Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church
Publish Date: 2025-02-16
Bulletin Contents

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Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church

General Information

  • Phone:
  • (228) 388-6138
  • Street Address:

  • 255 Beauvoir Rd.

  • Biloxi, MS 39531


Contact Information




Services Schedule

Service schedule varies.  The current schedule can be found in the bulletin or parish website.

 


Past Bulletins


Father Paisius McGrath, Presbyter

Glory to Jesus Christ! Greetings to the faithful members and families of Holy Trinity.  May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ continue to bless and guide us as we live out our faith everyday!

This morning we celebrate the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. In today's Gospel Reading from Saint Luke 15:11-32 we hear this parable teaching us about the sin and repentance of the younger son, the father's unconditional love, and the older son who was unwilling to forgive his brother. This parable teaches us about the need for repentance, journey back to God, and the necessity of practicing forgiveness. We hear this parable at this point in the preparation for Great Lent for a reminder of these themes as necessary as we enter this season. We all must undergo the journey of spiritual return to God in repentance, knowing that our God awaits our return with His great love. This spiritual return requires us to have repentance in our hearts and forgiveness for those who have wronged us. Only then will Great Lent be truly a time of spiritual growth and a return to the our Heavenly Father!

            Your Pastor,

            Father Paisius R. McGrath 

 

 

  

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Gospel and Epistle Readings

Epistle Reading

Prokeimenon. 1st Tone. Psalm 32.22,1.
Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us.
Verse: Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous.

The reading is from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians 6:12-20.

Brethren, "all things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything. "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food" -- and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two shall become one flesh." But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body and in your spirit which belong to God.


Gospel Reading

Sunday of the Prodigal Son
The Reading is from Luke 15:11-32

The Lord said this parable: "There was a man who had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.' And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his belly with the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.' And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to make merry. Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound.' But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, 'Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!' And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'"


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Saints and Feasts

February 16

Sunday of the Prodigal Son

Through the parable of today's Gospel, our Saviour has set forth three things for us: the condition of the sinner, the rule of repentance, and the greatness of God's compassion. The divine Fathers have put this reading the week after the parable of the Publican and Pharisee so that, seeing in the person of the Prodigal Son our own wretched condition -- inasmuch as we are sunken in sin, far from God and His Mysteries -- we might at last come to our senses and make haste to return to Him by repentance during these holy days of the Fast.

Furthermore, those who have wrought many great iniquities, and have persisted in them for a long time, oftentimes fall into despair, thinking that there can no longer be any forgiveness for them; and so being without hope, they fall every day into the same and even worse iniquities. Therefore, the divine Fathers, that they might root out the passion of despair from the hearts of such people, and rouse them to the deeds of virtue, have set the present parable at the forecourts of the Fast, to show them the surpassing goodness of God's compassion, and to teach them that there is no sin -- no matter how great it may be -- that can overcome at any time His love for man.


February 17

Theodore the Tyro, the Great Martyr

Saint Theodore who was from Amasia of Pontus, contested during the reign of Maximian (286-305). He was called Tyro, from the Latin Tiro, because he was a newly enlisted recruit. When it was reported that he was a Christian, he boldly confessed Christ; the ruler, hoping that he would repent, gave him time to consider the matter more completely and then give answer. Theodore gave answer by setting fire to the temple of Cybele, the "mother of the gods," and for this he suffered a martyr's death by fire. See also the First Saturday of the Fast.


February 23

Polycarp the Holy Martyr & Bishop of Smyrna

This apostolic and prophetic man, and model of faith and truth, was a disciple of John the Evangelist, successor of Bucolus (Feb. 6), and teacher of Irenaeus (Aug. 23). He was an old man and full of days when the fifth persecution was raised against the Christians under Marcus Aurelius. When his pursuers, sent by the ruler, found Polycarp, he commanded that they be given something to eat and drink, then asked them to give him an hour to pray; he stood and prayed, full of grace, for two hours, so that his captors repented that they had come against so venerable a man. He was brought by the Proconsul of Smyrna into the stadium and was commanded, "Swear by the fortune of Caesar; repent, and say, 'Away with the atheists.'" By atheists, the Proconsul meant the Christians. But Polycarp, gazing at the heathen in the stadium, waved his hand towards them and said, "Away with the atheists." When the Proconsul urged him to blaspheme against Christ, he said: "I have been serving Christ for eighty-six years, and He has wronged me in nothing; how can I blaspheme my King Who has saved me?" But the tyrant became enraged at these words and commanded that he be cast into the fire, and thus he gloriously expired about the year 163. As Eusebius says, "Polycarp everywhere taught what he had also learned from the Apostles, which also the Church has handed down; and this alone is true" (Eccl. Hist., Book IV, ch. 14,15).


February 21

Timothy the Righteous

Saint Timothy took up the monastic life from his youth, became a vessel of the Holy Spirit, and reposed in deep old age.


