Put magic aside

Dear Friends

Do you believe in magic? Because it is rife in our society. Our ancient pagan forebears, at least, knew that there was crucially a spiritual dimension to it—interacting with spiritual beings, performing the correct ritual or incantations in order to achieve the desired result—but our modern world thinks it has merely found a procedure to achieve success. Books and magazines can be bought which claim knowledge of rituals and routines which “guarantee” triumph—”five easy steps to the beautiful you,” “routines for success,” “how to get the job of your dreams,” “becoming a published author,” could all appear easily on their promotional materials. These are all pagan magic: recipes to short-cut our route to a “better” life in this world.

Do you believe in magic? Really believe in it? Because this paganism is tempting and alluring, demons know how to attract you and me, and we can find ourselves in trouble.

What is worse, though, is when we name Father, Son and Holy Spirit to get what we want: when we treat our Faith as magic. God hears our prayers and answers them, but when we have our reception of blessings as the criterion of belief—”I believe because God blesses me … I know God will give me what I want!”—then we have turned Church into a pagan temple.

My dear brothers and sisters, the Church is leading us to lay aside all magic and be led to greater knowledge of God—through the mysteries, through worship, through prayer, through reading and studying Scriptures, through giving ourselves to God, his Church and our neighbour. There is no short-cut, no magic formula, except through repentance and service: yet the reward is great, no mere comfortable few years in this life where death will still come but eternal life in the Kingdom.


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Sermon

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.

“I know what God wants,” I tell myself, “he wants repentance—and I will bring repentance to the world.” And when I see sins, when I see sinners, I point this out. “I am doing the work of the Lord,” I lie to myself, “I am bringing about opportunities for repentance.” And I see a thief at work and I call out the sin, I see a woman caught in adultery and I know what the Law requires (John 8:2–11), I see the Lord blasphemed and I call down a curse from Heaven.

Another, too, knew what God wanted and he went to pray. He was a righteous man, a good man—at least by appearance—and went to pray in the Temple. But his prayer was not to the living God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, he did not pray to the Most High. The Lord tells us he “prayed … with himself.” For the Pharisee there was no one greater than himself to whom to pray: he was perfect before the Law and utterly blameless, he wanted to remove sin from the entire nation since the pharisees believed the Roman occupation had been brought about by the faithlessness of the Jews.

Read last Sunday’s sermon, I am the Pharisee.
Archive of Past Sermons.


Services this week

Friday 18th February
Discussion on the book of Exodus, 8 pm
Online only

Saturday 19th February
Vespers, 6.30 pm
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh

Sunday 20th February
Divine Liturgy, 9.30 am
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh

Online session is via Google Meet: please get in contact for the details.

As part of our measures against Covid-19, we strongly request all who attend our services to take a lateral flow test prior to attending.

Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.

Attending Church

We will be meeting at St Francis’ Hall, Nightingale Avenue, Eastleigh, SO50 9JA. We request you wear a mask unless exempt. Come and See.


Can I help you?

I am here for you, you need only ask. Is there a way I can support your life of faith? Get in touch.

Can you help the mission?

Yes, absolutely. Offer yourselves to the Lord: pray! Make available to him all your talents and ask him how he would like you to use them — listen for his reply.

Your prayers!

With love in Christ

Fr Alexander
[email protected]