The Shepherd, February 2005
BROOKWOOD NEWS
GIFT OF A RELIC
Mr Ruaidhri John MacEoghain has kindly donated to our Brotherhood a small neck cross containing a fragment of the True Cross and a portion of the stone from Golgotha, which he brought back from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
EPISCOPAL VISIT
Being in this country to lead the celebrations for the patronal feast of St Sava’s Serbian Orthodox Church in London, His Grace Bishop Irenej of Nish briefly visited St Edward’s Church on Monday 24th January.
BUILDING FUND
After the Christmas Day Liturgy, a Christmas Appeal envelope, with gift aid and bankers’ order forms, was handed out to parishioners. Largely as a result of this initiative we have now, at the end of the new calendar month of January, collected and banked £179,424.99 and have a further £17,551.80 pledged to our appeal. This makes a total of £196,976.79, an increase of £39,184.55 since we last reported figures in our December issue. God grant all of you who so swiftly have contributed towards this increase the blessing of a cheerful giver (see 2 Cor. 9:6-8).
OUR SPECIAL THANKS
To all who contributed to the “success” of our Christmas feast, decorating the church, cleaning, preparing foods, helping set the hall in order, and to Robert & Hazel Eades and Christopher Last for providing the music for the Carols with organ and guitar. Our thanks are also due to Robin and Mary Haigh who not only allowed us to use their quay for the Theophany blessing of the waters, but then invited us all into their home for coffee, tea and cakes. Our people were also specially invited on that day to the nearby Chertsey Museum, and not only shown around by Grace Evans and other members of the staff but were again plied with tea, coffee and biscuits. It seems that Chertsey really does not belong in Surrey at all!
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX YOUTH CALENDARS AVAILABLE
The Russian Orthodox Youth Committee in New York annually produces a pictorial church calendar, with old and new style dates, and with fasts and feasts indicated. This year, the whole calendar is dedicated to the Blessed and Ever-Memorable Metropolitan Philaret, who reposed in 1985, and whose sacred relics have been found to be incorrupt and whole. The calendar includes extracts from some of his sermons and teachings, printed in both Russian and English. These calendars are available from the Brotherhood bookstore at £8.50 each plus 15% p&p: i.e. £9.77 in total. Readers might be interested to know that it was with the blessing of Metropolitan Philaret that in 1982 the Saint Edward Brotherhood was founded.
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PRACTICAL TIP
THROUGH HER CALENDAR the Church prepares us for the start of the Great Lent with a twenty-two day preparatory period, but often, going through this as simply an outward form of religious observance, we fail to be prepared even in the most practical ways for the fast, and it strikes us unawares. Then do some practical preparation during this period. Make sure that you are ready for the dietary change, by cancelling milk orders, using up non-fasting foods and stocking up with fasting ones. Ensure that you have a book for spiritual reading in the fast; try to make sure that appointments and commitments do not conflict with the Church lenten observances or with times necessary for private prayer. Make provision for sustained and generous almsgiving in the fast. Most people put more effort (and spend more money) in preparing to go on a two-week holiday these days than they do to enter upon the course of the holy and Great Lent. The first often leads only to disappointment, exhaustion, and disruption of life and family relations; but the latter, if approached with care and attention, will lead towards eternal life
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