Dear Friends
“We have seen the True Light,” we hear during the Liturgy,
we have received the heavenly Spirit; we have found the true faith, worshiping the undivided Trinity: for He hath saved us.
And we are excited. “I have found Orthodoxy,” I tell myself, “I am in the true Church.” And in all this I lose the heart of the matter, I have missed the point of the Gospel and of the Church. An encounter with Orthodoxy is not the Gospel nor is being a member of the true Church.
The “True Light” of which we speak is Jesus Christ himself. Our rejoicing should be that we have encountered him, we are baptised into him, we have received him. We have encountered him and we cry out with the beloved disciple,
and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
So ours is not to have superiority over others that we are “correct,” but to rejoice in our meeting with our Judge and our Saviour and to lament there are others who have not yet had the opportunity.
But there is more, the Apostle Paul tells us,
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Second Corinthians 3:18
Our encounter is not a justification of who I am but the process of my transformation into who I should be. How many people say of meeting an important person say, “it changed me”? Our meeting with the God of Heaven and Earth should change us infinitely more so, from glory to glory.
Lent is a time when we particularly work on ourselves, when we reject what is sinful within and turn again to the living God. And he is here, and we meet him, we encounter him, we are clothed in him: and this is true particularly when we gather for worship in Church.
Come and encounter the True Light, the person through whom we are saved and brought to new life, the one who has taken Death captive; come and encounter Jesus Christ.
Come and see!
We serve a meal following the Liturgy on Sundays. All are welcome.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
“I fast,” I tell myself, yet the whole world knows I’m fasting, “I fast,” yet serving other people does not even occur to me, “I fast,” yet I hold onto the hurts, pains, evils and sins committed against me. And my fasting has not changed me, has not brought me closer to God—I am wallowing in my self-pity that I am going through such hardships.
The Lord is calling you and he is calling me to take up the Fast with joy, to give up the eating of meat but, much more importantly, to give up the eating of the flesh of our neighbour through gossiping, backbiting and slander. Our Fast, if it is to be godly, must bring us closer to him and, therefore, closer to our neighbour. So, before we start, before we commence our battle against the Satan, we must be reconciled to each other.
“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother,” the beloved disciple tells us,
“he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.” (First John 4:20–21)
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Read last Sunday’s Sermon, I fast.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 3rd March
Discussion on the Book of Numbers, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 4th March
Vespers, 6.30 pm
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Sunday 5th March
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 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
[email protected]