The entire Orthodox Christian community of faithful mourns the recent falling asleep of the servant of God, His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece. Archbishop Christodoulos was truly a man of God, who served Christ’s Church with dynamic strength and vision. As a family, the community of Saint Basil Greek Orthodox Christian Church, will pray the memorial service for Archbishop Christodoulos this Sunday, February 3rd. Truly, the falling asleep of His Beatitude has left a great void—let us pray for his peaceful repose, and may his memory be eternal!
After suffering damage due to internal flooding, our beautiful church building is continuing the process of reconditioning; specifically the carpets and some pews. Until this process is completed, divine worship services will continue to be held in the Constantine & Evanthia Community Center church hall. This reconditioning, although inconvenient, does allow for a larger work space as it coincides with the installation of our current iconography phase; the addition of 40 saints, narthex icons, and behind the baptismal font. Many, both from within the Saint Basil community and visitors alike, have come and witnessed this blessed process of iconographical ministry. The lighting within the interior niches, where the new icons are being installed, is also being transformed to best compliment the mosaics. When we are able to reenter the church building for worship, after the reconditioning process, this iconography phase will be complete. We look forward to the edification of the Divine Liturgy each week regardless of its location, yet we particularly are anxious to again experience the additional blessing of celebrating the Divine Liturgy within the environment of our beautiful church building—especially with the addition of this blessed iconography phase! All are welcome to come and experience the blessings of the Lord!
It is truly a blessing that the Saint Basil community is progressing with the iconography in the sanctuary. All iconography in our beautiful church is mosaic, and we are continuing in this specific tradition, with the continued work of iconographer, Mr. Robert Andrews. The mosaic icons have been produced at his workshop in Italy, and just this morning arrived in Stockton. Mr. Andrews will be working on the installation process through out the next 10 days, and we anxiously look forward to this new phase in our iconographic scheme. Feel free to drop by the church over the next week and witness this spiritual ministry!
After just visiting our local newspaper’s website, I was saddened to view the top local stories on the home page all encompassing, either directly or indirectly, negative events or aspects of our community; nine of which address criminal violence. The comment can be made that this is simply what the news forum wishes to highlight; however, this theme of negativity is common in our beautiful town, and has unfortunately affected many of us beyond newspaper headlines. Negative dynamics of society, and her members, are a derivative of spiritual sickness brought about through sin and the brokenness of the world. Therefore, when we view and experience this negativity in such an intense fashion, we must begin to ask ourselves what can be done in an effort to heal this sickness.
The source of all healing, and all that is good, is our Heavenly Father. Through Him we may find healing in the midst of worldly brokenness —one individual, one family, one neighborhood, one community at a time. By accepting His perfect self-sacrificial love, and extending it to one another on the streets of our great city, we will begin to see and experience a healing process to the spiritual sickness that plagues us. The source of this healing is God, who is the physician of our souls & bodies; however, through our individual expressions of authentic love, we must step forward as instruments and tools through which His Divine healing may be witness and experienced in the world.
It is ignorant and irresponsible to assume that all the individual members of our town will initially or even ultimately participate in this healing process, yet it is possible for one more individual to begin after reading this blog, and then another, and then another. Soon the subjects of the front page stories on the news website will begin to transform in content to messages of positive natures. You are to think of yourself as a mirror which has the ability to reflect the light of God into the darkness of the world. May our Lord and His limitless, unending love illumine us all as we strive to bring peace, hope and love into our lives, our towns, and our world.
Our community is blessed to have the Heaven Revealer, Saint Basil the Great as our Patron Saint, who consistently intercedes to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on our behalf. Our Patron’s feast day is January 1st, and this year our community gathered in his honor and celebrated on multiple levels. First and foremost, the most precious blessing that can be bestowed by the Church is Holy Communion, therefore, we gathered in prayer through the context of the Divine Liturgy, and those who were prepared received the Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Following this Eucharistic gathering, we gathered, together with many visitors, in the community hall for a New Year’s Eve celebration in honor of Saint Basil. Well over 300 people ate, danced, and shared in Christian fellowship as we welcomed 2008 with optimism and love.
A very special thank you must be extended to our Philoptochos Event Planning Committee, and especially its leaders, as they truly brought this celebration to fruition! What a tremendous blessing it was to see multiple, diverse individuals working together in Christian harmony—and then experience the fruit of this labor! Well done good and faithful servants…thank you!
May our Patron Saint Basil the Great Pray for Us,
+Fr Luke
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