Priest Message
07/26/2026
Sermon on the Eight Sunday of Saint Matthew, 2026
In The Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen!
My Dear Family in the Lord,
From my perspective, I strongly believe that we all need to refresh, to evaluate, to “measure” if you wish, how great our faith is! Or how is the level of our faith in God, now, as opposed to where should it be?
It would probably be a very good thing if we could do that every day, if we could evaluate and reevaluate that all the time!
Some years ago, I visited a Monastery here in the United States and there was one of the monks there, speaking to us. Among many words of wisdom that he shared to us, I remember him saying, that if we were able to see inside of our souls, to look through a mirror there, in the deepest part of our souls, what would we discover? Or how easy would that be to identify all our sins and wrongdoings and to repent.
Now, again, coming back to our original thought, of how great our faith should be or to evaluate our faith every day, how is that going to work? What to do?
Let’s take a look in our Gospel Lesson today, to see, what we can learn about that?
Jesus was going, followed by His Apostles and Disciples, and He encountered a great multitude of people, and started to do all the things He always did, having compassion on them and healing their sick.
After He spent the whole day doing that, His Apostles came to Him and said: “This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves. (Matthew
14:15)
But Jesus, being pretty confident said to them: “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” (Matthew 14:16)
When they heard that, His Apostles started to be worried, knowing that there’s not enough food, that they didn’t have enough food to feed all the people present there and: They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” (Matthew 14:17)
The Lord said again, in a very relaxed and confident way: “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and
blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men,
besides women and children. Then he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.” (Matthew 14:18-22)
This is amazing, isn’t it? The Savior of the world, feeding an estimated number to anywhere between fifteen to twenty thousand people, the Holy Scriptures says about five thousand men, besides women and children, which indicates that fifteen to twenty thousand people, all together, this is probably the correct number of people!
Nobody expected this! But there’s more in this story that we need to observe and to learn. And that is because we all understand that a miracle took place, that nobody before Jesus, performed such a thing,
that with such a very small amount of food, to feed so many people, five loaves of bread and two fish.
Even the people who were fed didn’t fully understand the magnitude of that miracle. Most of them were probably happy that they were fed and satisfied, and they didn’t think more of what exactly happened, because probably they didn’t even know the amount of food that was used to feed them.
But what it is very important to us to see and appreciate, is, the human limitation, versus God’s Power, capability, protection and care that He always offers us, when we seem to be helpless and even lost! When human limits come to an end, divine infinite mercy comes and solves all our problems!
Lord, we only have five loaves of bread and two fish, and we have so many people to feed, what to do? That was the questions that the Apostles had. And then the answer came when Jesus when He fed them
all fifteen or twenty thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.
This is how God answers to our prayers and how He always responds to our needs pouring upon us, His infinite mercy!
My Dear Sisters and Brothers in The Lord,
We learned from this story, how much God helps us, how much He cares for us, how much He is with us, giving us everything what we need, before we even ask for it! We also learned that we have limited ability and knowledge and that beyond that it is only God’s power
and mercy that takes over and helps us!
This Gospel Lesson it is also a good opportunity for us to test our faith, to see how great, or how deep our faith really is? Can we trust fully in God and His Help and His Mercy all the time? Absolutely, we live every they because God Is manifesting His Mercy and His Grace on us and
can do nothing without Him as He says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
Let’s put our trust in God, try to “measure” how great is our faith every day! How can we do that? Through our prayers, “pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (I Thessalonians 5:17-18), fasting, partaking from The Holy
Sacraments, participating in the Divine Services and make every effort to grow in Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who’s Glory, Dominion and Kingdom are forever, AMEN!
I cannot wait to see you in Church!
In Jesus Christ Our Lord, I remain, prayerfully yours,
+ Fr. Catalin



