Our Faith is the Faith of the Community

Patriarch Porfirije on the 7th Sunday after Pentecost

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, today’s Gospel story – which is an expression of the word of God – is clear in and of itself. There’s no need to add any new interpretations or to develop on the thought which is already written in the Gospel. Yet, every word of Christ is an incentive for us to delve into the mystery of faith that we be enlightened and transformed from within. 

In this passage from the Gospel according to Matthew, the Lord once again underlines the importance of faith in our lives and shows us that faith is the foundation of our lives, as the Holy Fathers said: As we believe, so we live. Therefore, our faith is not simply our individual opinion and our isolated position but our faith is an expression of God’s will that turns into practice, into works in our lives. We see that the Lord, once again here, heals the sick, the blind and the deaf, the demon-possessed, but the goal of those healings was not simply to achieve physical health, but above all, salvation. That’s why faith as our view of the world, our view of life, faith as our “I”, as our overall being, as our life attitude, is something very important, something that is the beginning and end of our every word, thought and movement. At the very least, our faith as the Gospel that is present in our hearts and in front of our eyes is a mirror in which we can recognize all our deviations, all our falls and failures and sins and then, like the prodigal son, we see our alienation from God and we desire to return to the Father’s house. 

We hear once again in this gospel story how people turn to the Lord for help and for this very reason He first asks them: Do you believe that I can do this for you? Only when He hears: I believeor even: I believe, Lord, help my unbelief, then the miracle happens by itself. Miracles are always the result of God’s presence, the presence of God’s grace, and God’s grace is constantly with us, next to us and within us. God is always and everywhere present here with His love. In order for God’s presence, His love, power and strength to be active in our lives we need to open up and find a place for that presence and that place is our faith. That’s the material we offer to God, upon which He then builds on our salvation with His presence, His grace, and above all with His unconditional love. 

Our faith is formulated, written and drawn in what we refer to as, the Beatitudes. This should be our portrait, a sketch of our portrait. All that we find in the Lord’s words, in His Sermon on the Mount – the Beatitudes, should be the content of our life, and all of that is founded on our faith and humility. That faith is never individualistic and independent. Faith is never mine alone. Whoever thinks they can grow and be transformed and healed exclusively on their own faith, without being in communion with others, is at the very least going down the wrong path. We have so many examples of this from the Gospel, for instance both the Pharisees and the older son in the Parable of the Prodigal son are models of those who outwardly fulfilled the commandments of God, but held on to pride within themselves. In themselves they bore the feeling that they need to be honored and admired. That is why for such self-loving and arrogant people faith tends to be self-isolating. A person is completely alone in it. Having such faith one feels robbed because everything belongs to them and yet there is someone who hasn’t noticed their greatness. Moreover, just like in the parable of the prodigal son, even though the older son had everything – even honors – he was bothered by the fact that in the heart of the Father there was love for another. Therefore, it is not an individual, self-loving, pride-filled faith, which always ends up being fanatical and leads to loneliness. That’s faith without humility, faith without trust in God. That’s faith that has confidence only in oneself, in its own spiritual struggles, podvigs, on its own side, in its own purity. The faith to which the Lord calls us is the faith of the community, just as we read in the Gospel last week when we saw that the Lord healed one who did not believe with the faith of four, – that is, the faith of a group or a community of people. Then we should conclude that our faith should be the faith of the Church, faith as trust in the Church, because that’s where Christ is. He is the head of the Church. The faith of the community works wonders.

Also, we should ask ourselves: How great is the faith of our community? How great is the faith of our Church? In the Old Testament, the Lord teaches us when He wanted to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of the debauchery there, the righteous Abraham, being a saint of God, asked the Lord: Do not, Lord, if there are fifty righteous people. And the Lord said: Bring them to me. Abraham did not find fifty righteous. And then Abraham says: If there are forty, will you spare that city? I will, says the Lord. But Abraham did not find even forty. And so Abraham counted down the number, begging the Lord to save the city if there were at least ten righteous people. But he couldn’t find even ten. Therefore, it is important, brothers and sisters, that we dive into ourselves, into the Gospel of Christ, that we first seek from within the love of God, His presence, because He is there. Let us recognize that we are the beloved son who is in the arms of the Father unconditionally, with whom there is no: I love you if you are this and that or if you fulfill this and that. May the Lord grant that we too, together with those who are here today, we have seen and been healed by the love and hand of Christ and we too shall say: Yes, I believe, Lord, that you can; yes, I believe, help my unbelief, may my faith, our faith, the faith of the Church be the place of Your presence, the presence of Your love which we have recognized in You here and now and unto the ages of ages. Amen!

