Things to do during Advent

Unlike what we do during Lent, the Orthodox Church doesn't prescribe a lot of activities during the Nativity Fast (aka Advent).  So, I was happy to find this list on the website of Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Suggestions for the Nativity Fast

The Nativity Fast is a gift that reminds us to slow down and be purposeful about how we are living these days leading up to the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord.

• Pray for people: prepare a list of names, and once a week or more frequently pray the Supplicatory Canon to the Theotokos, or a portion of it. Ask the Theotokos to help those people.
• Each week as you set aside the proportion of your funds to give to the Church in thanksgiving to God and for the operation of the parish, also set aside a portion to give to the poor. Then give it.
• Celebrate the Feast of St. Nicholas (San Anselmo, Dec. 6) which spiritually ushers us—with joyful exuberance—into the Nativity season. 
• Celebrate the Feast of St. Herman of Alaska, December 13 (here at the Cathedral).
• Fast from meat, eggs, cheese, and all dairy. Abstaining from particular foods is really the easiest part of the fast. Much more effort is required when fasting from anger, criticism, resentments, and wandering thoughts, especially those of lust and envy and wasting time in idleness and pointless entertainments. Even more effort is required when we engage in works of mercy to the needy.
• Attend Vigil on Saturday evening, and by doing so, prepare yourself for Communion on Sunday. Confess at least twice during the Forty Day Fast, one of those times in the week prior to Christmas.
• Volunteer at one of the many charitable institutions in our city.
• In the week before Christmas read the Nativity accounts from St. Matthew and St. Luke to your children.

Schedules, A Date, Prayers, and Bible Reading

I had been taking the boys with me to church on Saturday nights and then taking them to Pizza on Monday nights.  Pizza night was a tradition from almost as long as we lived in Willow Glen, and I wanted to keep it alive for the boys.  Saturday's were always hard.  My ex-wife always saw other things as more important than the Saturday night vigil: "It's okay for them to miss tonight. They'll be Orthodox their whole life!"  After she kicked me out we decided that I would take the boys with me on Saturday nights, and she would take them with her on Sunday mornings.   But almost every week she would text me and say the boys had other plans on Saturday night, and I would think to myself, "well, at least they are going on Sunday."  But then I would hear that they did something else on Sunday.  It was very frustrating for me.  About a month ago I said to her, "How would you feel if I cancelled yout plans with the boys?" She didn't say anything to me then but about two weeks ago she sent me a text saying that Saturday nights don't work for her because the boys often have Boy Scout or social activities on those nights.  And she asked me if I would like Sunday instead.  So, the boys have been to the Divine Liturgy with me the last two Sundays, and it has been good.

On Monday night Basil Wenceslas and I went to pizza while Anselm Samuel had his first date.  He walked home from school with a girl, stopping at Starbucks on the way.  I was alarmed when his mother told me about this.  I added the girl to my prayer list.  I told Anselm he should invite her to Church and pizza night.

Beginning yesterday, I began driving to their house to chant the morning prayers with the boys, and then drive them to school. Today I added Bible reading.  We each read Psalm 1 aloud to each other and talked about it.  I think we'll read one of the 5 books of the Psalms, then read a Gospel, until we have read all the Psalms and Gospels. 

A Reason to be Thankful

I had a heart-warming conversation this morning.  I was talking with a member of the U.S. grand jury for the district and asked if he had ever voted to not indict.  (The prosecutors only take cases to the grand jury if the evidence is overwhelming.)  This juror said, yes, he had disregarded the judges instructions and had twice refused to indict because he thought the law was immoral.  It made me proud of the Anglo-American system of justice.  I am greatly thankful to be be living in this tradition and not in the tyrannies of other lands.





If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence...If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision.
4th Circuit Court of Appeals, United States v. Moylan, 1969



[The jury has an] unreviewable and irreversible power...to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge...The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted evidence and instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law.
D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Unites States v. Dougherty, 1972

    'You're not concerned with the law, Members of the Jury,' I told them, 'you are concerned with justice!'
    'That is a quite outrageous thing to say! On the admitted facts of this case, Mr O'Higgins is clearly guilty!' His Honour Judge Graves had decided but the honest twelve would have to return the verdict and I spoke to them. 'A British judge has no power to direct a British jury to find a defendant guilty! I know that much at least.'
    'I shall tell the Jury that he is guilty in law, I warn you.' Graves's warning was in vain. I carried on regardless.
    'His Lordship may tell you that to his heart's content. As a great Lord Chief Justice of England, a judge superior in rank to any in this Court, once said, "It is the duty of the Judge to tell you as a jury what to do, but you have the power to do exactly as you like." And what you do, Members of the Jury, is a matter entirely between God and your own consciences....'
Horace Rumpole [John Mortimer, "Rumpole à la Carte," The Third Rumpole Omnibus, Penguin Books, 1998, p.265]