Dear Friends
Some go to Church as a spectacle. They sit and watch as the priest performs the actions and says the words, they listen as the chanters sing, and they pass judgment over it all. For them it is entertainment. For others they attend to participate in the life of the Church—they hear the priest’s words not as his words but our words offered by all the faithful through the voice of the priest to God. They join the prayer and make it their own, “In peace let us pray to the Lord, Lord have mercy.” And though they may feel their own prayer to be weak, they know that when it is joined together with the whole Church it becomes strong.
Into which of these two groups would you fall? Would I? Is Church an event to watch or a mystery to encounter?
Be joined, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, to the mystery of the Liturgy. A mystery for us is not a problem to be solved but a life to be lived falling into an ever deeper bond of love. We are here for you and invite you to come and join us as we seek the Way, seek the Truth and seek Life.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
I go to the hospital and wait to see a doctor, I am sat and at ease. And I see a man being rushed in with a broken leg, and I thank God I am not ill like he is. Next I see someone come in having cut himself, someone who has trapped a finger in a door, someone with a fever, another vomiting, and I thank God I am not ill like they are. But when I go in the doctor tells me I am seriously ill, I must be admitted, I must endure painful and uncomfortable procedures to make me well. And one by one, out of the window of my ward, I watch those whom I saw entering the hospital, having been given the appropriate treatment, able to go home.
We have arrived, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and have now opened the Triodion, the book of the divine services we will say from now through the Great Fast and into Great and Holy Week. And as we are beginning our preparations, as we start on our journey towards Pascha and from there onwards to Pentecost, as we start to make ourselves ready for the Fast quickly approaching, the Church sets before you and she sets before me the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. And we think this is easy to understand—“be like the Publican, the Tax-collector, and not like the Pharisee,” I tell myself, and then enjoy a week without fasting and move seven days closer to Pascha. The verse immediately before today’s reading, however, paints a rather different picture.
“He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” (Luke 18:9)
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Read last Sunday’s Sermon, I am not ill like they are.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 10th February
Discussion on the Book of Numbers, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 11th February
Vespers, 6.30 pm
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Sunday 12th February
Divine Liturgy, 9.30 am
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Online session is via Google Meet: please get in contact for the details.
Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.
Attending Church
We meet at St Francis’ Hall, Nightingale Avenue, Eastleigh, SO50 9JA. 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 community?
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
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