Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever!
10th Sunday after Pentecost
August 17, 2025
Sat 8/16/25 4:00pm Vigil Divine Liturgy +John Kavchak by Drew Moniot
Sun 8/17/25 9:30am Divine Liturgy +Robert Hutnick by Paulette, Debbie & Dawn
Wed 8/20/25 7:00pm Liturgy for Healing +Fr. Sylvan Capatini by Marian Luther
Fri 8/22/25 7:00pm Moleben to Jesus
Sat 8/23/25 4:00pm Vigil Divine Liturgy +Tim Hayes by Marian Luther
Sun 8/24/25 9:30am Divine Liturgy +Irene Simko by Peggy Figler
Variable Parts Tone 1 - Pages 125 - 127
Epistle 1 Corinthians 4:9-16
Gospel Matthew 17:14-23
Memorial Candle Request: No Candle Request
Epistle Readers 16-Aug John Baycura/Mary Motko 17-Aug Kathy Moyta 23-Aug Mary Troyan 24-Aug Eva Babick
Please Pray for: Deanna Shpakof, Brian Buchkovich, Lejen Warner, Sharon King, Ole J. Bergh, Liz Moyta, Fr. Michael Huszti, Fr. Laska, Susie Curcio, Teresa Milkovich, Robert Saper, Anna Habil, Martha Sapar, Mike Dancisin, Karen Smaretsky Vavro, Diane Sotak, Anna Pocchiari, Larry Hamil, Beverly Jones, Marilyn Book, Maryann Russin Schyvers, Nick Russin and Ken Konchan
Attendance: 8/5 — 17; 8/6 — 23; 8/9 — 24; 8/10 — 76; Collection: 8/5 thru 8/10 - $1,975.00
Honoring the Theotokos: During August and September, we honor/venerate The Blessed Mother because of the Feast Days celebrated — the Dormition and her Birth. Help us honor her by sharing your favorite icon of the Theotokos. It can be of her image or a feast day. They will be displayed in the Church Windows. Stands will be provided if needed. Remember to put your name on the back so we know who it belongs to. Place your icon at any window you like. Labels are available on the readers lectern if you need one.
Church Picnic: The Church Picnic will be held on Sunday, August 24th. We will, once again, be playing Bingo! Please consider donating prizes! The more prizes.. .the more games we can have! We will need prizes for both kids and adults. Please wrap the gifts and mark as adult or kid. Thank you so much! Questions... .see Amanda Stavish. The picnic will be held at Connoquenessing Park. The address is: 228 Constitution Ave. Connoquenessing, PA 16027
Student Food Pantry: Our parish will begin collecting food for school age children. Each month will be a different food item. For August, it will be soups, and the donations can be placed in the baskets supplied. Any questions, contact Pam Gagen.
Shoe Box Kids: Attention back to school shoppers, don't forget to buy extra school supplies for the Shoe Box Kids. The kids need school supplies, clothing, underwear, hats, gloves, toiletry items, etc. No liquid or toothpaste, please. The children are ages 2-14. There will be a box in the vestibule for you to place your items in, which our Religious Education students will pack in distribution boxes in November as part of their social services project.
Polka Party 50/50 Tickets: Please pickup your 50/50 tickets in the vestibule. If you do not find your name, use a blank envelope from the back of the box and ask us to add you to the mailing list. Last year's winner received over $600.00! Envelopes of tickets which are not picked up will be mailed.
Upcoming Event Dates: 1. The Polka Ball will be held Saturday, September 6th at the Highfield Community Center, which is a new venue for this event. 2. Our church rummage sale will take place on October 10th and 11 th. Donations may be dropped off September 28th — October 5th.
On Saturday, September 27. from 9 AM to 2 PM, American Red Cross will be holding an event in Butler Township called Sound the Alarm. The purpose of this event is to eliminate fire deaths in Pennsylvania by making sure all homes have smoke alarms. Red Cross volunteers will assemble at the Meridian Fire Station that day and will be divided into teams of 2 or 3 people who will then go to homes who have called in to request the free alarms. The teams will install smoke alarms on every floor and will be able to install four FREE smoke alarms in the homes.
All team member will have the American Red Cross vest to identify themselves. There is no cost to the residents as the smoke alarms have been provided by the sponsors. We are teaming up with the Butler Township Volunteer Fire District on this event. If the residents cannot be available on September 27, we will make other arrangements to find a workable schedule. The phone number to call is 724 480 3170.
There is more at stake in hospitality than meets the eye. The realm of hosting is a privileged context for discovering and enacting our human identity, which means also our divine calling. And home will always be the central place of hospitality. Guests are sent from the gods: such is a recurring theme in Homer. This is heightened by a Christian parallel in the Benedictine tradition: Hospes venit, Christus venit. When a guest comes, Christ comes. This astounding notion, as challenging as it is thrilling, calls for close consideration.
Perhaps first it makes us wonder why; why is there a close identification of guest and the divine? Why does God give us this opportunity and even demand in some sense that we receive one another in hospitality? Surely there are rich veins of considering this from the perspective of the command to "love one another as I have loved you." I want to consider a more humble aspect, though one certainly related to the deepest theological meaning. Hospitality in the home is a divinely ordained opportunity for a household to discover and enact who we are precisely by 'showing' our guests who they are.
Here I think of a mother welcoming her baby into the world. I love to recount the life-changing experience I had (just by watching!) when my wife would speak to our just-born child. As she smiled and looked into the face of the newborn, she fairly breathed life into the child by the very warmth of her welcome. In that moment our child recognized his or her identity, and in some sense will never forget it. I am welcome; I belong; this is my home.
Hospitality is an opportunity to echo what was, or could have been, conveyed first at that moment. "You are welcome; you belong; our home is your home—even if just for a brief spell." And in a sense hospitality can go further through added overtones. "Whoever you are, wherever you have been, whatever you have done, welcome!"
A central underpinning of the customs of hospitality is the conviction that simply by virtue of being human you are worthy of special treatment. And further, you are a wayfarer, on the way to somewhere very important. You are not at home right now. This home of ours, even though it is not an ultimate place of rest, we want to share with you. Let us be together for a while, as we offer you what sustanence and refreshement we can.
Our home can be the first and uniquely powerful embodied experience—for us and for many others—of that for which we are made: heaven.
For what is heaven if not a home? And what is our home, if not a foretaste of heaven?