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Hymns of the Day

Resurrectional Apolytikion in the 1st Tone

The stone had been secured with a seal by the Judeans, * and a guard of soldiers was watching Your immaculate body. * You rose on the third day, O Lord * and Savior, granting life unto the world. * For this reason were the powers of heaven crying out to You, O Life-giver: * Glory to Your resurrection, O Christ; * glory to Your eternal rule; * glory to Your dispensation, only One who loves mankind.

Seasonal Kontakion in the 3rd Tone

O Father, foolishly I ran away from Your glory, and in sin, squandered the riches You gave me. Wherefore, I cry out to You with the voice of the Prodigal, "I have sinned before You Compassionate Father. Receive me in repentance and take me as one of Your hired servants."
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Wisdom of the Fathers

Thank God every day with your whole heart for having given to you life according to His image and likeness - an intelligently free and immortal life...Thank Him also for again daily bestowing life upon you, who have fallen an innumerable multitude of times, by your own free will, through sins, from life unto death, and that He does so as soon as you only say from your whole heart: 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee!' (Luke 15:18).
St. John of Kronstadt
My Life in Christ: Part 1; Holy Trinity Monastery pgs. 104-105, 19th century

But if he had despaired of his life, and, ... had remained in the foreign land, he would not have obtained what he did obtain, but would have been consumed with hunger, and so have undergone the most pitiable death: ...
St. John Chrysostom
AN EXHORTATION TO THEODORE AFTER HIS FALL, 4th Century

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Upcoming Services and Events

  • Upcoming Services and Events

    February 16 to February 24, 2025

    Sunday, February 16

    Sunday of Prodigal Son

    9:30AM Orthros

    10:00AM Divine Liturgy

    12:30PM Catechumen Class

    Wednesday, February 19

    NO GREAT VESPERS

    10:00AM Saidi Maloof - Family Visitation

    10:30AM Saidi Maloof - Public Visitation

    11:00AM Saidi Maloof - Funeral Start

    Saturday, February 22

    NO GREAT VESPERS

    Sunday, February 23

    Meatfare Sunday

    Sunday of Last Judgement

    9:30AM Orthros

    10:00AM Divine Liturgy and Memorial Service to All Departed

    11:45AM Catechumen Class

    Monday, February 24

    Finding of the Head of John the Baptist

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Announcements

BIRTHDAYS
 
This morning we extend our best wishes and congratulations to Rachel Millam as she celebrates her birthday on February 17, to Malama Thrasivoulou as she celebrates her birthday on February 18, to Ben Warden as he celebrates his birthday on February 18, and to Nataliya Molsbee as she celebrates her birthday on February 19. May the Lord our God bless His servants, Rachel, Malama, Ben and Nataliya, and may He grant to them many more blessed and happy years!

 

  
ANNOUNCEMENTS
 
Our faithful parishioner and friend, Saidi Maloof, reposed in the Lord on Friday, February 14 after a long illness. May the Lord our God grant a blessed repose to His newly departed servant, Saidi, and may her memory be eternal!
 
Visitation for family and friends of Saidi Maloof will be at Holy Trinity on Wednesday, February 19: Visitation for family 10:00-10:30 a.m, Visitation for friends and parishioners 10:30-11:00 a.m, Orthodox Funeral Service 11:00 a.m. followed by burial in Long Beach. Let us join together in prayer for the newly departed servant of God, Saidi, and pray for the Maloof family in this time.
 
House Blessing will continue until the end of February. Please contact Father Paisius as soon as possible to have your home blessed before Lent.
 
Next Sunday, February 23 we will have Memorial Service for all the departed of our Parish and our families. We ask that each family please hand in the red Memorial booklets so that we can remember all our departed friends and loved ones. We will also have Memorial Services on Saturday, March 1 and Saturday, March 8 on the Soul Saturdays.
 
This year during Great Lent we will be having a Parish Bible study on Thursday evenings each week. Please be on the lookout in the bulletin in the coming weeks about this, and come and join us.
 
We offer a reminder this morning that printed copies of the Parish February schedule are available as are the Archdiocesan calendars in the narthex and side entrance.
 
We are rapidly approaching Great Lent, so we ask that those who have not yet asked to have their homes blessed, please do so as soon as possible.  Contact Father Paisius to schedule your House Blessing.

 

 The Ministry of Holy Trinity is enabled, thanks be to God, by the faithful support of the following stewards of our Parish:
 
Abrahem Samander
Adam & Shauna Angel
Akaterina Vamvakas
Alijah King
Angelos and Elizabeth Vamvakas
Carl & Nancy Malek
Chrissanthi Beach
Colleen Collins
Crystal & Cassidy Anderson
Edward S. Maikranz
Eleni Vganges
George & Sheila Yurchak
George J. Vaporis
George L. Contas
Irene Koskan
John & Donna Collins
Louis and Linda Peters
Malama Thrasivoulou
Mihnea C. & Viorica M Ionescu
Nada D Harris
Nataliya Petrovska Kirkby
Nicoletta Conner
Panagiotis "Peter" & Maria Loukatos
Rodney and Karen Bridges
Seth Willison
Spiro Vganges
Tim Gilmore
William Patrick Weaver
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Bulletin

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