15. ANNUAL STAMFORD CHARITIES APPEAL: Please don’t forget to donate for the Charities Appeal. Please make your check payable to the Diocese of Stamford but do not send the check to Stamford, give it to Fr. Iura. We need to get proper credit for our parish’s pledge. We sincerely ask all parishioners to make a generous contribution.

16. PRE-CHRISTMAS FAST: The Philip’s Fast (Pylypivka): We are making the 40-day fast that began on November 15, the day after the feast St. Philip to spiritually prepare Nativity of the Lord. We keep the Philip’s Fast because we believe that doing so it can help us to better understand and appreciate all of God’s saving plan for each of us.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church teaches her faithful that “Penitential fasting practices, repentance and abstinence that aim to satisfy the sins committed and to achieve the highest level of perfection is the oldest tradition in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church” (CCEO: 882, §1). To observe the Fast, we do not eat meat or foods containing meat on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Definitions: Abstinence means that we do not eat a certain type of food, for example meat and oil, or any other foods that have that as an ingredient. Fasting means that we eat less food. Those exempt from fasting and abstinence: children under the age of 14; adults over the age of 60; those who are gravely ill, pregnant women, post-partum mothers, breast-feeding mothers, travelers (if travel time exceeds 8 hours), those engaged in heavy labor, those who eat from the table of others, the poor who live from charity.

Further reading: The Winter Pascha (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press) by Thomas Hopko.

17. SUMA FEDERAL CREDIT UNION: 555 George St., New Haven, CT.  Business hours: Tuesday, 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., Saturday, 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Phone 203-785-8805; fax: 203-785-8677.