Fall Festival
This year we will celebrate our cabbage roll dinner festival a bit earlier, on Sunday, September 9th (Sept. 6th being a secondary feast day of Archangel Michael).  Holding the festival earlier will mean we can celebrate it largely outside on our beautiful grounds.  It will also make the event accessible to a larger number of people.  Your participation is needed in order to make the festival a success.  Sign-up sheets for various jobs are posted in the hall.  There will be two preparation days for the festival.  Thursday the 6th we will make the cabbage rolls and Saturday the 8th we will set up for the dinner.  Please speak to Popadija if you have questions.  An added feature of this year’s festival will be our partnership with members of St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church, who will operate a Greek dessert booth (and thus we will not be selling desserts).  The cost of the dinner will be $8 for adults and $4 for children 12 and under.  Pete Dunda will provide musical entertainment.  Let’s pray for fruitful weather and put in our best effort!

All Parish Meeting
There will be a brief, All Parish Meeting during coffee hour on Sept. 16th.  The meeting will have only one item on its agenda: to fill a vacancy that has come up on the Parish Council.  The term of this newly elected member will consist of the remainder of this calendar year (four more months).  The following persons are eligible for nomination.  In the event of more than one nomination, there will be an election by secret ballot.

We have been blessed with several new members this past year, most of whom will be eligible for election at our Annual Meeting in January when they will have been communicants in this parish a while longer.  Two members will be elected to the Parish Council at that meeting next January.

September Services
+ Sept. 1st: Church New Year.
+ Sept. 8th: Nativity of the Theotokos.
+ Sept. 14th: Elevation of the Cross.
Vigil will be celebrated on the eves of the two Great Feasts.  This service combines Vespers and Matins and lasts approximately an hour and a half.  It is permissible to come for the first half and depart after Vespers.
 
Church School
Sunday School begins Sept. 2nd and will be held in the hall from 9:00am until the beginning of Divine Liturgy.  Susanna (Katrina) Orton and Pavel Holder are coordinators.  Other volunteers are also needed so that we can always have at least two teachers in the class at a time.

Bible Study Resumes
Our weekly Bible Study and Akathist service resumes this month and is listed on the calendar.  We will pick back up with Genesis 14.  The Akathist portion begins at 6:30 and lasts approximately 40 minutes.  We will then move downstairs for the Bible Study and conclude around 8:00pm.  Bring your Bible and questions.

Bar And Pews For Sale
Okay, so this is an odd headline to find in a church bulletin, particularly right beneath an article for a Bible Study, but what can we say?  After painful deliberation, Father and the Parish Council decided to get rid of the bar prior to having the hall re-floored.  Though valued at $150-$200, we are offering it to parishioners for $100 for the next month or so.  After that it will go in the Thrifty Nickel.  Ditto the three pews still for sale, now at the price of $225 each.  These were valued at $400 by an antiques dealer, so this is a good deal.  After another month or two, this unusual ad for a bar and pews may go right to the Thrifty Nickel.  Please save St. Michael’s the embarrassment of having to explain that one to the general public!

FREE Printer!
The Lexmark X83 printer mentioned last month is now free to anyone who will take it.  We would like to upgrade to a laser printer/copier with a capacity to produce The Messenger, which will save a monthly trip to Office Max as well as a considerable amount of money over the long run.

Olive Oil Donations Are Once Again Needed For the Lampadas

Pledging
Within the next month you will be receiving a letter with a pledge form for 2008.  All parishioners over the age of 18 who participate in confession and communion are encouraged to return these forms in order to help our Treasurer prepare a budget for the coming year.

Treasurer’s Report

Volunteer Needed
The pair of benches in our churchyard could use a coat or two of stain to preserve their longevity in this weather.  The church will provide the stain and necessary equipment for whomsoever would like to offer their time and talent to this task.

Recommended Reading
Recommended this month are a nicely matched set: My Journey with Father Alexander (Alexander Press, 2006), by Matushka Juliana Schmemann, and The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann 1973-1983 (SVS Press, 2000), trans. Juliana Schmemann.  Between these two works, one a memoir of Father Schmemann written by his wife, the other Father Schmemann’s own, personal reflections, what results is an endearing, inspiring and warmly personal portrait of one of the most influential Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century.  Father Schmemann is well known for his writings, which helped to spark a sacramental and liturgical revival in the modern Orthodox world, works which led the way in advocating the use of the vernacular, the restoration of holy communion to the laity, and the creation of an Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America.  The legacy of this man can make one feel that in reading his journals or the remembrances of his wife, one is pouring over the vitae of an as yet un-canonized saint. 

