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Fast and Pray

Just a quick reminder regarding fasting rules and guidelines for the last two days of Holy Week – from the OCA website:

On Great Friday those who have the strength follow the practice of the early Church and keep a total fast. Those unable to do this may eat bread, with a little water, tea or fruit-juice, but not until sunset, or at any rate not until after the veneration of the [Plashchanitsa] at Vespers. On Holy Saturday there is in principle no meal, since according to the ancient practice after the end of the Liturgy of St. Basil the faithful remained in church for the reading of the Acts of the Apostles, and for their sustenance were given a little bread and dried fruit, with a cup of wine. If, as usually happens now, they return home for a meal, they may use wine but not oil; for on this one Saturday, alone among Saturdays of the year, olive oil is not permitted.

These guidelines indicate that if a meal is eaten on Holy Saturday, it would be eaten shortly after the Liturgy of St. Basil; the rest of the day a strict fast would be kept in preparation for communion at the midnight Paschal Liturgy.

As always, remember that health considerations may mitigate the fasting rules (as can be seen in the phrase “those who have the strength”, above), and that we are all called to keep the fast as well as we are able so that we can “watch and pray”, preparing for the coming of our Lord’s Pascha.
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Holy Week Service Times Are Up!

Just a brief update to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that the Holy Week Service times are now up on the newly revamped St. John’s and St. Nina’s website. My apologies for the delay, especially as one of the casualties of the delay was the Lazarus Saturday morning service which was to be followed by the traditional pre-Holy Week cleaning party. While there will be no service Saturday morning and no official work-party, anyone who wants to help clean in any way is more than welcome to show up any time after 10am on Saturday – Matushka and I will be at St. John’s house all day preparing for Holy Week and, between us, could probably find some way that any willing volunteers could help out around the house and chapel!

As always, please let me know of any errors or omissions on the site or on the church calendar – and please bear with the web-site as the kinks are worked out of the new system. My hope is that the site will soon become a lot more collaborative now that I’ve moved it to a new web-platform. Hopefully it looks a little better too!

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Vesperal Liturgy for the Annuciation

My apologies. Somehow I missed putting up the Vesperal Liturgy for Annunciation service time on our church calendar. The Vesperal Liturgy for Annuciation will be held tonight (Tuesday, March 24th) at 7:30pm at St. Mark’s chapel out at UBC. Below is a map showing the location of St. Mark’s College (the chapel is part of the college):

Please note that parking at the college is limited – they do allow us to park in the college parking lot despite the signs there, but there aren’t all that many parking spots – so you might want to leave a few extra minutes to find parking. (The paid parking garage near the Chan Centre is a nearby alternative.) Also, since the vesperal liturgy begins the liturgical feast day of the Annunciation, feel free to bring fish for our communal meal afterwards – but do note that there are no facilities for cooking there, just a microwave oven for re-heating things.