Don’t sign anything!

A new reality?

For my part, I would like to draw your attention to certain developments. These past few days I’ve been following the news – which can be very dangerous – so it is important that we know how to deal with it. Namely, it’s evident that a so-callednew reality is being imposed upon us, which destroys all things traditional, particularly all things which are Orthodox among our Serbian people, in Republika Srpska, and in general in the world wherever Orthodox Serbs might live. Many people from Australia and Canada are now saying they have to move because they can’t live – they don’t have the freedom of movement, they don’t have freedom to work. They are all locked up in cages, they are all locked up in a sort of spiritual or medical camp. They are denied any kind of freedom.

Understanding the reality and moment in time we are living in

We read recently in The New York Times, a well-known American newspaper, which says that the New Reality also means cannibalism. This is how new religions are propagated to us, that is, the deepest form of paganism. On TV we are presented with a supposed African primitive tribe where a form of cannibalism exists. Now they want to impose on modern Europe and the civilized world of America the opinion that cannibalism is somehow permissible, under the pretext of lack of food. You can only imagine what is being prepared and what is being done right before our eyes. We mustn’t remain deaf and blind to it. We have to teach our people to understand the reality and the moment in time in which we are living. Naturally, this should first be understood by the people who lead our country politically, ministers, presidents of the assembly, who will make decisions tomorrow whether to apply this in our country, here in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia or in other places or not. If politicians give their consent to it then such laws gain legality.

Why do we question the survival of our people?

We hear that, unfortunately, it has been agreed to hold gay parades throughout Serbia for a week in September. When I read about their program I saw that they will be visiting all cultural and church institutions, monasteries, the seminary and gymnasium in Sremski Karlovci. Where won’t they be! We can only imagine what that week will be like. Why didn’t anyone who signed this think their with their heads that it would be putting the ethics, morals, traditions, conscience, history and the beliefs – everything – of their people into question. No one cared about that and now people are being brought to us from a completely different system of values and beliefs. They propagate something unacceptable in our Serbian Orthodox culture. Why is this necessary? People who sign such things bear a great responsibility. Perhaps they’re not even aware of it.

Don’t sign anything!

Our contemporary the great Elder Thaddeus, theholy Elder Thaddeus – God willing he will soon be canonized -said that we not sign anything related to Kosovo and Metohija. He said that the time will come when Kosovo and Metohija will be Serbian again, but if something is signed before that then it will not be so. That’s why those who put their signature on things have a great responsibility before God and history. This is why the Church can only appeal to the conscience of such individuals, to beg them, console them, warn them, even prophesy if necessary. The Athonite elders were saying back in the 1970s and 80s, about what was going to happen and what difficult times was coming. One priest who used to listen to such sermons is our Prota, Fr. Vojislav Bilbija, who lives in Western Europe. He said that he couldn’t believe that on the streets of Rotterdam he was experiencing what the elders of Mount Athos talked about long ago.

A Liar and an Archiliar

See what times are coming! That’s why we must keep spiritual vigil. That we be wise. To recognize the spirits and not to do anything that is against our tradition and customs. We can become slaves with just one signature. In return, we are promised that we will, supposedly, enter this and that association; we are promised a brighter and richer future. These are liars and archiliars, brothers and sisters! The only thing we have is what we have from our spiritual endeavors – our podvig, our faith, tradition and our holy Church. To gather in our churches for prayer, as we gathered today in large numbers here in Pelagicevo. That we be wise. That those people who lead us, lead us on the path of salvation. That they never lead us to Goles Mountain for the sake of some interests; and at the same time, no one is looking at the interests of the people.

