After an exhausting and unproductive day at work I went to the Sourozh Cathedral in Ennismore Gardens for the Vigil Service of St Mary's Dormition. I went armed with Daley's Early Patristic Homilies of the Dormition (highly recommended) and noticed, upon arrival, that the place was under maintenance work. The service therefore took place in a cramped side hall. I don't go to Ennismore Gardens as often as I once did. When I was at Heythrop I went every other week. I don't know if this is some sign of interior struggle but I feel a great deal of physical pain at Ennismore Gardens. Maybe it's just hours of standing in one place and listening to a language I don't understand (I know only a handful of Slavonic phrases) but every time I go there my shoulder, right arm, back and legs ache. I managed to stay for two and a half hours, took the antidoron and was anointed by Metropolitan Elisey, but I yearned for my bed and the long journey home was ahead. Maybe the Byzantine Rite doesn't agree with me? At any rate I said Mattins and Lauds of the Assumption this morning using the old Roman Rite (I was far too fatigued last night), called upon God's vengeance against them that do violence to Tradition in the name of Pius XII and read The Mirror of Galadriel to remind me of times past in the beauty of holiness.
"To forget and be forgotten" is a phrase that has stuck in my mind to-day.
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