May 2021
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!
I greet you in the joy of Christ’s Resurrection.
Through days and weeks of the Great Fast we prepared for the commemoration of Christ’s Paschal Mystery: His passion, death, and resurrection. Then, in Holy Week we participated in the annual commemoration of the Lord’s life-giving passion and death. The various services of Holy Week, the proclamation of the Scriptures and the singing of the ancient hymnography of the Church, allowed us to bear witness to the great mystery of the Son of God entering into the fullness of human life, including physical death.
On the Feast of Feasts, Holy Pascha, we joyously proclaimed His victory over sin and death in His triumphant Resurrection from the dead. After last’s year’s noticeably quiet celebration, behind closed door, this year’s celebration was particularly joyous as we were able to gather again with all our brothers and sisters in a full celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection. The Church now continues to celebrate this bright victory throughout the forty days of the Paschal Season. Let us pray that in our parish and in our homes we will sustain the joyous spirit of Pascha and that the proclamation of Christ’s victory- and ours- will continue to be proclaimed in our daily lives, each and every day of the year.
Though too many to name, I would like to thank each and every one of you who helped prepare for the beautiful Services of Holy Week and Pascha. From flowers to music to cleaning the temple, from baking breads and dyeing eggs, from setting up for the processions and seeing to our security, from the egg hunt for our children to serving in the Holy Altar, from setting up to taking down, from providing coffee and meals and snacks and our traditional bread, wine, and dried fruit, from baking prosfora to participating in and assisting with the Services and so much more: each and every one of you was an important part of our parish’s Holy Week and Pascha. May the Risen Lord continue to bless us as we begin to return to a more normal experience of parish life.
Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death – and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!
With love in the Risen Lord,
+Bishop Daniel
December 12, 2020
Online Presentation by His Grace Bishop DANIEL
Walking to Bethlehem | Holy Assumption Monastery
On Sunday, August 4, 2019, His Grace Bishop Daniel of Santa Rosa presided at the Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” in Moscow... Click here to view