That they leave us alone

What will happen tomorrow when our children are taught in school that they don’t really know their gender. That they don’t know if they are male or female until the age of eighteen. And all of that will be called normal! What will we do then? It’s better we prevent it then eventually have a problem. We could say: “Gentlemen, you have your tradition and let it be yours. We have our Orthodox tradition and we want to live as we have lived.” We don’t want to be Czechs, nor Bulgarians, as unfortunately Macedonians have accepted to be a dialect of the Bulgarian language for the sake of the European future. Who knows what they will impose on us tomorrow. Rather, we have to tell them that we are Orthodox Serbs and that we want to remain as such. We are the children of Saint Sava and Saint Simeon of Myrrhflowing and Saint Lazar of Kosovo. That’s what we want to be and that’s our path. And let them live as they will. If it’s good for them, good. But they should leave us alone. We don’t need them to preach their lawlessness and proclaim it as an expression of freedom. For us freedom is only the freedom of life in Christ. Freedom to live in virtue, in good, in justice, honesty, sincerity. That is freedom of law. They have their freedom and our’s is our sacred Orthodoxy

We are Serbian Orthodox

I don’t want to bore you any more on this subject but I felt the need to tell you all this. I simply feel a lot of pressure on our people, which will probably only get bigger and bigger. It is not easy for the people who run the country. They need support, they need to be told that they too know the path they should follow and lead our people. Because we are the Serbian people, the people of Saint Sava, we are a people of holy fathers, Saint Bishop Nikolaj and the Avva Justin of Celije and many other saints. That’s our path. Those are our virtues. That’s our meaning of life. That’s our philosophy of salvation. If some think we should be saved differently, let them do it and do what they want, but don’t export it to us and sell it to us like fog and mist. Behind all of that is actually great lawlessness and a great untruth.

From a homily delivered by Bishop Fotije, delivered on the feast of the Icon of the Mother of God of the Three Hands in Pelagicevo, July 25, 2022

On the Feast of St. Archangel Gabriel

Homily delivered by His Grace Bishop Grigorije of Germany on the Feast day of Saint Archangel Gabriel here

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Your Eminence, Most Reverend Metropolitan Joanikije, dear brother in Christ and concelebrant Jovan, dear brothers and sisters, today is a wonderful feast day when we celebrate the Holy Archangel Gabriel, the feast for which we heard this morning’s gospel reading which reminds us of an incredible and, for us men, unimaginable event about of which the Lord Himself speaks, warning His disciples, and through them all of us. The Lord says to the disciples, I saw Satan fall from heaven. As I said, dear brothers and sisters, that event which we all believe in, because we believe in the Gospel, we believe in God, took place in the immediate vicinity of God. He who was all clothed in the garment of and endowed with light, to serve as light, prided himself and fell, and led many of the weak astray, and he was obviously influential because he was the angelic chief. As it always happens – many did not fall. Among those many who did not fall are the archangels Michael and Gabriel and other archangels, who, according to Tradition, stood bravely and encouraged all those who were confused and thus saved the entire angelic world. What is important for us to learn today, dear brothers and sisters, and what we heard in today’s Epistle, are those miraculous words which say: What is man that thou art mindful of him, and then he adds, Thou didst make him for a little while lower than the angels . Here he states that the Son of God, from the very throne of God, from the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit, came into this world and became a man, He humbled Himself to such an extent that, as the Holy Fathers say, in humbling Himself He would elevate man that he might sit at the right hand of the Father in the Kingdom of Heaven. That is why, brothers and sisters, it is important for all of us Christians to always remember that drama of salvation.

As I look at your faces this morning and the faces of our clergy, here at this Divine Liturgy, I’m reminded of the words of Bishop Atanasije of blessed memory who said, look at the people at the liturgy, how the drama of salvation is unfolding on their faces. Everything around is bright and sunny, everything is beautiful, everything is wonderful, including the sea and the mountains and the sun and the sky, yet we’re all standing here because we are interested in something even more than that, we are interested in our salvation, and that is why it’s visible on our faces, in our hearts, and that drama unfolds in the souls, a constant drama, a constant struggle, a constant concern that some one who would lord over us, someone like Satan, that he not deceive us like those who were around him or below him, and that we do not go into the utter darkness of non-being and non-existence. That’s why that wonderful Gospel saying is so important to us, which says What is man that Thou art mindful of him and then we are told that the Son of God became the Son of Man and that we are all called to be sons of God, to be children of God. On the other hand, we are aware of how much lower we are than the angels, how much we do not fulfill the words we heard today that He makes His servants a flame of fire. Who among us is a flame of fire this morning, who among us burns with the Holy Spirit? Few people. Most likely someone we don’t even know at all, but whom we don’t care about, someone we don’t see. That’s why we came here, brothers and sisters, to receive the Holy Spirit, to remind ourselves of what we are called to, to remind ourselves of the great fall of Satan. Why does the Lord speak to His disciples about the fall of Satan in today’s Gospel? Because the disciples tell the Lord what they have were able to do and how even the spirits obeyed them, and so He tells them that they do not need to pride themselves over this for Satan has fallen, but they should rejoice above all that their names are written in the book of life.

