Greetings, as we celebrate the feast of St Patrick according to the patristic calendar, and we especially pray for the blessings of the feast on our brothers and sisters in Belfast and Stradbally!
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig ort!
Troparion, Tone 3: Holy Bishop Patrick, faithful shepherd of Christ’s royal flock, thou didst fill Ireland with the radiance of the Gospel: the mighty strength of the Trinity! Now that thou standest before the Saviour, pray that He may preserve us in faith and love!
Kontakion, Tone 4: From slavery thou didst escape to freedom in Christ’s service: he sent thee to deliver Ireland from the devil’s bondage. Thou didst plant the Word of the Gospel in pagan hearts. In thy journeys and hardships thou didst rival the Apostle Paul! Having received the reward for thy labours in heaven, never cease to pray for the flock thou hast gathered on earth, O Holy Bishop Patrick!
Though we are unable to use St John’s for a public service during the day on Saturday, I will, nevertheless, serve a panikhida for the departed.
In addition to the departed in the parish commemoration books, I ask that any further names of departed Orthodox Christians are either Facebook-messaged, emailed, or left in the Facebook comments beneath this posting.
Names of non-Orthodox loved ones and friends may also be sent, for the moleben to St Varus.
There is usually a very meagre response to such requests, and I encourage all to take these memorial Saturdays seriously.
On these memorial days, it is the duty of all Orthodox Christians to pray for the departed, and not just the clergy.
As we enter the third week of the Great Fast, we look forward to the Sunday of the Cross, with the Life-Giving Cross, as our encouragement and support at the midpoint of Lent.
However, before the weekend, we will have our weekly catechesis session at the church of St Mary Butetown. Contrary to our announcement in church, this will be at 19:00 on Thursday, as some of those who attend each week wish to support our parishioner, Aleksandra Kenonova, who will be singing in a fund-raising concert in St Edward’s Church, Roath, on Friday, at 19:00 (tickets £10 at the door).
I shall hear confessions from 18:00 before catechesis on Thursday, and on Friday as needed, and ask for requests by Wednesday evening – as in the last few weeks: otetzmark@hotmail.com
Our Sunday celebration in St John’s Church, the Liturgy of St Basil, will follow the Hours at 11:00, with the veneration of the Cross at the end of the Liturgy. Our trapeza – as on the last two Sundays – will allow fasting fare with wine and oil.
May I remind those present that the clergy should not be left to clean and tidy up, as we still have liturgical packing away and tasks to do after a longer than usual Liturgy, and the drive to Llanelli ahead of us.
As we await the arrival of parishioners’ families from Ukraine, let us all be very mindful of our conversations and what we say as we socialise, ensuring that trapeza is a relaxed, warm and hospitable place free from divisive and emotive subjects: a place that is inclusive, where everyone can feel safe, relaxed and included.
The Wonderworking Kursk-Root icon of the Most Holy Mother of God will make its journey to Wales on Friday, and will make a station Chippenham, where a moleben will be served so that the faithful from Wiltshire and Bath will be able to pray and venerate the icon.
Having proceeded to Cardiff, with several further stations, the icon will arrive at St John’s Church shortly before 19:00. Please be in church in time to welcome the icon.
Having welcomed the icon to St John’s, we will serve a moleben and sing the Akathist to the Mother of God, in honour of the Kursk-Root Icon, and we look forward to welcoming the faithful from various parishes and communities, some from beyond Cardiff to be part of this offering of prayer.
The following day the clergy will celebrate a moleben in Prestbury United Reformed Church, Deep St, Cheltenham, GL52 3AW, at 09:00 on Saturday, allowing the local faithful some time for private prayer before the Cardiff clergy take the icon to our ROCOR parish in Telford.
For both services, please prepare commemoration lists for the living, to be presented before the moleben, so that the clergy are able to make your commemorations in the presence of Our Lady’s icon.
We had hoped to make home-visits in the Cheltenham and Gloucester area, but were then given the task of driving the icon to Shropshire by 13:00, so home-visiting will sadly not be an option this time.
