Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This is weekly newsletter #16 of the St Ignatius Parish in Belfast, returning after summer break!
Contents of this Newsletter:
- Message from Fr Dmitry: Saints and Services
- News and Announcements
- Homily on this Sunday’s Gospel: According to your faith
Message from Fr Dmitry: Saints and Services
Dear brothers and sisters,
First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the feasts of the saints we have celebrated last Sunday and this Sunday. Last week, we celebrated the feast of the Holy Prophet Elias, and today we honour Saint Panteleimon, the great martyr and unmercenary healer. These are beloved saints across the Orthodox world. I think it would be fitting to speak more about their lives during our upcoming Faith & Fellowship online meeting, which will resume after the summer break this Wednesday, 30th July at 7:00 PM. Please don’t forget to join us.
Secondly, I want to thank you all for your prayers for me and my family while we were away on holiday these past two weeks. We had a blessed time together. I also had the joy of concelebrating the Divine Liturgy last Sunday (20th July), with the blessing of Metropolitan Silouan and Metropolitan Saba (of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America), at the parish of St Nicholas in Cedarburg, Wisconsin (link).
It was a pleasure to meet Fr Ignatius Valentine, the current parish priest, and Fr William Olnhausen, the founding priest of the community. By divine coincidence, that Sunday the parish was receiving into the Orthodox Church a whole family—two adults and four children. I was honoured to participate in the beautiful sacraments of Baptism and Chrismation. Such a joyful occasion reminded me of our own parish here in Belfast. We are preparing for two baptisms and one chrismation scheduled for September, and several more catechumens are progressing well and, God willing, will be received in the coming months. Please keep them, and our whole parish, in your prayers, so that we may continue to grow and bring more people to the fullness of the Orthodox faith. We are all called to be missionaries and to bear witness to the Gospel.
Finally, a reminder that we will be gathering in church this coming weekend. I hope to see you all in Church! The schedule of services is as follows:
- Friday, 1st August, 7:00 PM – Supplication Service (Paraklesis) to the Most Holy Theotokos
- Saturday, 2nd August, 5:00 PM – Great Vespers
followed by coffee, tea, and fellowship - Sunday, 3rd August, 10:00 AM Orthros, 11:00 AM Divine Liturgy
Followed by a fasting parish lunch
If you would like to contribute to the parish lunch on Sunday, please contact Carmel, who coordinates it, at +44 7853 911412
I already have a few meetings scheduled with our catechumens preparing for baptism and chrismation in September, and there may be two house visits as well. Nevertheless, I will still have time available for confessions and personal conversations. The best times for this are:
- Before or after the service on Friday evening
- Before or after Vespers on Saturday
- It is also possible to confess or speak on Sunday (especially before the service), but please note that time is usually much more limited that day.
If you would like to arrange a private conversation or confession, please feel free to contact me directly at fr.dmitry@saintignatiusbelfast.org or by phone at +44 7479 630020, so that we can schedule a suitable time.
News and Announcements:
- Online Faith & Fellowship Meetings Resume This Wednesday: Our Faith & Fellowship meetings will resume this Wednesday, 30th July at 7:00 PM (UK time). Please join us via Zoom using the following link: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/97707660214 As usual we will pray Little Compline (Little Compline PDF). After the prayers, we will have a conversation about St Elias and St Panteleimon, whose feasts we have celebrated over the past two Sundays. All are welcome.
- Introducing Monthly Reader Services (from September): By agreement with our Parish Council and with the blessing of His Eminence, Metropolitan Silouan, we are pleased to announce that beginning in September, we will introduce a monthly Reader Service in our parish.
Thanks be to God, our community is growing, and many have expressed a desire for more frequent in-person fellowship. While currently we cannot have more than one Divine Liturgy per month, the Reader Service (typically the Service of Typika) will provide an additional opportunity for prayer and gathering, even when a priest is not present and no Eucharist can be celebrated.
The idea is to have some form of service in church every other weekend. For example, if the Divine Liturgy is served on the first weekend of the month, the Reader Service will be held on the third Sunday. Or, If the Liturgy is on the second Sunday, then the Reader Service will be on the fourth Sunday, and so on.
