September 07
Priest Message
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)
My Dear Family in the Lord,
Today, we celebrate the Sunday before the Elevation of the Holy Cross. In the Gospel Lesson that we just read, we learned that: “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 13:13-15) This text refers to some of the symbols that prefigured Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Holy Resurrection from the dead, which was the Foundation of our Salvation, because Saint Apostle Paul, says:” For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” (1 Corinthians 15:16-17) When Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness, it was a prefiguration of Jesus rising from the dead and granting life to the world.
We know that: “God Is Love!” (1 John 4:8), God created us, because of infinite love, and He loves us unconditionally! He loves us even when we go astray, when we abandon Him for a while, He still loves us and stays with us, hoping that someday we will find our way back to Him! There’s no one who loves us more in the world than God! In the Church, we are called to experience God’s love and to share it with as many people as we can, to help others to move on the narrow path of Salvation!
You can see how great the Love of God, for all of us, after Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise, God never abandons the world and the human beings; He always finds ways to make them repent and reconnect with Him, through the Prophets, and all the Righteous people who were sent by Him, to help them repent! And at the end, because of His Infinite Mercy and Love, He did not hesitate to send His Own Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, to come down from Heaven, to live with us, to stay with us, to visit with us, to suffer along with us, to heal our illnesses, diseases and wounds, and to be tortured and killed for us, and to resurrect from the dead, to raise us from the dead and to offer us a place in Heaven by saying:” Well done, good and faithful Servant, you were faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.” (Matthew 25:21) What more than this can any of us expect from God to experience His Love?
But it’s not enough that God did His part to save us; it’s not enough to only benefit from all these wonderful gifts from God, we need to practice them every day, every moment, to live our life in Him, with Him, and for Him to receive continuously all His blessings, and of course to make others aware of how wonderful it is to live our lives with God!
May Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior, help us to live a Christocentric life and to make Him not only part of our own personal life, but also our family life, and of many other people, who are lost out there and who are looking for something, not knowing exactly what! And there’s only one answer to all our questions and longings, JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, WHOSE GLORY, DOMINION, AND KINGDOM ARE FOREVER AND EVER, AMEN!