I look forward to being with you in honouring the Lord and His Most Pure Mother by welcoming the Kursk-Root Icon of the Sign, which has consoled the faithful since its discovery in the 13th century.
We will join a countless multitude of saints and sovereigns, hierarchs, clergy, monastics, ordinary folk and needy souls who have brought their joys and sorrows, petitions and thanksgiving, worries and hopes to the Lord and the Mother of God, venerating this wonderworking icon with faith and love.
As we celebrate St David’s day according to the Orthodox calendar, I greet you all with the feast, wishing you every joy, praying for God to bless you in fulfilling the saint’s words: ‘Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things…’
It is in doing the seemingly little things that we remain steadfast in our faith and are then able to do the big things.
Real Christianity is not an impressionistic picture painted in approximate, broad and wide brush strokes, but one in which our faith is realised in the small details of living the Gospel in our daily lives, in our families and communities.
This doesn’t mean that there is necessarily something warm and cosey about these little things, as they often challenge us precisely because they are not vague, but exact, close-up and discernible – in action and in omission!
Common parlance likes to say that ‘the devil is in the details’. Maybe, but so too is FAITH, and St David knew that.
Gwnewch y pethau bychain!
This Friday will see the arrival of the wonderworking Kursk-Root icon in Cardiff, and it will be greeted at St John’s Church in Canton for a moleben with the akathist at 19:00.
We ask the faithful to be ready and waiting and not to be late. Treat the reception as the meeting of the Mother of God, who blesses us with the visit of her icon, through which the faithful have been consoled and healed since it was discovered amongst the oaks of Kursk in 1259. The moleben should commence at 19:00, so please try be in church by 18:45.
Church set-up will be from 18:00, and Father Luke will be there, which may allow time for some confessions before the greeting of the icon.
After the moleben and veneration, the icon will proceed to Cheltenham for a service on Saturday, and then to Telford.
Given the travels of the clergy, the only opportunity for confession with me will be during the day on Thursday on the way to London, so I need to receive confession requests NOW.
I also ask that confessions are precise and succinct, as Deacon Mark and I have to go to London on Thursday, to allow an early departure from London on Friday. This is also true of Sunday confessions now that we are celebrating the Liturgy of St Basil and cannot stall service times. This is the only opportunity in the week for those travelling from England, and we need to be able to fit in as many confessions as possible.
Contrary to what was said in church, I need confession requests for by TOMORROW night: otetzmark@hotmail.com
As announced in church on Sunday, the Great Canon of St Andrew is being chanted in Llanelli on the first four evenings of this week in the Chapel of St David and St Nicholas at 19:00.
Additionally, through the good offices of Father Dean and Georgina, we will chant Great Compline with the Great Canon in the church of St Mary Butetown on Wednesday and Thursday, at 19:00.
On Friday, we will continue our catechesis sessions for learners and ‘refreshers’, preceded by a moleben to St Theodore and the blessing of Kolyva. As on past Fridays, this will be in the parish room at St Mary’s at 19:00.
Saturday, being the second of the month, sees us head to Cheltenham to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, with confessions from 09:15 and the Hours at 10:00, followed by Liturgy as soon as confessions have finished. Location: United Reformed Church, Deep Street, Cheltenham. GL52 3AW.
Will all requiring confessions email me by Thursday please, with Thursday and Friday giving opportunity for confession, and Saturday, if needed? Any Cardiff parishioners heading to Cheltenham may confess there, after Liturgy, in preparation for Sunday.
With Sunday being the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, may I ask you all to bring an icon, so that we may make a procession / krestny khod around the church, at the end of Liturgy (weather permitting) to celebrate the restoration of the holy icons in 843.
Services will be in St John’s at the usual time, with confessions from 10:15, and the Hours and Liturgy at 11:00. As we will be celebrating the longer Liturgy of St Basil, it is important that we seek to avoid delay. We understand that those coming distances are unable to confess during the week, which makes it imperative that local parishioners confess before Sunday morning.
