Last night our parish joyously received His Grace Bishop Siluan for Lenten Vespers served by Fr Miodrag and attended by local clergy. The service was followed with a talk given by Fr Rade on the theme of judgement.
Using St Ephrems Lenten Prayer as the backdrop of his talk, Fr Rade used a number of contemporary issues to draw out the differences between the commandment not to judge ones neighbour and the commandment that every Christian use their judgement to discern between righteousness (God's law) and sin. In spite of the ever-increasing hostility toward the Church and her beliefs, Christians are charged by God to know true righteousness and to judge sin for what it is. When we fail in this duty, we allow the world to silence the Word of God.
We thank Fr Rade for his enlightening talk and the many faithful that attended and were greatly edified by it.
At the conclusion of the night, our parish gifted Bishop Siluan with an icon of St Silouan the Athonite which was lovingly painted by one of our parishioners. We thank Bishop Siluan and all our local clergy for their continued prayers as we continue our journey toward His glorious Pascha.