Today, this little child Lazar was baptized and entered in the book of life, in the book of immortality. What is and just how great, dear brothers and sisters, is the mercy of God. All of us, all our names are written in that book, however, let us not pride ourselves if someone or something obeys us, even the spirits, or if we are not afraid, if we are brave; indeed, the only thing we can boast about in this world, if we are able to humble ourselves before God, and to stand aright as the holy archangels did, among whom is the one whom we celebrate today! At the same time, we should know that the Lord, who temporarily humbled Himself, raised us to be greater than the angels, because He clothed himself in our body and sanctified it, enlightened it, and lifted it to the heavens.

That’s why, dear brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today around our Metropolitan, that is why we are in this place where we remember most Metropolitan Amphilohije of blessed memory, who brought us together and who longed so much to build this church here. After his passing away we would often hear how wise he was and clever and brave, and none of that is wrong, but what we forget, what was most important to him, was that he never prided himself in good nor lowered himself to the bad. That, dear brothers and sisters, is the drama of salvation, that we not get carried away in the good, as our folk wisdom would say, and not lower ourselves in the bad. This is the message of the Holy Archangel and all the angels and archangels who serve before the throne of God. They did not debase themselves in that which is evil and did not follow the one who began to sow evil around them and is still trying to this day, but in that evil they remained upright and pure. Don’t get carried away – don’t think that if the spirits obey you, that is more important than the fact that the Son of God came into this world and was crucified for us and for our salvation.

This is why we celebrate the Holy Archangel Gabriel and the holy archangels, this is why we glorify the Lord our Savior always and in every place, this is the reason for despondency to disappear from your faces at this moment but to open your heart to the grace of God. How can we become despondent when we come to church? When we are conscious of how many times we have fallen, how many times we have debased ourselves and our human dignity and how many times we have followed the one who sows darkness into the darkness of ignorance?! But always and again, when we come to church and stand before the throne of God, we remember that Christ came to save each of us and that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. At that moment, all sadness, all our worries and weakness are broken and the joy of salvation enters us. Not from the beauty of the sea, from the beauty of the mountains, but from the beauty, grace and warmth of the Holy Spirit.

May the Lord bless you! We thank Him for this wonderful day and the blessing to serve in this wonderful place with our Metropolitan and with our clergy and our dear Bishop who always brings us the warmth of the martyr’s bones from the holy place of Jasenovac. Thank you very much, brothers and sisters, and from this moment, as we enter the service of God, open yourselves more to the light and joy and leave behind you every worldly care. Amen.

Let’s make a step towards prayer and humility, a step towards mercy and forgiveness

From Patriarch Porfirije’s homily today on the Feast of St. Archangel Gabriel taken from here

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, the Holy Apostle Paul described the Church as the Body of Christ. We all know his words: The Church is the Body of Christ, and Christ is the head of the body, that is, the Church. The church as a community of the faithful, which is to say, we as the Church are inextricably linked to Christ precisely because we are the Church. The faith of the Church is what has the power to move mountains, the power to change the world. Remember the passage from the Gospel according to St. Matthew that we heard two days ago, on Sunday, and that same passage is also found in the Gospels according to Luke and Mark. Remember the Gospel that describes how the four brought a sick man before the feet of Christ. The four had faith but the one who was sick had no faith. Seeing the faith of these four the Lord healed the sick man who, not only had no faith but lived wrongful life. Therefore, by the faith of the four, by the faith of the Church, the one who had no faith was healed.

Remember the Old Testament story that describes Sodom and Gomorrah, where the Lord decides to destroy that region and all its inhabitants because of the sin that multiplied there. Abraham – who was just, faithful, virtuous, holy – begs God to save that city if there are at least fifty righteous people that live there. The Lord agrees, but we see below that Abraham wasn’t able to find fifty righteous. Then Abraham asks God to save that city if there are forty righteous people in it. And the Lord agrees to that also, but Abraham wasn’t able to even find forty righteous people in that city, so then they begin to bargain and Abraham lowers the number down to ten righteous people. And the Lord agrees to even that, but Abraham could not find even those ten in the city. We know the outcome and fate of those cities.

