Categories: family, friends, study, parish-life, australia
Date: 05 April 2008 10:23:01
Not as cold as some of you experience, but winter is definitely on its way here. The evenings are getting cooler and the mornings are getting chilly: I made the mistake of leaving my window wide open a few days ago, and woke up to a rather chilly start. However, I do love the cooler weather: and the occasional fog of a morning is something I find rather magical.
Assignment #1 was handed in. Thanks and praise be to God. Definitely a pass effort rather than a credit or distinction. God help me to prepare better next time.
I greatly missed my assistant this week [with him being on paternity leave]. One, I missed his being around as he is a joy to work with, and two, I missed him being there as it was a rather busy week -- and even a frustrating one with external parties not providing a level of service I feel is adequate.
I bought my niece some skittles and we've enjoyed playing with them. Being an uncle is such fun.
I had a very pleasant dinner with a friend last night: she is going through a bit of a tough time, so prayers appreciated, and it was good to listen to and talk to her, and also share some of my struggles with her. As I mentioned in my last blog, talking is a wonderful thing. As is friendship.
Today we had our parish's Lenten Retreat Day. Three talks, two by our priest and one by our choir director, who is my godfather. And they were all interesting, entertaining and challenging -- as were many of the questions raised by fellow parishioners afterwards. The theme of the day was "Faith and Life: Lead Lives Worthy of Your Calling". Both of Father's talks concerned the Scriptures [and our often poor knowledge of them: an issue we should seek to correct] and the text of the Divine Liturgy -- it is amazing to consider that the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, our Sunday Communion service, has 98 quotations from the Old Testament and 114 from the New. And often we do not even realise this as our knowledge of the Scriptures can be rather lacking: I freely confess, in shame, that mine is. The Divine Liturgy, and indeed all services of the Orthodox Church, are full of Scripture. Father's second talk concerned the work of the Holy Spirit in the Liturgy, and in the life of Christians. My godfather's talk was on the place of Orthodox music not only in worship, though this was covered, but in our personal lives and how we can take the hymns of the Church and use them in our own prayers and in our own lives. As I said, challenging and interesting talks. I also met another Ian, visiting from the Russian Church, who was once Anglican also. It was interesting to speak to him.
With the service of Vespers completed and the sun going down, the Orthodox liturgical day of the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent has begun. And it is a very special day for me as today, as we do each Fourth Sunday of Great Lent -- and on March 30 also, we Orthodox remember St John Climacus -- who is my name / patron Saint. More on him tomorrow.