Further details will follow in a separate message, but I wanted to share this joyful news with you now! - Full in-Church Service Schedule for August – October: The schedule of services in church for the period August to October has now been agreed. You can download the full poster and view it on our website here: https://saintignatiusbelfast.org/services
This Sunday’s Gospel Reading and Homily: According to your faith
The reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Matthew (9:27-35)
At that time, as Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly charged them, “See that no one knows it.” But they went away and spread his fame through all that district. As they were going away, behold, a dumb demoniac was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, the dumb man spoke; and the crowds marveled, saying, “Never was anything like this seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He casts out demons by the prince of demons. And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people”
Homily: According to your faith
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
In this Sunday’s Gospel, we hear of another miraculous healing performed by our Lord and God Jesus Christ. Yet, as with every such event in the Gospels, the meaning goes far deeper than the healing itself. It is not only a demonstration of His love and mercy toward particular individuals, but also a revelation meant for all of us. This particular story shows us clearly that the main purpose of miracles is not to serve as objective proof that God exists, but rather to lead us into deeper faith, into the recognition of who Christ is, and into a relationship with Him.
We see this contrast clearly between the two blind men and the mute demoniac, all of whom are healed, and the Pharisees, who witness the same miracles.
The Pharisees, in a sense, are the most religious people of their time. They know how to fast, how to pray, how to keep the Law, how to live outwardly pious lives. And yet, they are truly blind. Why? Because they refuse to believe. They look for reasons not to believe, even when the truth is before their eyes. When Christ heals the demon-possessed man, they go so far as to say He does so by the power of demons.
This is a terrible distortion. The devil does not heal. He seeks to enslave, to divide, to control. He does not want people set free. The Pharisees witness the work of God and call it evil because their hearts are hardened.
In contrast, the two blind men, though physically blind, see more clearly than the Pharisees. They cry out, “Son of David, have mercy on us.” They confess Jesus as the Messiah, the Anointed One, the true God, who became man, the One who has come not only to heal, but to save. They are not just saying, “You are a powerful doctor.” They believe He can heal them because He is God, the One who can restore human nature and who can overcome the brokenness of the world, which is His creation and which has been damaged by the Fall.
What, then, are miracles? Miracles are not just supernatural acts. They are signs of the age of the Lord, foretold by the Prophet Isaiah: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped” (Isaiah 35:5). They are signs that God is present, active, loving, and involved in our lives.
But here is the key: miracles are not mechanical. They are not given to prove something to skeptics. They are given in response to faith. In the Gospel, Jesus says to the blind men, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” When they say yes, He answers, “Let it be to you according to your faith.”
Miracles, then, are not the cause of faith. They are often the fruit of it.
If we want God to act in our lives – whether to heal us, to help with family struggles, with illness, with work, with anxiety about the future – we must begin by believing in Him, trusting Him, and opening our hearts to Him. We must believe that God can overcome what seems impossible: the odds, the statistics, the limitations of this world. And if it is for our salvation, He will act. Because He alone can restore us, not only our bodies, but our souls, our relationships, our peace, and our very life. Jesus did not come merely to heal physical sickness or even to cast out demons. He came to destroy death, to restore communion between God and humanity, and to bring eternal life.
So do not seek miracles as proof. Seek Christ. Seek relationship with the One who is Love. Trust in Him. Bring to Him your wounds, your fears, your burdens. Ask for what you need with faith. If it is good for you, He will grant it. Then, the miracles that happen will be the result of your faith, not the cause of it.
It is fitting that this Sunday, 27th of July, we also celebrate the feast of Saint Panteleimon, the great martyr and healer. He was a physician, but his healing power did not come from his medical skill alone. It came from his deep faith in God. He did not seek miracles. He sought Christ. Because of his faith, God worked miracles through him. He healed in the name of Jesus Christ, and he bore witness to Christ even unto death.
Let us, like the blind men and Saint Panteleimon, turn to Christ with faith. Let us confess Him as our Lord and our God, and place our trust in Him. Not simply as one who heals, but as the Savior who restores all things and gives life even in the face of death. Amen!
Yours in Christ,
Fr Dmitry