Thursday, May 25, 2023

Taking a hiatus!

Hi all! I was doing so well keeping up with a post for every week in the liturgical year, but all good things inevitably come to an end. 😂 My life right now is just not conducive to weekly blogging. It's all good stuff, but with my son starting college in the fall and other needs of my family, and me having a new job within my academic library world, I'm at full capacity. We're all doing GREAT though, and continuing on in our Byzantine rite journey. I'll check back in with updates when I can!

Monday, May 15, 2023

Fifth Sunday after Pascha - Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

We've been doing lots of gardening these days!
 Hello everyone! I'm running a little behind this week, sorry about that! I meant to get this post up last Friday, and only today realized that I never finished and published it. 

🤦

So I have a bit of catching up to do! But here we are, together again with our quick weekly update. Spring is really blossoming around here in WNY, and we're enjoying the sunshine and fresh air that it brings. Including Barney! 😁

Springtime in our Byzantine rite parish is dawning with lots of talk of bringing back more in person events to continue to try and recover from the financial damage the pandemic wrought. The parish is so small at this point in terms of active families that the future is a bit unknown, but we're all praying for the best. 🙏 So that's really the big focus right now. 

For our part, we're continuing to enjoy the Divine Liturgy and our weekly ritual of attending there. The kids and I go out for coffee afterwards each week, and they also enjoy that quite a bit. This week, the parish hosted a coffee hour after liturgy, so we attended that. We had our baked goods donation in tow, and were warmly embraceed and welcomed. I'm hoping for many, many more of these to come in the future! 

Saturday, May 6, 2023

Fourth Sunday after Pascha - Sunday of the Paralytic

Hello everyone, and isn't it lovely that spring has finally sprung? 😀 At least around here, it's been Second Winter and then Mud Season for quite some time, spring has been hiding, to be sure. 😂 But finally, things are budding, the sun is out more, and Paschaltide feels absolutely sublime! As we continue our path towards the feast of the Ascension, we are enjoying these themed Sundays following Pascha. Next year I really need to consider the icon set commemorating these to add to my collection! I really enjoy displaying icons of the current and upcoming feasts. 

This past Sunday we arrived at Divine Liturgy right on time, and guess who forgot her little book for the inevitable situation when the sheets with the Propers were already all claimed?

Alas. :-0 So I did my best, but I simply MUST remember to look through that book and set the ribbons up accordingly *before* Divine Liturgy this weekend! We'll get there. But last Sunday, we learned about Jesus' healing powers, both in the Gospel and in the homily. After liturgy, we gathered to chat about the coffee klutch slated for the following week, and Anne and I plotted our baked good possibilities. I'm not much of a baker, so I ended up picking up a few pastries at the grocery store when we went yesterday, but Anne baked cupcakes this morning to bring! I'm really looking forward to it.

A quiet weekend, but things are going to be getting crazy with end-of-school-year ceremonies and milestones, and this mom is feeling pretty emotional about it. But I'm hanging in there! I'm truly looking forward to summer this year, and all of the lovliness, both spiritual and secular, that that season brings. 

*heart*