Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory to Him forever! I pray that your Pascha has been blessed! As we celebrate Pentecost, I want to bring you an update on the work of the Holy Spirit through this ministry of the Church, which you help make possible.
;)
On May 13, Sunday of the Blind Man, Thomas Browning, one of our catechumens through the ministry this year, came to holy illumination. Thomas began journeying to the Faith in September after arriving at St. John’s College for his freshman year.
No conversion can be a merely intellectual exercise: it’s one thing to know the truth, another thing to own it and strive to apply it to your daily life in Christ. While catechizing Thomas this year and meeting with him every week, I was privileged to observe this transformation in him and many of the other students participating in the ministry at St. John’s and the Naval Academy. In holy Orthodoxy we call this ‘metanoia’ (Gk. for ‘repentance’), a constant, moment by moment re-orientation toward God. This is what it means to be deified and come to participate in the life of the Holy Trinity.
The services throughout the week on campus, the weekly individual meetings and group book studies, Bible studies, and fellowship nights are all geared toward helping these students with the most important issue in their lives—their formation in Christ! This is the time in their lives when they are being formed—one way or the other—into the men and women they will become. This is where are future leaders are formed and where the next generation is shaped.
Lauren Cooper, another of the five students who have come to holy Orthodoxy this year, will be chrismated Pentecost Sunday. Please keep both her and Thomas in your prayers!
Now, as another Plebe Summer begins (the incoming class of midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy are called Plebes) we need your prayers and financial support to continue to build this ministry and reach more students for the sake of the Gospel and the holy Orthodox Faith.
Thank you for your faithful support and your share in this work that God is doing on the campuses of Annapolis through His Holy Spirit!