March 23rd, 2025
Always a Spiritual Focus, First
Dearest Parish Families,
This week’s good and helpful lesson is how to measure ourselves and how to pace ourselves.
Fasting during Great Lent is about our practicing discipline and getting away from our distracting and unconscious habits. In fact, fasting and Great Lent are about helping us stay conscious: conscious of God increasingly, conscious of our faith in our lives daily.
And while we are getting used to fasting in this period, we now approach the third week of fasting, which is also our exact half-way mark in our total time of Great Lent. This is exactly why our Church commemorates on this Sunday the Elevation of the Holy Cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified.
The purpose of the Holy Cross here is to give us a visual image and reminder of strength, to stop on this day and commemorate the Cross, if we are half-way through and perhaps beginning to get tired of fasting. The Cross is there for us as a reminder of why we are doing this fasting and how to take strength from this, and to keep going for the final half of the Great Fast. No matter what we personally go through in our fasting, none of it dares compare to the sacrifices Jesus made in dying for us. Now, that’s a good perspective.
So, let us take energy in commemorating the Elevation of the Holy Cross, allowing its symbol to rejuvenate us, to refocus us with strength to keep going in our deprivations and increase our resolve.
Faithfully, Father Samaras
6th Morning Orthros Gospel
On March 23rd, we commemorate the holy Martyr Nicon and the 199 Martyrs who were his disciples; Saint Dometios; the holy New Monastic Martyr Luke witnessed in Mytilene in the year 1802; And today, the third Sunday of Lent, we celebrate the veneration of the precious and life-giving Cross.

2025 PARISH COUNCIL
President - Theo Christ
Vice President – Yvonne Anastasiou
Secretary – Dina Mastoras
Parish Council Member - Evdokia Sofos
Parish Council Member - Dialecti Voudouris
Parish Council Member - Anastassios Mentis
Parish Council Member – Paula Refolo
Parish Council Member - Theodore Vougiouklakis
Parish Council Member - Mike Anastasiou