Therefore dear brothers and sisters, we often observe everything around us from a distance, we observe people, we are often critics, analysts, we teach and give directions, we know better than everyone what and how to do things. Of course, we are often ready to condemn everyone and everything. It is the observation of the phenomena and reality from the outside, yet if we read and pay heed to the word of Christ and observe the world around us, then it is through the word of Christ that we will observe it, the phenomena, other people and all that they are, but also ourselves, placing ourselves in the position of the prodigal son and the Pharisee and everyone whom the Lord calls to transformation, to repentance.

Therefore dear brothers and sisters, the faith of the Church is that which has strength not the faith of the individual. Our faith should be: I believe in God because I believe in the Church, because I believe in His Body, because the Lord Himself says: He who listens to you, listens to me. Therefore, the word of Christ is in the Church but it will have power and we will witness it and we will preach and speak it only when the word of Christ and His law become our way of life. We will preach and speak about ourselves, our life in the Church and our mutual relationships. Come and see – are the words of the Apostle. What do we have to show? We have to show the community of the faithful and the faith of the community of the faithful, that is, if we have it to show or not. In order to know this each of us should look deep within ourselves and humble ourselves before the Lord, but also before our neighbors, before others, so that the first step in our relations with others and our neighbor, will always be prayer, humility, mercy, seeking forgiveness and forgiving. It will be the step of the Gospel of Christ.

Building an individual relationship with God and the quality of that relationship is proven through our relationships with one another, our mutual fellowship, the quality of our relationships. Is it really, as we say at the Liturgy, that Christ is in our midst or do we put Christ aside and use him as a tool and oftentimes, if you will, even as a weapon against others, even though He came so that everyone would come to the knowledge of truth. He came so that everyone would be equally saved, to pour out an equal amount of love – if we can say it like that –  on every person regardless of what they’re like. In this sense, Christ isn’t a judge but His love is a judge because that love which embraces all is joy for some and a burden and torment for others. It’s like when in life, in our human experience, we go to embrace someone who can’t stand us. That embrace of ours is a hell for that person. But for the one, no matter who they are, whether they are weak, whether they stumble and fall, whoever longs for a normal relationship, for a loving relationship with you, whatever it may be, your embrace will be for them true paradise. It will free them from all prejudices, from all burdens. It will free them from all possible chains with which they are bound and allow them to live truly free. That is why the Evangelist says that it is not about performing miracles, showing that we are better and greater than others, but that our goal is to be written in the book of life, to be in the Church of Christ, to be inextricably linked with each other – and this actually occurs through Holy Communion – we connected by a bond once and for all with our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we may be written in the Book of Life. That’s the only way – no matter who we are, no matter how small and weak we are – our life will always be joyful. We will have a completely different point of view than the one who does not have the experience of communion with Christ, the experience of faith and the experience of love.

May the Lord grant us the faith of those four friends described in the Gospel because it will transform us. First, we will grow in Christ, in love, and then as we grow we will be more capable, we will be able to build a community with each other and thus confirm the Church as the Kingdom of God on earth, which has its fullness where God is, the One in Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen!  Ziveli!

Through the Faith of Others…

Patriarch Porfirije’s homily on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost from here

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,  

Brothers and Sisters, we heard a very impressive story from St. Matthew’s Gospel in which we meet a man who was so sick that he couldn’t even move. There are also four people who carried that sick man and brought him before the feet of Christ and asked Him to heal him. Christ, says the St. Matthew the evangelist, seeing the faith of these four, healed the paralytic. It is clear from this statement, but it is even clearer in the description of that very event by the evangelists Mark and Luke, that the man was paralyzed, he was sick not only physically but spiritually as well; he was so very sick that he was without hope and without faith and who knows what kind of life he led having no faith or hope.

Physical illness and physical health, as well as spiritual illness and spiritual health are not separate from each other. On the contrary, the spiritual life, the spiritual state is connected with the physical. Of course, sometimes the physical affects the spiritual, and sometimes it’s the other way around. In any case, whenever Christ approaches a person He approaches him from within and seeks out his inner, spiritual healing first and only then as a result of that healing comes the physical. What is strange about this story is that it is obvious that the man who was paralyzed, who was so sick that he couldn’t even move, he is someone who has no faith but someone who has sin and perhaps doesn’t even want to come to Christ. He has lost hope in any possibility of healing. On the other hand, we see the four who carried him and we are not told in the reading whether they were his friends. But these four men had faith in Christ and united by their faith they approach Christ, bringing the sick and the sick is healed.

