Dear brothers and sisters: Christ is Risen! Христос Воскресе!
Here we are in the days of Mid-Pentecost, when we celebrate Christ in the Temple teaching those who were meant to be the enlightened doctors of the Law and theologians of the Old Israel.
The feast sees the Lord seeking to bring true knowledge and wisdom to those whose knowledge was in vain and useless without knowing Him, and which remained empty and pointless through their rejection of the Messiah.
In a world in which eyes are constantly turned towards the internet, even turning to “Artificial Intelligence” for “knowledge”, this mid-feast is a reminder that the Saviour, as the Wisdom and Word of God, is the source of the only knowledge we need for our lives in Him.
When we have other so called Christians lapping up the thoughts, meditations and false-wisdom of rabbis, imams and lamas, we can only wonder how Christ, as the Wisdom, Word and Power of God, and as the Way the Truth and the Life, is even part of their lives. As the perfect and complete Incarnate Truth and Incarnate Wisdom, He couldn’t have made it clearer: “No man cometh to the Father, but by Me!”
As well as being the leave-taking of Mid-Pentecost, tomorrow is also the feast of St John the Theologian, and in the festal hymns, in reference to the Last Supper, we chant that in leaning upon the breast of Wisdom, the beloved disciple learned the understanding of all things.
This tells us all that we need to know regarding the knowledge and wisdom we need in our lives as Christians.
Like the wisdom the Saviour shared in the Temple, and the wisdom and understanding that St John learned at the Saviour’s side, Christ is the source, and the answer to all things, just as He was for the Samaritan woman, St Photini (Svetlana), as she sat beside Jacob’s well at Sychar.
“He that has ears to hear, let him hear!”
As you know, last week was one of pilgrimage and rest in Walsingham, where it was a blessing to be able to pray for our parishioners and their intentions day-by-day, and to celebrate the altar-feast of Mother Melangell’s skete.
It was a great joy to concelebrate and preached at Lazarica on Sunday, and today has been one for a belated family Radonitsa visit, before vespers for the feast and a panikhida for the soul of the newly-departed Lyudmila, who reposed in the Lord on Saturday night. We ask you all to remember her in your prayers, and it’s wonderful to know that Lyudmila is being commemorated in the Serbian monasteries being visited by Porphyrios and his fellow pilgrims.
After a service to St Nicholas on Thursday evening in Nazareth House at 18:00, we will chant a memorial services, and will do the same after Friday’s noonday service to the Holy Cross in the Oratory Church. Memory Eternal! Вечная память!
This Saturday will see our Cheltenham celebration, in which we will honour the translation of the relics of St Nicholas the Wonderworker (actual feast on Thursday). The Hours will commence at 10:30, followed by the Divine Liturgy, and our usual bring-and-share lunch after the service. We would love to welcome Cardiff parishioners to the Cheltenham mission.
The following Saturday – 31 May – Fr Nenad has asked me to concelebrate in Lazarica, where eight catechumens will be baptised. It would be lovely to have parishioners join me.
St Philip’s has confirmed that we are able to use the church for Adam and Serwa‘s evening baptism on Friday 20 June – the summer feast of the Kursk Root icon. We also look forward to Chris’s baptism.
Thanks to Father Mark and Father Luke for affording me the chance to visit Walsingham, and to all who laboured for last Sunday’s celebrations, which do prompt the repeated request for help setting up. Please do not presume others will be there to do so, as this is the surest way to guarantee that nobody will be there when they are needed, preventing proskomedia and confessions starting on time. On Sundays when I am the main celebrant, I will no longer be joining the Liturgy after it has begun. Confessions will be ending strictly when it’s time for the Liturgy.
This week, confessions will be heard before and after Thursday’s 18:00 service in Nazareth House, and likewise in the Oratory on Friday, though I do ask for requests for Friday pre-service confessions to be sent in advance. As already posted on WhatsApp, serving alone on Sunday will mean that confessions before Liturgy will be pretty much impossible, so the Holy Gifts can be reserved for those needing post-Liturgy confessions, which will need to be succinct, given that there will be a memorial service in addition to the Liturgy.
Looking forward to Ascension Day (29th May), I hope that the morning Liturgy might be celebrated in Llanelli, and there will be the usual Thursday evening service in Nazareth House at 18:00: a moleben for the feast.
I ask your prayers for my journey back to Wales.
May God bless you all.
In Christ – Fr Mark
