December 21st, 2021

Christ is among us!

He is and will be!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
As we prepare to celebrate the feast of the Nativity of our Lord on Saturday, I would like to share with you the Liturgical schedule for this entire season up to the feast of the Theophany or Baptism of Christ. There are some things I would like to point out. 

• At the Vesperal Divine Liturgy on Christmas Eve, we will welcome Joseph Martin III as a catechumen (preparing to be received into the Byzantine Church by Chrismation and Eucharist at Pascha). Welcome Joseph! May your journey be blessed!
• On Christmas morning, the Liturgy will be served at 9am. This Liturgy will be primarily for our at risk parishioners, so we ask that all attending mask and distance, out of charity.
• On Saturday, January 1st, the vigil Liturgy (masked and distanced) will be served at 4pm because of the 6pm wedding taking place that day.

Please note that our parish Holy Supper, the traditional fasting meal of Christmas Eve, will take place at 5pm on Dec. 24. If you wish to come, please let me know so that we have enough settings and enough food! It promises to be a very delicious dinner featuring the talents of some of the great chefs of our parish.

Our parish website,  https://www.stbasilsinirving.org , has also been improved with a new layout and I would like to thank all those who worked on it especially, Andrew Smith and Mark Adinolfi. Mark has taken over as web master. Please note the liturgical and activity schedule will be on the web page as well as links to live streamed liturgies, webinars and much more. We are just beginning to realize the possibilities of the website. Please share with us any feedback and ideas that you have to make our website better. What would you like to see on the website? Does anyone want to volunteer to create materials or write for the website? 

Finally, Wednesday is the last zoom webinar of the year. Starting in January, the Wednesday webinars will take place only twice a month. We will be exploring the history of the depictions of the Nativity using the biblical text to better understand what we celebrate and what we see in icons, paintings and nativity scenes. Join us and share the information.

As we begin the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord, there are greetings we share with other. There are two which we will be hearing at Christmas. Here they are with the appropriate response.

Christ is among us!    He is and will be!

Christ is born!       Glorify Him!

May your preparation for the Feast be blessed!

Fr. Elias