{"id":2127,"date":"2016-12-29T23:29:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T06:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/?p=2127"},"modified":"2016-12-29T23:29:46","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T06:29:46","slug":"pastoral-letter-january-1-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/?p=2127","title":{"rendered":"Pastoral Letter January 1, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>\u201cWe glorify the Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son, from the conviction that He is not separated from the Divine Nature; for that which is foreign by nature does not share in the same honors.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n<em><strong> \u2013 St. Basil the Great<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,<br \/>\nChrist is Born!<br \/>\nGlorify Him!<br \/>\nI pray that everyone enjoyed a blessed Christmas and is looking forward to a Happy New Year! This coming Sunday is not only the First Day of 2017, it is also the Feast of St. Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great. St. Basil was the Greek bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia and was a contemporary of St. Nicholas of Myra, though St. Nicholas was only a deacon by the time St. Basil was already a bishop.<br \/>\nOf course, anyone from Greece can tell you that it is not St. Nicholas who brings gifts and toys to good boys and girls on Christmas Day, but rather St. Basil on January 1st. This tradition developed as he would place coins and valuables inside of breads and then distribute them to the poor. Like St. Nicholas, he is well-regarded for his generosity and creativity in philanthropic work. Of course, St. Basil, as one of the \u201cDoctors of the Church,\u201d is regarded more for his theology than his kind endeavors.<br \/>\nI look forward to seeing you all this Sunday as we commemorate this well-loved and prolific hierarch of the Church.<br \/>\nThe following Sunday, directly following our Teaching Divine Liturgy (please refer to last week\u2019s Pastoral Message for details), we will gather in the Fellowship Hall for our annual Vasilopita Celebration where pieces of \u201cSt. Basil\u2019s Bread\u201d will be given in honor of all the ministries and organizations of our parish, and where an auction for individual breads will take place. This is one of the most enjoyable traditions in our Greek Orthodox Church.<br \/>\nIn remembrance of St. Basil\u2019s placing of coins in his breads, a single coin is baked into each Vasilopita, with the recipient of the coin enjoying special blessings throughout the New Year.<br \/>\nRemember, we don\u2019t say \u201cgood luck\u201d in the church \u2013 we say \u201cblessings!\u201d<br \/>\nPlease enjoy a blessed remainder of 2016. Our New Year\u2019s Eve-Eve Party is shaping up to be a wonderful gathering (thank you Barbara Hillas), and next week I look forward to sharing some thoughts about the coming celebration of Theophany and our practice of House and Business Blessings.<br \/>\nHappy New Year and God Bless,<br \/>\nFr. Anthony<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWe glorify the Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son, from the conviction that He is not separated from the Divine Nature; for that which is foreign by nature does not share in the same honors.\u201d \u2013 St. Basil the Great Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Christ is Born! Glorify Him! I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastoral-letter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2128,"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions\/2128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stannagocutah.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}