The Fourth Sunday of Lent
St. John of the Ladder (Climacus)
Our venerable and God-bearing Father John Climacus (ca. 579 – 649), also known as John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus, and John Sinaites, was a seventh century monk at St. Catherine’s monastery at the base of Mount Sinai.
He came to the monastery and became a novice when he was about 16 years old, and when he died in 649 he was the monastery’s abbot. He wrote a number of instructive books, the most famous of which is The Ladder of Divine Ascent. (It is because of this book that John is known as “Climacus,” which means “of the ladder”.)
It describes how to raise one’s soul to God, as if on a ladder. This book is one of the most widely read among Eastern Orthodox Christians, especially during the season of Great Lent which immediately precedes Pascha (Easter), and on the fourth Sunday of Great Lent he is especially commemorated.
Quotes from St. John
- Repentance is the renewal of baptism.
- Repentance is a contract with God for a second life.
- A penitent is a buyer of humility.
- Repentance is constant distrust of bodily comfort.
- Repentance is self-condemning reflection, and carefree self-care.
- Repentance is the daughter of hope and the renunciation of despair.
- A penitent is an undisgraced convict.
- Repentance is reconciliation with the Lord by the practice of good deeds contrary to the sins.
- Repentance is purification of conscience.
- Repentance is the voluntary endurance of all afflictions.
- A penitent is the inflicter of his own punishments.
- Repentance is a mighty persecution of the stomach, and a striking of the soul into vigorous awareness.
Read more on the Orthodoxwiki website.
Letter Parents: Bring Your Children to Lazarus Saturday
Parents, take note of the letter on the website (which will be mailed to all parents) outlining a morning of events for your child start off Holy Week. We will begin with the Liturgy (where Fr. Hans will explain the importance of the day to the children), a pancake breakfast, making palm crosses to be distributed the next day at Palm Sunday and confession for the kids.
Get more information on the website.
Also consider bringing your children to the Taking Christ Down from the Cross service on Holy Friday afternoon. This is a short and highly visual service and children love it. Start setting the traditions early and it will stay with them their entire lives.
Letter to Invite Friends to Church
Would you like to invite a friend to church but don’t know what to say? Try out the “Invitation to Worship” letter on the website. You can print and send the letter as is or take the language and make your own.
We hope you find it helpful.
See and print the letter on the St. Peter website.
Lenten Service Schedule
Sunday, April 10 Sunday of St. John of the Ladder
Hours 9:00am, Divine Liturgy 9:30am
Monday, April 11
Great Compline 6:30pm
Wednesday, April 13
Presanctified Liturgy 6:30pm
Friday, April 15
Akathist Hymn 6:30pm
The St. Peter Lenten Service Schedule is available on the website.
Thank you to Those Hosting Coffee Hour
Keep in mind that sponsoring coffee hour is a great way to honor someone — memorial, birthday, graduation and others. We will announce it too.
You can sign up in the Social Hall on Sundays.
Lenten Suppers Following Wednesday Presanctified Liturgies
On Wednesday evenings following Presanctified Liturgy we will share in a light Lenten supper of lentil soup, bread and fruit. This is a practice of many churches and provides rich fellowship and sharing. Sponsors this week are John and Corgette Troutman.
Additions to Calendar
- Confessions following weekday services or by appointment.
- Lazarus Saturday — Pancake breakfast (great for the kids), making of Palm Sunday Crosses, confessions for children following breakfast.
- Palm Sunday — Palm Sunday Brunch following Liturgy in Social Hall.
- Holy Friday — Decorate tomb of Christ following Royal Hours (around 10:30am).
- Agape Vespers — Paschal celebration and feast in Social Hall following vespers.
Changing the Way We Read Names During Liturgy
The parish is growing and the list of names read during the Great Entrance is getting larger. From now on Fr. Hans will continue to read all the submitted names in the Proskomedi (the prayers of the preparation of the gifts) but they will not be read during the Great Entrance.
The names that will be read out loud are those that are sick and the deceased. We will have a separate list just for the sick where you can include the names of the people who need prayers.
Confessions Follow Weekday Services
Fr. Hans will hear confessions after any weekday service or by appointment. Why confess? It heals the soul. Confession is a sacrament of healing, not judgment.
Flower Donations Requested
Can you help donate for Easter flowers? Please see Angela Long or a Parish Council member to make your donation.
Lenten Holy Week Books
Holy Week (Palm Sunday Evening through Agape Service)
This year we will be using the Holy Week Service Book of the Antiochian Archdiocese during Holy Week. If you would like one for private use please order it from Ancient Faith Publishing. The price is $35.00.
Includes the three Bridegroom services, the three Liturgies of the Presanctified Gifts; the service of Holy Unction; the Vesperal Divine Liturgy and 12 Passion Gospels of Holy Thursday; the Royal Hours, Vespers, and Lamentations of Holy Friday; the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of Holy Saturday morning; Great and Holy Pascha; and the Agape Vespers of Sunday afternoon.
Printing Services from Your Computer
Some of the services we use can be found on the internet. This page lists all the services that you can print out and use. Most of the services we use not found in books will be taken from here.
Youth and Adult Bible Studies Postponed Until After Lent
Come to church instead.
Choir Practice on Wednesdays at 5:30pm
Orthodox Wisdom
Every man on earth is sick with the fever of sin, with the blindness of sin and is overcome with its fury. As sins consist mostly of malice and pride, it is necessary to treat everyone who suffers from the malady of sin with kindness and love. This is an important truth, which we often forget. Very often we act in the opposite manner: we add malice to malice by our anger, we oppose pride with pride. Thus, evil grows within us and does not decrease; it is not cured – rather it spreads.
– St. John of Kronstadt
What a loss of God’s grace it is when we simply refuse to struggle to push aside our own selfish ego to make way for the work of the Holy Spirit! Where God offers us everything we could ask or imagine, are we not required to at least make some small effort to receive Christ, and to be changed by Him?
St. Dorotheos further tells us that there are really only two states in which we can find ourselves: one is laying down on the spiritual battlefield of life, defeated, while the other is struggling to achieve the victory, even when it appears that we are complete failures.
— St. Dorotheos
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Remember in Your Prayers
Constandina James
Peter Wouralis
James Hord
Bob Smith
Tom and Jean, parents of Patty and Jerry.
How should we pray for the sick? Remember them daily. Say their names and ask God to bestow mercy and grace on them.
Sunday Readings
Epistle
For the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent
The Lord will give strength to His people.
The Lord will bless His people with peace.
The Reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews. (6:13-20)
Brethren, when God made a promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater by whom to swear, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. Men indeed swear by one greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation.
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, He interposed with an oath. So that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us.
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Gospel
For the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent
The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (9:16-30)
At that time, a man came to Jesus, kneeling down and saying unto him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit. And wherever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked Thy Disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” And Jesus answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to Me.” And they brought the boy to Him; and when the spirit saw Jesus, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.
And Jesus asked his father, “How long has he had this?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if Thou canst do anything, have pity on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse; so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
And when Jesus had entered the house, His Disciples asked Him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And Jesus said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And Jesus would not have anyone know it; for He was teaching His Disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and after He is killed, He will rise on the third day.”