104th Visit ~ and still loving it!

My daughter's art Work
see more at:  http://halfeatencandybars.deviantart.com/

I missed Vespers last week because my wife and I were in Georgia watching my daughter graduate with honors from Savannah College of Art and Design.  It was great to see my daughter start down a path of doing something she loves!  Now, all she needs is a job.  If you know someone who needs artwork done, let me know. She majored in Sequential Arts which is just a fancy way of saying comic books. She is fantastic, as you can see from a sample of her work above.

Whenever I miss Vespers, it seems God is always gracious to me and allows me to quickly "get back into the swing of things" and I find I can easily enter into worship. I decided, when I walked into the nave, that I wasn't going to take a service book. After all, I know most of the responses already and the hymns that are specific for the day, I'll just pay close attention to.  Today, we learned about the blind man healed by Jesus and the hymns talked about how the disciples asked who sinned? so that this man was born blind. Of course, the reply is, it was all for the glory of God!

Father Gary gave his homily on the epistle reading, or, more accurately, the reading from the book of Acts. It was about the demon possessed girl who gave a great deal of profit for her handlers, as Father Gary called them. Of course, after St. Paul cast out the demon, she was not profitable to her owners anymore so the disciples were in trouble. Fr. Gary pointed out that it is important the motivation we have when worshiping God.  This demon possessed girl was saying correct things about Paul, that is, he was from God. Yet, the girl did not say it from a good motivation so Paul, annoyed by her, cast out the demon.  We must make sure that  we have the right attitutde when we worship Christ and not our own agenda. After all, many televangelists say glowing things about Jesus yet it is clear they have their own agenda at heart.

Next week, I will be going to a graduation party of  the son of a very close friend so I won't be at Vespers next Saturday either.

A bummer, but, don't worry, I'll be back! I promise!