Services this weekend (27th–28th January)
This weekend, and until further notice, our services will be held at.
All Saints’ Church Hall
Desborough Road
Eastleigh
SO50 5NH
The hall is just to the left of the main Church.
Parking: Only on-street parking is available. Many roads near the Church do not have restrictions on Sundays. Please check the signs for parking restrictions.
Dear Friends
What’s the difference between liking something and loving it? We use these words almost interchangeably, yet they mean something different, albeit subtle.
Where I like something it makes me feel good, it is there for me as a source of pleasure and fulfilment. I know, if I’m feeling down, I can have a piece of chocolate to cheer myself up, or listen to a favourite song, watch a TV show. I like these things, they are there to give me the feelings I desire if and when I want to access those emotions.
But when I love something, or someone, the dynamic is completely transformed, no longer is it about fulfiling my own needs but about transforming myself. A person who loves books will invest their time in reading—perhaps even a challenging book which is hard and uncomfortable to read. A person who loves to exercise would push himself to go that little bit further, that little bit faster, that little bit higher for the sake of improving his performance. When we love a person it should not be about the feelings we get but about serving, helping, comforting and encouraging.
Do you, in your life, confuse liking something or someone with loving? Do I? Do we lead a disordered life where we love what we should like and like those whom we should love?
We should love God and his Church, but it is very easy to like them. We easily look at God and his Church to be there to help us, to support us, to give us good feelings and to experience good emotions. And when we don’t get the same feelings as when we eat cake or have our favourite drink we think we are experiencing abandonment from God.
But to love God and to love his Church we are required to go beyond liking, to serve and invest, to place others before ourselves, their needs in front of the warm and fuzzy feelings of like. Let us then, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, turn again to the living God by investing our time, investing our talents, investing our energy and investing our money in what we should love that we may be transformed and transfigured into true Christians.
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
John 15:11–17
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.
No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
These things I command you, that you love one another.
Come and see!
It is the tradition in the Orthodox Church to have our houses blessed at Theophany — please get in contact to arrange a mutually convenient time for me to come.
We serve a meal following the Liturgy on Sundays. All are welcome.
Do you, or someone you know, want to join our mailing list and receive our weekly email? Then let me know.
Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
I walk in and out, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, of the City of God, which is to say the Church. I walk in and out because I have been made whole. I have heard the Gospel of the Kingdom—that Christ has defeated all his enemies, idolatry, sin and even death and calls all to Life in him—and I am blessed by God, sanctified by God and called to union with God. And on the Great and Last Day, when all shall be judged by the Judge, the Lord will say to me, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41)
I walk in and out of the City of God and I see outside the wall lepers. And I might stop and talk with them, I might feed them, I might give them money—all these are good things, virtuous things, godly things, and we must do them all—but I withhold from them what they need. I care about them but only on the terms that they remain outside the City, outside the Church, and not bring about change to my possession. Yet what they are truly in need of is not the food which will feed them today and leave them hungry tomorrow, as important and vital as that is, but of the Food which comes down from Heaven. “Do not labour,” says the Lord,
“for the food which perishes, but for the Food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him.” (John 6:27)
For what the lepers outside the City wall need from me is an invitation, “Go and show yourselves to the Priest.” And the Priest is Christ. What I need to be saying is,
“Come, and encounter Christ. Come, and encounter God. Come, and meet him who has defeated all the spirits which afflict you. Come, and rejoice in him who is Victor over death and offers you eternal Life. Come and see!”
…
Read last Sunday’s Sermon, Go and show yourselves to the Priest.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 26th January
Discussion on the Gospel of Matthew, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 27th January
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At All Saints’ Hall, Eastleigh
Sunday 28th January
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 am
At All Saints’ 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 (temporarily) at All Saints’ Church Hall, Desborough Road, Eastleigh
SO50 5NH. 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 parish?
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]