Before we tell the story of what is happening in our Church today, I want to take us all back 14 years ago. At 5:52 PM on August 24th, 2007, destruction struck our little town of Fenton, Michigan. A F2 tornado touched down in the heart of the downtown area taking down trees, destroying properties, business, and leaving several families homeless as their houses were turned into a pile of scrap. On our own little property, still 8 months from construction being completed on our little Church, there were fallen trees that littered the property. Through a lot of hard work and prayer, our Lord worked through my predecessor Fr. Paul Jannakos, along with several members of the parish, to take those fallen trees, mill them, and use the wood to create a beautiful Iconostasis that rises up before us when we come into the Church to pray.

True and full happiness and satisfaction cannot be found in the world…but only in the love of God

Over the past weeks we have been on a journey as well, following in the footsteps of our Lord and Savior as He travels to Jerusalem and to His Passion. In a couple of weeks we will celebrate His triumphant entry into Jerusalem as Christ passed through the streets to the adoration of the fickle crowd that will demand His crucifixion less than a week later. This is a journey that the authors of the Gospels ask us to take along with Jesus and His small band of followers; a trip that faith demands us to take not to experience the adulation of Jesus’ arrival into the city but rather to stand together at the foot of the cross with the few followers who refused to abandon Him in what looked like His darkest hour.

If we could do nothing more in our faith, than learn what it truly means to be loved by God and let that shape the way we see the world, it would be the most significant achievement and the most magnificent blessing of this life. But so often, we don’t do that. We play a little game that I am sure all of us remember and probably had done at some point in our lives, where we take a flower, and without counting whether there are an even or odd number of petals, we pick one and say: “He loves me”…and then another…”He loves me not”.

What makes icons different? In them, we recognize heaven. We feel God’s Grace working through them. Icons act as this instrument which takes us from the depths of the fallen world and provides a window into the kingdom.