My Journey is an account of how the Schmemann’s met and of their early years in France, of his developing vision for Orthodoxy in the contemporary world and desire to put it into action, and of their move to America where, free of the obstacles of European immobility and detritus, Father Alexander was able to see his vision take hold in culture much more open to change, even if the “change” in question was nothing less than a restoration of the Church’s own, authentic and original vision of Christ, mankind, and the Kingdom.

But neither was America without its own challenges.  Though Father Schmemann clearly loved the ideal of America, much of what he saw in practice, particularly from the 60’s onward, repulsed him.  In his Journals, he recoils at the callousness of Vietnam War carnage shown on t.v., interspersed with commercials for toilet paper or laundry detergent.  He criticizes equally the ideological Left (empty talk about justice and equality mixed with insincere sympathy for the poor and oppressed) and the ideological Right (consumerism as the means to utopia).  He laments the pathetic self-absorption as well as intellectual and spiritual poverty of the so-called counterculture – all the more pronounced for its repeated invocation of the terms “love” and “freedom.”  Yet through it all there are rays of light: the liturgical services of the Church, which grounded his life and gave it its orientation toward the Kingdom; the natural beauty of rural Quebec, where he and his family spent their summers reviving at a cottage in Lac Labelle; the inherent goodness of rural America, a warmth devoid of the coldness of pseudo-intellectualism and stale rebellion.

Father Schmemann was not a pessimist, yet neither was he an optimist or even a realist.  He was, first and foremost, a citizen in this world and of the world to come.  Everything that he saw, all that he experienced, he evaluated in terms of that coming world, which, most importantly, he saw as revealing itself even in the midst of the present, fallen order.  This was his vision.  These two works make Father Alexander feel much more familiar, like a beloved teacher and friend.  They also put his vision in a context we can relate to.

Upcoming Ladies’ Gathering
There will be a ladies’ luncheon sometime in October, probably on a Friday or Saturday.  This will be an opportunity for the women of the parish to get together and enjoy one another’s company as well as begin laying the groundwork for a ladies’ auxiliary sisterhood to coordinate certain ministries in the life of the parish.  We are trying to get Fr. Stephen Powley as the guest speaker for this inaugural get together.  Speak to Popadija for more details.

Memory Eternal!
Angie Pavlica reposed in the Lord after a sudden fall.  She was preceded a week earlier by Jenny Radakovich, former member of our parish.  Summer “wound down” rather busily, with two weddings (John & Gabriella Edwards, Timothy & Jordanna Perry) and two baptisms (Timothy Perry, Seraphima Lynch) in addition to Angie’s funeral and Jenny’s parastas.  Pray for more baptisms in the coming year!

New Martyrs of Serbia
The Serbian Orthodox Church recently canonized a number of martyrs killed under the Croatian Nazi yoke.  Though their complete “Lives” are not yet readily available in English, the following cursory sketches of three of these saints are humbly offered: The Holy Hieromartyr Platon was overseer of the Printing Department of Sremski-Karlovac before being made Bishop of Banja Luka.  He was shot by the Ustashe in 1941 and his body thrown into a river.  The Priest-Martyr Branko was a parish priest before being arrested by the Ustashe on his Slava.  He was forced to read the Prayers for the Departed over his tortured but still living son before they were both taken to the woods and shot with over 500 other Serbs.  The Priest-Martyr George was arrested at the urging of a neighboring Roman Catholic priest who harbored great animosity toward him and ordered that he be “brutally” killed.  He was tied to a tree near a Catholic church where his ears and nose were cut off and his eyes gouged and tongue pulled out.  He was then disemboweled and his own intestines hung around his neck.  As he was about to give up the spirit, he was shot.  Through the prayers of these and all the Holy New Martyrs of Serbia, Lord Jesus Christ our God have mercy on us!

Our Church Costs Too Much!
A certain Christian once said to a friend, "Our church costs too much. They are always asking for money."

"Some time ago a little boy was born in our home," replied her friend.  "He cost me a lot of money from the very beginning: he had a big appetite, he needed clothes, medicine, toys, and even a puppy.  Then he went to school, and that cost a lot more; later he went to college, then he began dating, and that cost a small fortune!  But in his senior year at college he died, and since the funeral he hasn't cost me a penny.  Now which situation do you think I would rather have?"

After a significant pause she continued, "As long as this Church lives it will cost.  When it dies for want of support, it won't cost anything.  A living Church has the most vital message for all the world today, therefore I am going to give and pray with everything I have to keep the Church alive."

(Taken from a Greek Orthodox Archdiocese stewardship letter)

Michael Shinovich Featured Artist
Michael Shinovich is this month’s featured artist at the Solar Roast Coffee Co.  Congratulations, Michael!

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