Dear brothers and sisters,
Many thanks to all who contributed to this weekend’s joyful services, with the belated blessing of honey for Thursday’s feast of the All-Merciful Saviour.
As well as blessing honey after our Cheltenham and Cardiff Liturgies, it was lovely that we were also treated to traditional poppy seed cakes for the feast!
Thank you to our sisters who baked these festive treats.
It was good that everyone was able to take blessed honey from the Cardiff Liturgy, with individual pots for the faithful: an excellent idea!
We were very happy to have visitors from the Bristol parish and a few new faces on this festive Sunday, and it was a joy to welcome Branka and the twins, and Svetlana back from their Serbian and Russian journeys.
We look forward to Transfiguration Liturgy in the Oratory Church on Tuesday, at 10:45, and will bless fruit at the end of Liturgy. We will also perform a blessing on Sunday at the end of Liturgy.
As Fr Mark the Younger said at the end of Liturgy, tomorrow morning will see the funeral of our former parishioner, Sofya, with the service and burial in Mumbles. May the Lord God remember her in His Kingdom! Memory Eternal!
I will not be in Cardiff this Thursday, but will be in the Oratory as usual on Friday. We will have our usual afternoon service at 15:00, and I will be available to hear confessions before and after the service.
On Saturday, we will celebrate a triple baptism in the fathers’ garden at Oratory Church at noon, and look forward to the newly baptised communing at our Sunday Liturgy. I will be available to hear confessions after the baptism, around 15:00.
As you know Father Mark the Younger will be away on Sunday, so I will be at St Philip’s extra early, to set up for proskomedia at 7:45 so that confessions may begin at 08:30. Please try to confess on Friday or Saturday if possible, to ease Sunday confessions.
Monday will see our end of month evening gathering in Warminster, with a shared supper in the Chapel of St Lawrence at 18:30, followed by compline with the supplicatory canon to the Mother of God. Then, on Thursday 28 August, the Divine Liturgy for the Dormition will be celebrated in St Philip’s at 10:00.
Please ensure that the ongoing days of the Dormition Fast are dedicated to the Mother of God, and ensure that every day is blessed with a prayerful offering to her, as we prepare for her feast: our “Summer Pascha”.
Asking your forgiveness for Christ’s sake.
May God bless you.
In Christ – Hieromonk Mark