During Great Lent, priority will be given to those travelling from outside Wales; those travelling from West Wales; and those who have no possibility of weekday or Saturday confessions.
Please communicate with the clergy, so that we are able to make arrangements so that nobody is excluded.
The last notice is the reminder that the Wonderworking Kursk-Root Icon will be making a brief but very welcome visit to Cardiff on Friday 18th March, with a moleben being celebrated in St John’s at 19:00. We will hold a moleben in Cheltenham the following morning, before the Cardiff clergy take the icon to Telford. The visit may be short, but what a joy it will be to honour the Mother of God by receiving her grace-filled icon.
Now, for the head-masterish Lenten bit:
All should be following the Lenten Fast, whether communing or not, and not following a regimen of their own making. If there are personal obstacles to fasting, they need to be discussed with the priest or spiritual father.
If the fast has been broken this MUST be confessed. There is no self-absolution.
Before communing, the Sunday Fast is to be TOTAL, unless blessed to be otherwise for whatever reason. Despite the late hour of Liturgy and communion, this includes drinking. Again, if there is a problem, talk to the clergy, who are sympathetic and realistic. Again, self-given dispensations are to be avoided, and the usual one is simply defeatism, human weakness, and a self-justified ‘need’.
The Divine Liturgy, is not a ‘drive-by’ event, and unless living at a distance, those communing should be part of the week-by-week life of the Church. If you are local and have not been attending for some time, it is necessary to become part of the worshipping community again before a blessing to receive the Holy Mysteries will be given. This is not intended for our parishioners travelling from England, some of whom cannot make the journey too often, but for those on the doorstep.
According to our fasting traditions, we do not simply turn to sea-food as a Lenten larder. Octopus stew, lobster, crab and tiger prawns are hardly ascetical – whatever may be thought in Mediterranean climes about creatures lacking back-bones This may be normal elsewhere in the Orthodox world, but apart from Lazarus Saturday when ikra/caviar is permitted, and fish on the feast of the Annunciation and Palm Sunday – our Lenten diet should be VEGAN. For those with good reason, economia is applied, but this is given by the Church, not by self-determination and self-dispensation.
Olive oil and wine are permitted on weekends as a consolation with which we celebrate the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day.
Rather than having forty days of dietary substitution (potentially expensive), adults should all be eating as simply and as little as little as possible, unless this is not appropriate due to personal circumstances.
Instead of spending lots of money on substitute foods in the health-food shop or ‘free-from’ aisle of the supermarket, eat cabbage, kasha and potatoes and give the money to support homeless and destitute refugees.
But remember… it is far more important to pray more than eat less! Without this being a season of spiritual struggle and prayer, dietary fasting will have no meaning.
Wishing you all a good struggle during the season.
Here we are on the eve of the Great Fast, at the end of a week which would have normally had a festive character, but this year, few of us have even given a thought to Maslenitsa.
The life of the past week has been blurred by the tears of our communities, and the urgency of prayer has banished other concerns, as our supplications for the suffering Ukrainian people have been focussed by the personal lives and plights of the family members and friends of our parishioners: in Kiev, in Kharkov, in Mariupol, in Odessa and throughout Ukraine.
Doubts may enter our heads in the face of violence, tragedy and suffering, as we question the effectiveness or usefulness of our individual prayers in the geo-political turmoil of the present.
The spider’s web of doubt is the snare to catch us and stop us praying; to stop us struggling; to stop us turning Godwards; at a time when we should struggle through our human weakness by praying as we have never prayed before.
Each of us should pray as if we were the only soul in the world interceding for the Ukrainian people; and each of us should pray as if the whole weight of the Ukrainian land was on our shoulders.
When we pray with such zeal, and urgency, when our prayers are joined with those who pray in Ukraine and throughout the world, then a truly unimaginable force joins earth to heaven, and the power of this prayer is also manifested in how it can change each of us.