Through the faith of others the one who was troubled with his own faith was healed.  We could explain this gospel message of Christ with one sentence: The Lord looks at the faith of the community, the faith of the Church. The faith of the Church is the space within which act the grace and love of God. The faith of the Church is the material on which Christ builds and establishes the mystery of salvation.  So, not the faith of one, the faith of an individual, the faith of one who thinks that his faith is stronger, firmer and better than others. It’s not: God and I – and I and God, but: the Church and I in the Church, the community and me. In the community is the place, if we can express in that way, where the Lord shows and manifests His love. Therefore, my faith is not exclusively and solely individualistic, my trust in Christ, but my trust in the faith of the community with all the saints, as the Holy Fathers say when they talk about the faith of the Ecumenical Councils.

On the other hand, Christ, healing this sick man, addresses him with the words: “My child, do not be afraid, get up.” Although it is obvious that this is a man who doesn’t care about God, one who has no relationship with God, Christ addresses him with: child. Clearly, in this story as well as countless others, Christ shows that He is the Lord of all people, that they are all His children, but in order to show and demonstrate His love for His children – for all people – as much as it depends on each of us individually, it depends even more on the faith of the community. Seeing, therefore, the faith of the community, the Lord healed this sick man because of their faith. Brothers and sisters, put your finger on your forehead. We often protest against the injustice that is inflicted on us and sometimes against persecution, and here we heard the apostle Paul who says: Bless those who persecute you… And he says a lot more about what we should do. Bless and do not curse.

We often complain and we condemn the weaknesses and sins of those around us. Yet, it is the Lord who is judge and we His children. Of course, He will not impose His love by force and we all have the freedom to decide whether to belong to Christ or not, whether to belong to God or not. Where there is faith and community, those who are weak in their faith, even those who have no faith, have spiritual progress, have spiritual growth. Let’s remember the story from the Old Testament, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. When the Lord, because of the sin that multiplied there, decided to send fire on those cities that all the people would perish, Abraham, who was a faithful servant of God, prayed to the Lord, precisely because of his love for Him, but also for his love for all people, a love which is God-like, and he says: Lord, if there are fifty righteous people, will you save these cities, though it be teeming with sin and debauchery? And the Lord replies: Yes. Find me these fifty righteous. But Abraham, despite all his efforts, failed to find fifty. Then, because of his love for God and man, bargained with the Lord and lowers the number. Lord, there are not fifty but what if I find forty. Will you save and spare these cities? I will, says the Lord. Abraham was not able to find even forty. And so he lowered the number down to ten righteous people in that city. And he didn’t even find ten. Of course, we know the fate of that city. But the fate of every city depends on the Church, on the faithful, on the strength of the faith of those who believe.

The premise of all thinking and the reason for all of our actions is, first of all, self-observation, the need to look into our souls and hearts in order to recognize our weaknesses, our failures and our sins and then set out on the path of repentance. This means that we start on the path of faith, on the path of spiritual endeavors and virtue, that we start and follow the path of all those values ​​that we heard a little while ago, which were listed by the Holy Apostle Paul. Therefore, all of our actions and words, thoughts and deeds must be the product and expression of our spiritual transformation and this means our prayers and spiritual endeavors, the expression of our fasting. Every discredit of our human dignity is an expression of the action of an impure force, a demonic force. The Lord says: This kind is only cast out through prayer and fasting. So, brothers and sisters, if our faith is strong there will be a strong spiritual and physical fasting, there will also be strong prayer, and then we as a community will be able to transform and everything around us will also transform. We will be like magnets, we will be for others a place where they also find peace, and in that place find their home.

For this reason, brothers and sisters, just as the Lord tells us in this story, which is recounted by St. Matthew the Evangelist, it is necessary for the community to have a strong faith and to know that only in humility can we become true members of the Church of Christ and that there is no one among us who is best and can be singled out. Just as we offer bread and wine that the miracle of the Eucharist might occur, the miracle of the Divine Liturgy, we also offer the community of our faith not only for ourselves, but for the whole world. The faith of our friends, parents, the faith of priests for their spiritual children; the bishops and the patriarch for the Church, and the faith of all for all, means that the Lord is able to work miracles among us, to heal and save the whole world, and it was precisely for the salvation of the whole world that He came. Our faith should be for the salvation of the world, for the salvation of everyone, including us. May the Lord allow us to walk the path of salvation with faith, hope and love here and now and forever and ever. Amen!