On Saturday 30 September and Sunday 1 October we had services for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross, and in honour of Venerable Eumenius, bishop of Gortyna on Crete (+7th Century AD).  At the end of Divine Liturgy on Sunday special prayers were again offered, in the context of the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, for God's mercy and forgiveness, for the defeat of all impiety, and for the strengthening of lawful and blessed marriage.  In his sermon the parish rector spoke about the Christian life: denying oneself, taking up one’s cross, and following after Christ (Mark 8:34-9:1, the reading appointed for the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross).