The Shepherd, October 2006
BROOKWOOD NEWS
SACRED RELIC DONATED
HIS GRACE, Bishop Basil of Wichita and the Mid-West (Antiochian Patriarchate) recently sent us a portion of the sacred relics of St Raphael of Brooklyn, who is called upon as the “Good Shepherd of the Lost Sheep in America.” May his prayers bring a blessing also to the lost sheep on this side of the Atlantic. For our part we are deeply grateful to Bishop Basil for his generosity and kindness in sending this blessing for our monastery.
BAPTISM AT BROOKWOOD
MATTHIAS FAGERLUND, a former Lutheran, was baptised at St Edward’s Church on Wednesday, 31st August / 13th September, the feast of the Deposition of the Cincture of the Mother of God. Oleg Myslov stood as his sponsor at the font, and after his baptism Matthias, who is named for the Apostle (feastday 9th August), stayed at the Brotherhood, so that, during the eight days in his Chrism robe, he could partake of the Holy Mysteries daily. May he so live and contest for his new confession of the Faith that he may hereafter partake of the Lord more fully in the unwaning day of His Kingdom (see Ode Nine of the Paschal Canon).
VISITS OF THE ABBESSES
LAST MONTH, we were able to report the unexpected visits of two Bishops to Brookwood: this month we had two Abbesses! On Sunday 3rd September n.s., Abbess Mariam and the Nun Paraskeva of the Transfiguration Monastery in Tbilisi, Georgia, attended the Divine Liturgy at our own Convent of the Annunciation in Willesden. In the following week, among other places they visited the Monastery of St John the Baptism at Tolleshunt Knights, and then, on the Saturday (the 9th), just before they set out for Heathrow on their return journey to Georgia, they visited St Edward’s.
And for the Vigil of the Holy Cross (Tuesday 13th / 26th September) we were joined by Abbess Paisia of the Convent of Saint George the Great Martyr in Halkida, Greece. She had also attended the Liturgy for the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin at the Willesden Convent. Mother Paisia is partly of Greek Cypriot extraction and partly of Irish and so, naturally, had grown up in London.
BUILDING FUND PROGRESS
THE TOTAL of donations and pledges received to date is £509,479.10 of our £650,000 target figure (78.4%). It might thus appear that we have already reached the amount needed to cover the costs of the first two phases of the three-phase project. However, unfortunately this is not the case. Payments of about £20,000 have been made for preliminary matters, which are not included in the tender pricing, and because many of our supporters are pledging to give regularly over a four year period, not all of those pledges are yet due to be fulfiled. So, we will probably need to raise another £35 - 40,000 before next March. We ask your continued kind and generous support to make this possible. Recently we received a very generous donation from the Russian Orthodox Community of the Holy Trinity in Bristol. Our warmest thanks to Fr John Palmer and his parishioners there - may they receive many blessings for their kindness.
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PRACTICAL TIP
AS OUR MAIN ARTICLE this month we have copied an excellent and much needed piece by Fr John Whiteford & Matushka Olympia Sibley on behaviour in church. We have very slightly modified it in one or two places to make it more relevant to readers in Britain, - after all, people here do not chew gum! However, there is perhaps one other thing one could add: make sure that when you come to church, if you have a mobile phone with you, that it is turned off. The story is that in days of old when people habitually carried arms, they were not permitted to bring them into church. The same could be said for mobile phones in our days. They have no place in church. One comes to church to step out of this world and into Another, not to drag the world in with you. The modern obsessive need to always be in contact with home / office / work / friends is something that we should perhaps in any case be trying to break, as unhealthy. Church should be a haven from this habit forming and sick dependency. And, of course, the phone ringing during Divine service and in the holy place is disruptive of the liturgy and a distraction for others, as is the mad rush to the door to take the message. No one ever seems to consider for a moment that a phone ringing is simply an invitation for you to answer it: it is not a command. How easily things that should be in our service become our masters!
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