St Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
161 N. Murphy Ave. Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Weekly Announcements

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

            May God be with you and bless you as we move forward now into the second week of the Great Fast.

            I came across a sermon the other day which really touched me, and seemed to me to get at the heart of what our prayer and fasting is all about. As this sermon illustrates, our Lenten efforts, if they are to be sincere and effective, must be an outpouring of our love for God. If someone is in love, and he realizes the absence of his beloved, he has no care for food and for feasting… his sorrow over this alienation from his beloved consumes him. And should he have the opportunity to communicate with his beloved, he pays attention to every word, he savors each moment of connection with the one for whom his heart aches. This should be our model for our prayer and fasting. It is all about our relationship with the One for Whom we should have the greatest love. Please see the sermon referred to here: Sermon on Saturday of the First Week of Lent / OrthoChristian.Com

            For those that were in church yesterday, you heard me make an appeal for prayer for my dear Godson, the monk Lazarus. Monk Lazarus is a brother of the Holy Monastery of St Sava the Sanctified in the Jordanian desert, not too far from Bethlehem. He has been there for about 35 years or so. Over the past couple of years, he has been caretaker of a property belonging to the Jerusalem Patrarchate in the town of Dar Salah. The property is the site of the ruins of an ancient Christian monastery of St Theognios. Sadly, prior to his arrival, the property was being used as a garbage dump by the locals and Father has done a lot of work to clean the place up and has used his own meager resources to purchase some playground equipment so that the local children have a place to play. These steps have gone a long way in warming relationships with the local community. However, the authorities are now threatening to demolish the ruins and the home of Fr Lazarus in order to construct a roadway. Father sent me an urgent message last week asking for prayers. Please keep Father Lazarus and the holy site of St Theognios in your prayers. May God keep him safe and may God preserve this holy Christian site!

            On Saturday, April 13th, we will have our annual Ladies’ Lenten Retreat. The Retreat will take place in the Church Hall from 1:30 – 3:30. The text we have selected for this year’s discussion is from a talk given by the Romanian nun Mother Silouana (Vlad). I found the text quite interesting and full of potential good discussion points. As usual, I will give a short presentation on the text and then we’ll open it up to questions and comments. I look forward to spending time with you and pray that our time together will be edifying. I have attached the text to this email.

            On Tuesday evening at 7pm, we will have our weekly Bible Study. We are continuing our study of the Book of Revelation and the commentaries of Archbishop Averky. The Zoom link is: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82677977675  

On Thursday evening at 6pm, we have our Catechism class for inquirers and catechumens (although several baptized Orthodox also enjoy participating as well). Fr Andrew leads these classes. The Zoom link is: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81436042614

            On Saturday at 2pm in the Church Hall we have our weekly spiritual discussions. We are currently going through the book ‘The Spiritual Life And How To Be Attuned To It’ by St Theophan the Recluse. All are welcome!

            Services this week include Presanctified Liturgy Wednesday evening and Friday evening at 6pm. Saturday at 9am we will have a Memorial Liturgy followed by a Panakhida commemorating our departed loved ones.

            I pray that we all may ‘redeem the time’ given to us during these Lenten days to draw closer to Christ our God and to spend these days in as much peace and prayer as we can make happen. God be with you!

Fr Martin

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