tuesday:  6:00 pm Vespers

Thursday:  6:00 pm Vespers

Saturday:  6:00 pm Vespers

Sunday: 8:30 am Matins; 9:30 am Liturgy & Special Benefit Brunch

Saturday, August 1: Memorial Panikhida @ Riverview Cemetery — Jefferson Point (40° 28’ N, 122° 40’ W) — carpool or caravan from church following Vespers

Wednesday, August 5: 6:00 pm Vespers & Blessing of Fruit

Thursday, August 6: 6:00 am Transfiguration Liturgy

Friday, August 14: 6:00 pm Vespers & Blessing of Herbage & Flowers

Saturday, August 15: 9:30 am Dormition Liturgy

Thank You to those who showed up last evening for the 2nd of our 5-Year Plan Forums.  We anticipate 2-3 more, with a Progress Report at our Semi-Annual Meeting on September 13.

You will find a packet of sticky notes and pencils on the tables in the Hall today.  Please use them to write down items on either or both of the charts on the wall: What we do well at St. Nicholas // What we do not do well at St. Nicholas  (You may jot down as many ideas as you want, but please only one per sticky note.  This information will be incorporated into the discussion at our next 5-Year Plan Forum.)

Please note the new Flower Sigh-up Chart in the narthex (above the Candle Desk). Just sign up for a Saturday or a Feast Day, as indicated.  Thanks.

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Saint Macrina was the sister of Ss. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, and was born in Cappadocia at the beginning of the fourth century. Besides Macrina, there were nine other children. (There were no less than 7 saints in this extraordinary family: Grandma, Father, Mother and 4 siblings.)

When Macrina grew up, her parents betrothed her to a young man who soon died so she decided to remain single. By the time her father died and the children had grown up and left home, Macrina and her mother founded a women’s monastery across the river from the monastery her brother Basil had established for men. Several of their servants followed their example. They all lived together as one family, prayed together, worked together, possessed everything in common, and nothing distinguished one from another.

After the death of her mother, Macrina guided the sisters of the monastery. She enjoyed the deep respect of all who knew her. She was granted the gift of healing and wonder-working. Macrina died just after sunset on July 19, 380 and was buried in the family cemetery.

This link gives the (rather long) eulogy that St. Gregory gave at his sister’s funeral.  Of special interest is the section that describes her last days in this life.
www.tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_macrina_1_life.htm

And this link for a humorous anecdote concerning the relationship between two brothers: Basil and Gregory: www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.ix.lix.html

Today: Baptism, Liturgy, Brunch, Teen and Young Adult Meeting

Tuesday:  6:00 pm Vespers & Quietude

Thursday:  6:00 pm Vespers

Saturday:  9:30 am Liturgy (St. Elizabeth); 6:00 pm Vespers; 7:00 5-Year Plan Forum #2

Sunday:  8:30 am Matins, 9:30 am Liturgy & Coffee Hour

Monday – Saturday, July 6-11: Iconography Workshop with Heather MacKean

Tuesday:  6:00 pm Vespers

Thursday:  6:00 pm Vespers

Friday / Saturday, July 10-11: Teen & Young Adult Mt. Hood Backpack Trip

Saturday:  6:00 pm Vespers; “The Language of Icons” with Heather MacKean

Sunday:  8:30 am Matins; 9:30 am Liturgy & Brunch

Looking Ahead:

Saturday, July 18: 5-Year Plan Forum #2

The commemoration of Passover and Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt (see Exodus, chapters 12 to 13) was THE Independence celebration for God’s People since the 13th century BC — Freedom from slavery and oppression.  On the weekend of the 14th of Nisan, about the year 33 AD, the Old Covenant commemoration became obsolete.  The Passover of the Savior from life to death to Life has granted not only us, but the whole cosmos independence from the enslavement of the Prince of This World.

This was foreshadowed by God’s words to the Serpent, as recorded in Genesis 3:15: I shall put hatred and ill-will between you and the woman (Eve), and between your offspring and hers; he will bruise your head and you will strike his heel.  This declaration hints at ultimate victory and independence: it is the first glimmer of salvation.  It is often referred to as the proto-evangelion (i.e., first Good News).

Victory can be ascribed to One Descendant of the woman, given the Greek (LXX) edition of the Hebrew Scriptures.  However, the Hebrew renders the offspring as “it will bruise…”  This could be taken to indicate the whole human race, the collective descendants of Eve.  On the other hand, the Latin version of the Hebrew Scriptures renders the offspring in the feminine (i.e., “she will bruise…”).  In this case, the feminine offspring is interpreted as referring to Mary the Birth-giver of God incarnate.  (See the Book of Revelation, chapter 12 for a further consideration of this theme.)

Regardless of the interpretation as precisely to whom this offspring refers, the ultimate Good News of this divine message is that the deception, enslavement and strangle-hold of the Serpent is now reversed.

Andrei Rublev’s Christ

I wonder sometimes who nailed St. Andrei Rublev’s icon of Christ the Savior into the stairs. I think it couldn’t have been a Christ-hater, because it would have been easy to destroy the image along with so many of the icons, vestments, liturgical items and churches that fed the flames during those early Soviet years.

It might have been someone indifferent to the faith, someone who happened to be fixing the stairs and said to himself, “Here’s a board with paint on it.  It’s as good as any.” It might have been someone like that, but it seems unlikely.

For one thing, who could be neutral about religion at that time, when the choices were so clear and the consequences so heavy. For that matter, who could see that face, so full of strength and compassion, and not respond to the Person depicted there? Only someone wearied or hurried or frightened into a blanket of indifference. There were many such people, but when I imagine this unknowable event, that’s not what I see.

I see a believer who turns over a board in a pile of rubble and sees the face of Christ looking at him. He carefully places the icon with the building materials he’s carrying to work on the broken stairs. When he gets there, he glances over his shoulder, reverences the icon one last time, and nails it into place on one of the risers.

For 70 or so years the icon was part of a stairway, kicked, trampled and forgotten until someone found it. It was broken and damaged but miraculously preserved and bearing vertical marks of wear that look like tears.

When I see that icon in the center of the church, I think of the stairs in my house. I run up to get something, run down to go out, run up for this, down for that. If my life were a stairway, sometimes Christ would be as
invisible as if I had turned His face toward the darkness and hidden Him underfoot.

It’s not hatred that put him there, nor the loving protection I’ve imagined in that long-ago Soviet worker, but more like the indifferent middle way.  I’m too harried and hurried to see Him in the midst of everything I do and in the face of every person I meet.

It comforts me that the icon was still intact in the stairway after all those decades. In a way, the story parallels the parable of the Prodigal Son. Christ is not far away, and even if we have turned His face away from us, he knows how badly we need Him, and He returns to us when we are ready to receive Him. And when I return Him to the center of my life, I see that He has suffered the loss on my behalf.

— Jan V. Bear