The human capacity to love is immense, but so too is the human capacity to hate, and in circumstances like those of today, it is so easy for hate to blind our spiritual eyes, and to deafen our ears to Christ’s command to love.
Hate dehumanises, and consequentially causes us to dehumanise, so that we no longer see the image and likeness of God in others, and it is in this dehumanised blindness and deafness that human beings simply become ‘collateral damage’.
The passions may boil and rise, so that we are subtly but effectively penetrated by the same dark, sinful forces manifest in the violent actions of others. We simply hide our violence and murderous feelings within our thoughts and in a darkening and hardening heart, in which the Light of Christ is smothered by hate, vengeance and intolerance.
As we see great suffering, as strong feelings and reactions are stirred within us, in praying for all caught up in the present tragedy, we must surrender ourselves to God, to allow Him to take us on what may seem an impossible journey to forgiveness, mercy and compassion, as the present events and our fallen instincts pull us in contrary directions.
We must heed the holy fathers in the strict custody of the mind and thoughts, knowing and understanding how easy it is to be drawn away from the path of prayer by what may seem justified and necessary thought, fact finding and analysis – when the greatest, most-powerful and most-loving thing we can do is to abandon ourselves to the Lord in prayer.
If we are honest, we are sometimes reluctant to pray, knowing that prayer will challenge our emotional and psycho-spiritual status quo, and may take us somewhere we do not wish to go or be, when we simply want our decided opinions and adopted position confirmed and approved, even if they are at odds with the radical and challenging demands of the Gospel.
As we see violence and aggression, we face the Gospel-challenge to recognise and affirm that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God, and that our shared humanity is the robe of God Incarnate.
Prayer is vital for this realisation, and we must pray recognising that prayer is the place and time in which we must surrender to God in the struggle not to hate; in the struggle to refrain from anger and violent thoughts; in the struggle to understand how it is possible to forgive inhumanity and tyranny, when we see indescribable suffering and cruelty.
We must pray, believing in the power of prayer and believing that faith may move mountains, but also pray so that Christ may work in us, making the seemingly impossible possible, and for the power of the Holy Spirit to enter and abide in us as the Comforter, the Giver of Life and Treasury of Blessings – to cleanse us of every impurity and grant us the spiritual gifts to counter anger, hate, intolerance, and violent and murderous thoughts.
Even as the war rages in Ukraine, the age-old cosmic battle between good and evil potentially rages within each of us, as the devil seeks to steal our souls through anger, hate, the inner lust for vengeance, and the clamorous scream for retribution in a rebellion against Christ and the counter-intuitive upside-downess of the Gospel of love.
So, as we begin the Fast, through prayer, we must seek the strength and capacity to love those who hate; to be merciful to the merciless; to forgive the unforgiving; to be gentle to the cruel; to face cruelty with compassion; to fight hate with tolerance; to face evil with good; to make our hearts overflow with God’s superabundant mercy.
Yet again, I think of the much-repeated and often-quoted words of Abba Isaac the Syrian:
“What is a merciful heart? It is a heart which is burning with a loving charity for the whole of creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts, for the demons – for all creatures. He who has such a heart cannot see or call to mind a creature without his eyes being filled with tears by reason of the immense compassion which seizes his heart; a heart which is so softened and can no longer bear to hear or learn from others of any suffering, even the smallest pain, being inflicted upon any creature. This is why such a man never ceases to pray also for the animals, for the enemies of truth, and for those who do him evil, that they may be preserved and purified. He will pray even for the lizards and reptiles, moved by the infinite pity which reigns in the hearts of those who are becoming united with God.”
These beautiful words are closely mirrored by Dostoevsky, on the lips of Father Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov:
“Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love.”
These words challenge us to the podvig of struggling to love by allowing Christ to love in us and through us, no matter how impossible it may seem for us to love and forgive.
On this Sunday of Forgiveness, many will be shaking their heads asking how they can possibly forgive; how to love, how to even consider loving enemies, and how God can expect us to do so.
