I hope and trust that all of you have had a very happy and prayerful Thanksgiving 2022, our opportunity as a nation to offer our thankfulness to Almighty God for our many blessings.

This month has indeed been a very busy time for all of us at St. Herman’s with our two drive-by festivals which have again proven to be so successful and rewarding. The beauty of these festivals is the relationships that have developed over the years not only among our parishioners but with the community at large. Hundreds, if not thousands, have availed themselves of the many foods we have prepared for the benefit of our church.  Truly this is indeed a blessing from Our Heavenly Father!

Also this month we have been personally blessed with a new granddaughter, Mila, born November 6, 2022 to my daughter Alixandra and her husband Matt. For me this month marks a milestone in my own life, having celebrated my 70th Birthday on November 10th, something that I am extremely appreciative to Almighty God for His help and blessings.

This week our gospel lesson is taken from the Evangelist Luke concerning Jesus’ healing of a crippled Woman. Jesus often met people in His ministry who had various physical handicaps and infirmities.  The most important point is that Jesus did not treat people with disabilities any differently from anyone else.  He loves all of us and He approached them not as disabled persons but as persons with a disability.  That makes a tremendous difference.

The leader of the synagogue was indignant along with the others because Jesus had healed this woman on the Sabbath.  He then rebuked them for being hypocrites!   It is not unusual for those who profess to be Christians to sometimes condemn or denigrate people.  This is not Christian! We must become humble enough, amenable enough to all light from above to admit, with joy and gratitude the good that can be done through other channels than those which, rightly or wrongly, we consider “proper”.

May God make us able, when faced by any “healing on the Sabbath”, to feel what the people who surrounded Jesus felt at this miracle, rejoicing for all the glorious things that were done by Him and are still being done by Him through the Holy Church!