Happy Birthday, Fr. Michael
Every visit to Christ the Savior Mission is full of joy and blessings. The trip on Transfiguration day 2006 was no exception. One of the highlights of the visit was seeing and talking with June of St. Andrew Orthodox Church. It was she and Stephanie who convinced me to run for the office of Secretary of the parish many years ago. With two beautiful women in my face, how could I say no?
A factor is making the trip was a conversation with Nick of St. Andrew Orthodox Church. My biggest concern was the mileage on my car and Nick told me that since I had the transmission replaced, the car should be good for another 100,000 miles. I also had an oil change Friday. That was an interesting experience at Jippy Lube on Merritt Blvd in Dundalk. It was worth going there just to meet Sandy.
But I did not have to drive. Maria came down from Pennsylvania and she drove. I just navigated. I had Mapquest to get us from Interstate 95 to the church. Maria also knew part of the directions. I used an alternate route between downtown Baltimore and Interstate 95 south of the DC Beltway. We took the Washington-Baltimore Parkway both directions. It saved us ten miles and we did not have to deal with the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
It was a real blessing serving on the altar and also taking photographs. God has given each of us talents and to me to be able to combine two talents to serve God is awesome. Even more awesome is the fact that I can share these photographs with you.
We had the Liturgy and immediately after the Liturgy we had a the blessing of fruits and the food. As usually, the food was fantastic. But then, what Orthodox church does not have good food?
Another treat was having Fr. John Stefero serving with us. Fr. John is a chaplain in the United States Air Force and is stationed at Bolling AFB DC. Oh, how I wish that I was still a chaplain in the Civil Air Patrol. Then we would have had two Air Force chaplains serving together.
Besides Fr. Michael, several people from Christ the Savior and Holy Cross had birthdays around this time. Mine was only two and a half weeks earlier. The whole staff (except the priest) at Holy Cross are celebrating birthdays now and Fr. Michael and I are both friends of Holy Cross. I am really happy that I went to Vespers at Holy Cross. Had I gone to my own parish, I would had missed all the readings because Holy Trinity is on the old calendar. All the other major churches in Baltimore are on the new calendar.
Fr. John gave a rather lengthy sermon but it was really good. He tied in this feast with the Old Testament and suddenly all the readings that I heard the previous night at Holy Cross made much more sense.
Afterwards Fr. Michael gave us a tour of the new facility next door. It is beautiful and I hope that the parish will be able to use it soon for meals after the Liturgy. But most important, we are very grateful to the Episcopal Church for making the facilities available to us. Archbishop Dmitri had said that whenever we need something, we could always turn to the Episcopal Church and this is so true. Our other friend is the Catholic Church. Many Orthodox parishes were able to get started because of help from either the Catholic Church or the Episcopal Church. Instead of calling them names, we need to pray for them and to reach out to their members, especially to those who felt left behind with all the modern changes in those two churches.
Fr. Michael also gave us a tour of the house where he is staying. If I had the money and wanted to move into that area, I would definitely buy it. But I personally do not want to live in a gated or exclusive neighborhood. I also want to be able to walk to an eatery.
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You are visitor # since Monday 7 August 2006. Page revised Friday 12 January 2007.