The answer is for us to abandon ourselves to God as we immerse ourselves in prayer, so that by His working in us, the seemingly impossible may become not only possible, but a reality, and that like St Isaac we may feel love and compassion for the whole creation, even the offender and transgressor, who has been ensnared by the enemy of mankind.
Bereft of love, we must surrender ourselves to God, bowing down in fervent prayer and asking God to kindle love within our cold hearts, so that they may not only be warmed, but become enflamed with His love, that we may seek God in all things and all places, and see God in all things and all places, no matter how ugly, how broken, how dysfunctional or dangerous.
We must surrender ourselves to God and seek to begin the journey to love and forgiveness, holding our hands out to Christ when we are sinking into the depths that threaten to swallow us, so that He may lead us hand-in-hand over the waves to safety.
Brothers and sisters, let us be united in prayer during the Great Fast, as we have been united in the past sorrowful week, weaving our prayers together as an offering to the Lord, and in these prayers, let us beg Him to help us to forgive and love – becoming mirrors of the great, selfless outpouring of His mercy on mankind, heeding the unequivocal challenge of the Gospel:
“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
… words that are not easy, but the key to the Kingdom of Heaven.
If we believe that Christ is risen from the dead; if we believe that he changed water into wine; if we believe that He healed the blind and deaf, the possessed, the halt and lame; if we believe that He walked upon the waves; if we believe that He raised the dead… we must believe that He can lead each of us to forgiveness and love, against all the odds and every obstacle, and that as the Creator He is able to make us anew and renew a right spirit within us.
As we enter the Great Fast, let prayer be the path to this renewal and the radiant reflection of Christ, in each and every one of us.
Dame Edith Sitwell reciting her beautiful religious poem “Still Falls the Rain (the Raids, 1940, Night and Dawn)”.
Still falls the Rain – Dark as the world of man, black as our loss – Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails Upon the Cross.
Still falls the Rain With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat In the Potter’s Field, and the sound of the impious feet
On the Tomb: Still falls the Rain
In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.
Still falls the Rain At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross. Christ that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us – On Dives and on Lazarus: Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.
Still falls the Rain – Still falls the Blood from the Starved Man’s wounded Side: He bears in His Heart all wounds, – those of the light that died, The last faint spark In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark, The wounds of the baited bear – The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat On his helpless flesh… the tears of the hunted hare.
Still falls the Rain – Then – O Ile leape up to my God: who pulles me doune – See, see where Christ’s blood streames in the firmament: It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree
Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart That holds the fires of the world, – dark-smirched with pain As Caesar’s laurel crown.
Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man Was once a child who among beasts has lain – “Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee.”
Despite the pain and sorrow that each present day brings, we rejoice that as a parish we can come together in unity and prayer, supporting our parishioners whose family and friends are directly involved in the current war in Ukraine.
We have been praying, and will continue to pray the canon in honour of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God, commending the whole world to the care of Our Lady, who is ‘more spacious than the heavens’, knowing that beneath her omophorion there is a safe-place and refuge for all – and in our ROCOR parish, that is Ukrainians, Russians, Moldovans, Romanians, Belarusians, and British members of the faithful.
Just as the knights and warriors of previous centuries, took off their swords when entering the house of God, so we leave our geo-politics and our passports at the door of the church, as we unite to pray for the suffering, the wounded and dying, the terrified, the injured and maimed, the hungry, the homeless and destitute.
In Church we should only have one I.D. through the water of baptism and the chrismal ‘seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit’: we are simply Christians, who bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
We pray for all leaders; for all who make the ‘big’ decisions of the world; for the Lord and His Most Holy Mother to bring the light of reason and understanding to the powerful and equally to the powerless; as our prayer is offered with an urgency and a fervour that we may have never felt before, and with compassion, forgiveness, humility, and love.
“For prayer our teacher is the Lord Himself, but we must seek to humble our souls. He who prays aright has the peace of God in his soul. The man of prayer should feel tenderly towards every living thing. The man of prayer loves all men and has compassion for all, for the grace of the Holy Spirit has taught him love.”
