Dear brothers and sisters,
As we come to last day of July, the summer holidays, as well as the pilgrimage season have most definitely arrived, and we keep parishioners in our prayers: Deacon Mark, Alla and Yuriy as they head to Turkey, where they will meet mama and papa, who are travelling from Crimea; Archpriest Luke to Cornwall; Branka, Stefan and Tara, as they travel to Croatia and Serbia; and Aldhelm, Alexander, Nikolai, Maria and Anne, as they join the diocesan pilgrimage in the Holy Land.
We hold them all in our prayers, and hope that our pilgrims will hold us in their prayers in the holy places.
A group of us have, of course, just returned from a rather more local pilgrimage, in Walsingham, where we prayed for the members of our community, and for our parish as it develops in so many new and wonderful ways.
It was a joy to be able to return to Cardiff and celebrate the Divine Liturgy for the Holy Equal to the Apostles, St Vladimir, with the blessing of ancient Russian chants and some Byzantine melodies chanted by Aldhelm and Alexander. Our thanks go to them, as well as to Despina for chanting at Saturday vespers.
Being able to set up church maximally – due to the lack of Sunday morning mass – was a great blessing, allowing the sanctuary and church to be arranged far more fully than is usually possible.
Our sisters are ensuring that the icons are adorned with flowers every week, and this brings so much colour to the service, as well as honouring the Lord, the Mother of God and the saints.
With the holiday departure of Father Deacon Mark, our Hierodeacon, Father Avraamy, very capably served much of the Liturgy in English – something that I most certainly didn’t expect. We are very grateful to him for his devoted labours and his insistence on recognising the importance of English in our parish as the number of British parishioners grows.
This will be a quiet week, as the departure of some of our singers leaves no-one to sing at weekday services.
Though I will be making visits and spending pastoral time with some of our parishioners, there will be no parish activities in Nazareth House until Friday, when I will her confessions in the late afternoon, before our talk on prayer in church at 19:00. As usual, please email confession requests, and by 12:00 on Thursday.
Saturday – 5th August – will see our local(ish) pilgrimage to St Anthony’s Well in the Forest of Dean, before lunch at a parishioner’s home, and our trip to St Mary’s Church, in Kempley. We will gather at St Anthony’s Well near Mitcheldean (GL14 3LQ) at 11:00, and anyone who has not yet expressed interest and would like to take part is invited to contact our parish pilgrimage coordinator Tracy: t_sbrain@icloud.com
Next Sunday will be the feast of the Holy Passion-Bearers, Boris and Gleb, the first canonised saints of our Church, and the variables may be found at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EuRvf_Uhe3FsL9KXeMKlq628CZ76I0W9/view
I was very happy to hear the announcements regarding planning for our summer feasts from our senior-sister, Menna, and will post them on Facebook separately.
My God bless you all.
In Christ – Hieromonk Mark