Dear brothers and sisters,
Thank you all who contributed to today’s Liturgy, and a joyful celebration of the feast of St Seraphim, and thank you to our parishioners who sent greetings from their holidays in Russia and Ukraine!
It was a joy to be able to congratulate Dimitri on his nameday, as we also celebrated St Dimitri of Rostov, and to congratulate Margarita and Marina who celebrated their nameday last week. May God grant them many, blessed years!
As announced at vespers and Liturgy, the goodwill of my employer seems to have evaporated and I face the awful prospect of working fifteen hour shifts on several Saturdays in the coming month.
This will be a blow to parish-life, making it impossible to have confessions or a priestly evening services on some Saturdays, and adversely affecting ministry, given the heavy combination of work and parish squeezed into the weekend.
My hope is to hear confessions on Fridays, but with uncertainty regarding the use of Newman Hall, this may not be possible in the new university term, in which case we may have to look for alternatives.
I already work most Saturdays, before coming straight to Cardiff for evening service and confessions, which already makes weekends a challenge.
I hope we may consider alternative arrangements for Saturday evening services, with the possibility of reader services, and this will be discussed over the next week.
So… there will be no evening service this coming Saturday, 7th August, and again on 21st August.
On the other two Saturdays of the month – 14th and 28th August – we will chant compline whilst confessions are heard. I apologise for not specifying which service would be celebrated yesterday, and for the inconvenience this may have caused in terms of family arrangements.
This week, my intention is to hear confessions on Thursday p.m. and Friday a.m. Please email me to arrange this: otetzmark@hotmail.com
On Sunday, we will celebrate the 7th Sunday after Pentecost: Hieromartyr Hermolaus and those with him.
Variables: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Et8JUJBpscYYe1zJ1OzdiofF0WI34CXw/view
The Hours will commence at 11:00, followed by the Liturgy, and we will unavoidably have to ask some of our ‘distance-parishioners’ to confess and commune after Liturgy, to avoid starting as late as we did today. I wish this was not necessary, but given our late entry into the Church, it is now no longer possible to hear all confessions before Liturgy. Thank you everyone for being so patient today.
This week sees some important feasts.
Tomorrow is the feast of the Holy, Glorious Prophet Elijah; Wednesday is the feast of the Holy Myrrh-bearer and Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene; Thursday is the feast of the Pochaev Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God; Friday is the feast of the Holy Martyrs and Passion-bearers Boris and Gleb; and Saturday is the Dormition of the Righteous Anna, Mother of the Most Holy Theotokos.
As announced after Liturgy, we will be holding a General Parish Meeting on Sunday 12 September.
May God bless you all!
Asking your forgiveness for Christ’s sake.
Hieromonk Mark