Sermon on Sunday of Adam’s Expulsion from Paradise [2012]

My Beloved,

At the beginning of the Great Lent we have a didactic Evangel [Mat. 6, 14-21], which teaches us the interpenetration between forgiveness, fasting and almsgiving.

Because all three have inner connection between them.

If we have been forgiven by God of many sins…then we know to forgive others. Because forgiveness is healing of the soul…and you when forgive, you do an almsgiving.

And God loves the one who forgives…for that He Himself is the God of forgiveness, of mercy.

And He asks us to forgive because asks us to love.

For forgiveness comes from love…from an ample and deep perspective on relation with other.

From this cause, the God’s forgiveness is not a juridical thing, exterior and indifferent to us but a gesture of deep healing, through that our humanity is filled with His glory.

And so the forgiveness is filling with joy!

But and the fast is joy and not the contortion of face [v. 16]. And for this, those who make from fast a social mask pharisaical…ensures us the Lord, they will receive their pay…and namely: the vain glory.

And what is the vain glory from here to the uncreated glory of God?

For that to be praised and seen well by people means the vain glory…while to enjoy the eternal and uncreated glory of God means to inherit the Kingdom of God, ie the spiritual communion with all Saints of God.

And the fast, the truly fast, brings the spiritual joyful. And who lives the God’s forgiveness as joy, that one lives and the fast as spiritual joy and beauty.

In the third row, the alms, as and the fast, start from the bottom of man.

Therefore the alms is not a charitable deed, done in indifference to God and man…but an act done from love for God and people.

In the mystery of the human heart is born forgiveness, fasting and almsgiving…and therefore we must cleanse the depths of our being for to be a treasure of God’s grace.

Because our true treasure is not in outside of our being…but in its depths.

And when you give to another…then you do not lose what you give…because you win new friends, new confidants, new brothers on the path of salvation.

The alms give birth to joy.

And the real joy is from God, because only He enjoys with true by the simplicity and the beauty of joy between people, for that He is the Truth and the Beauty of world.

He, our God, is our treasure!

Through Him and with Him we are rich.

Because our wealth is our deeds made ​​with and by His grace.

Our deeds are what we become by it.

Our deeds are one with us, are one with our heart.

Therefore we, christians, are not duplicitous…because we talk about our heart…about what God did with our lives in His great kindness to us.

And the fast that begins now is a new motive for thinning of our mind and heart, for our spiritualization, is not an opportunity for to lose the time.

Per contra, this blessed time is full of spiritual joy and ascetic struggle, which make us stronger in face of difficulties, of the temptations, of the pains and of the death.

For that we learn to look to Christ, the Fulfiller of our faith, Who died and rose for us, for to give us the spiritual strength to overcome our passions by abstention from to give course.

So, we go through fast toward the Resurrection of Lord. We go spiritually toward more and more divine joy.

Because joy comes from purity, from forgiveness, from mercy, from good deeds.

The joy does not appear from imposture and wickedness.

And we observe this all the time: only what enjoys on all is good and useful. But what separates, what makes lonely is a disfigured good.

Therefore, I ask you to bet on what clears you up…that to want to cleanse you from sins and to fill of grace!

And our God gives us all to work what is good and what is beautiful…for that we join and more into His service. Amen!