The Shepherd, January 2008
BUILDING FUND
WITH A DONATION given us at the Vigil of the Great Feast of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple (3rd December n.s.), a feast of particular significance for monastics, we topped our original target of £650,000 for the Building Fund. This seems to us another indication of the Mother of God’s blessing for our project. As we have indicated in previous issues, it may well be that we shall need another £30,000 because of extra work that had to be done in the restoration of the Old Mortuary - giving greater support to the floor over the future Exhibition Room, and remedying the damage caused by damp. This work has now been completed, and all of the work in that building should soon be finished. The total figure given or pledged in writing to date is £653,693.63. God bless all of you, who in the past year, have made this progress possible, and may He reward you all richly both in the Coming Year and in the life of the Age to come.
PRACTICAL TIP
THE FOLLOWING TIP would never have occurred to me, had not three or four people approached me in the last month or so, and prompted it. If you have to make some decision in life, or ask advice about a situation, do ask to make an appointment with your priest, so that you can discuss it with him fully and he can consider his response. We seem now so used to living in a society where on-the-spot answers are demanded and given about almost anything that we forget that this is almost impossible in the things that are really important to us. So, don’t just expect to grab the priest two minutes before the service, or phone him on the hop, and expect him to give advice on sorting out your marriage or arranging it, or counselling you on what to do about your career, or the bigger changes in your life. If you feel that it is necessary or important to speak with him, then help him and yourself by properly arranging an appointment so that the matter, whatever it is, can be given proper consideration. It often seems nowadays that people give less consideration and time to dealing with such fundamental matters in their lives than they would to buying a set of curtains!
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