Sermon on the 19th Sunday after Pentecost [2011]

  Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord,

what kind of heart must to have orthodoxies for that to forgive enemies? And what does it mean in fact, to do more than the secular people do?

Because the today’s Gospel [Luke 6, 31-36] indicates us the mercies right the attribute by which we resemble with God [v. 36].

But how do we resemble with God if we have mercifulness? And what is, in fact, to have mercifulness? For whom to have mercifulness?

But, if the Lord comes to love our enemies, then our mercifulness, our attention should be aim at everything. All there is needs our attention.

And this, because God looks on all, it supports all alive and does not eliminate any of the works of salvation.

He demands from us a growing encompasses of the personal realities, a growing knowledge of people’s personal problems and of creation in general, by the interior relations with people and with everything around us.

How to know the life of another, if we do not want to know? And how to know another, if you do not pray for him?

And reciprocal understanding comes from dialogue, from confession, from gossip, from friendship, from love.

For how to forgive someone, if you do not understand him?

Because you forgive, when you understand the reasons of errors. You forgive, when you know how much need of your forgiveness has another.

And for this inner happiness or inner healing, we must do everything what is related to us, without limits. Because this delimitation for good means the continuous good.  

And this quotidian good is emphasized by the Lord in the words: „And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” [Luke 6, 31, acc. ASV].

For that, in this perspective, we live not wishing to do something for us but for that we do something for others.

And to do something for others means that we keep in focus, in sensibility, in the state of being creative…to create our interior.

And our interior, our minds and our hearts should be filled with the glory of God for to be attentive to the whole existence.

Because only God can teach us through His glory, what it means to be attentive and sensible to every happiness and pain.

And God teaches us to be paradoxical. Because He asks us to give money without wanting it back, to do good to those who hurt us, to pay attention to those who ignore us.

He asks us to be realists with the needs of people but divines with their faults.

For it is obvious the fact that man needs money, food, a good word…And treat him humanely means to be realist, because it helps him to stay alive.

But you are divine with people, when you do things that exceed the people’s expectations.

To forgive your enemy is a divine thing.

Help the one who you did wrong is a pious, great thing.

Helping someone, you preserving anonymity in the same time, is the thing of high consciousness.

Mercy, forgiveness, gratitude are immense, divine things.

Therefore they are not find on all roads…because there are not in many hearts. And there are not in many people because the good is rational, it is desired with intensity and it works day and night in the minds and our hearts.

And if you do not work the good in rational mode, deliberate, how to be merciful as God? How to be good in unconscious mode, when God is always awake, attentive, caring with all existence?

In essence, the orthodox life is an awake life, rational, with great care and delicacy to the people and responsible to the things around us.

For if in relation with those hostile we should be the bread of God, how good we must be with those nearly, with our intimates?

The Lord tells us here, that the orthodox life is a divine-human life and it should never be treated easily, secularist. For that the secularization of the Church’s life means transforming the world into an existence without some holiness.

But we must bring all humanity and creation in the Church, that sanctify them. And the prayer for the entire world and the blessing and the sanctification of the fruits of the earth and our homes mean to work the good in the middle of the world.

Our fill of grace at the Holy Liturgy and the eucharistic communion with the Lord and the Master of our lives mean that we become God’s houses, sources of peace and of spiritual beauty.

And let us pray to the Lord to make us, each of us, the springs of beauty, here, in the middle of world, from which to spread the beauty of eternal life. Amen!