“O God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18, 13)
My beloved religious, and all our
faithful sons and daughters,
From the city of Jerusalem and its holy streets, I invite you
for a holy pilgrimage with Christ who carries his cross. He carries it while
being insulted, suffering and in silence. For twenty centuries millions of
pilgrims have walked in the footsteps of Christ along this road known as the Road
of the Cross “Via Dolorosa.” They walk behind him in awe, silence and penance.
This Road of the Cross leads us to the spot of crucifixion known
as Golgotha. In this spot, where the cross of Christ was erected, how is it
possible for us not to prostrate in homage to him while our eyes rise looking at the
cross from which the crucified Christ looks to us? This is the Lamb of God who
takes away the sins of the world – the Lamb of the new Passover.
Golgotha
When the Jews celebrate their Passover, they slaughter a one-year old lamb in memory of their exodus from Egypt, their liberation from the slavery of Pharaoh, and their crossing of the Red Sea that opened before them doors of liberation. For Christ is the New Lamb that rescues us from the hands of the most ruthless pharaoh, the Devil to whom we become slaves if we let ourselves follow his will. Nevertheless our Lord Jesus, by his sacrifice on the cross, saves us from the hands of that tyrant, and opens before us the paths of liberation from our sins granting us their forgiveness by his cross and by the power of the Holy Spirit whom we received in baptism.
Holy Lent invites us to return to the self in order to discover
our sins and ask for their forgiveness. We often utter the word “forgiveness of
sins” but do we know our sins in order to repent and receive their forgiveness?
The answer is found in returning to reading the teachings of our Lord Jesus in
the Sermon on the Mount. I, therefore,
invite you to read them in the fifth and sixth chapters of the Gospel according
to Matthew. We discover the dimension and depth of sin in as much as we fail to
apply these teachings in our own lives. Some people think it is impossible to
apply them. Yet, Christ assists us by his Holy Spirit to do these commandments so
that they become a living constitution for our lives.
In the Sermon on the Mount we read “Blessed are the clean of
heart: they shall see God” (Matthew 5, 8). We see that cleanness of heart and
purity are missing today. The Church suffers much because many of her children
slide into attractive promiscuity offered through space TV channels and pages
on the Internet. The loss of purity makes them blind to seeing God. They
therefore fall in fornication, adultery and any other acts that disturb the
ethical and moral system.
In another text in his Gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ invites us
to be meek and humble of heart as he is (Matthew 11, 29) thus rejecting our
human natural tendency to pride, anger, violence, and other similar tendencies.
The Saviour teaches us to love each other as he loved us (John
13, 34). In yet another text he taught us that the greatest commandments are
love of God and love of neighbour (Mark 12, 30-31). Our love to each other must drive us to be
generous and to live a life of communion with our brethren as the early Church
was (Cf. Acts 4, 34-35). Let us recall here the warning of Jesus not to hang
onto material wealth; for he said “You cannot serve two masters: God and mammon”
(Matthew 6, 24). Love of money, greed, and cold-heartedness open to us the
doors of cheating and stealing while they prevent us from giving and assisting the
poor (Luke 12: 33-34), (Luke 16, 13), (Luke 21, 1-4), (Matthew 19, 16-26). As
for the person who encounters Christ, he will be transformed from a person who
loves material wealth to a generous and unselfish person as Zacheus did when he
encountered Jesus (Luke 19, 1-10).
I would like to also mention other sins such as envy, gossip,
gluttony, and laziness. We often do not pay attention to how dangerous they are
for our spiritual lives. Envy occurs when we look with an envious desire to
what our neighbour owns or when we compare what we have with what others have
and say “Why him/her and not me?” So often I hear our sons and daughters say this
sentence! As for gossiping, it may be the most common sin among people that
wounds the reputation and feelings of others. Gluttony causes problems to our
physical health and may reflect negatively on our spiritual health. Fasting is
therefore the best treatment for our health. Let us not enslave ourselves to
the desires of the flesh as if they were gods! Lastly laziness diminishes our
desire to pray and participate in the service of the parish and in sharing in
its activities.
Let us ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit to enlighten us and
purify us: “O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth Who art everywhere
present and fillest all things…: come, abide in us and cleanse us from every sin”…
Thus we discover our sins, repent of them and run to the priest confessing them
to receive their absolution. Enough claiming “I will confess to God directly”!
Confession to the priest is one of the essential teachings of the Catholic
Church. I propose that you do it at least once a month or when necessary.
Fasting, Prayer, and
Almsgiving together with Repentance
Fasting: As Christ fasted for forty days in the desert, so are
we too invited to fast; for Christ is our model. Remember that fasting offers
us many benefits in both our spiritual life and our bodily life.
Prayer: Through meditation in Holy Scripture, individual prayer
and participation in Church prayers. How overjoyed I am by those faithful –
some of them are elderly - who come from far to participate in the Church
prayers during holy Lent. I ask beloved parents to encourage their sons and
daughters to pray and be a first model for them to follow!
Almsgiving: The source of almsgiving is brotherly love. The
self-lover, selfish person who hangs to money does not usually feel the needs
of his neighbour, is not moved with compassion, and does not perform acts of
mercy. See the Parable of the Rich and Lazarus (Luke 16, 19-31), the Parable of
the Good Samaritan (Luke 10, 29-37) and the General Judgment (Matthew 25,
31-46). These are good examples of our duties to love our neighbour.
An important matter that results from weak human nature and to which
we hardly pay attention is grumbling or refusal of the situation we have in
life. We often reject difficulties in life arising from limitations to health
or other situations in the family such as problems in health, material capabilities
or work. This renders us sad, desperate, and grumbling! This is the cross that
Christ invites us to carry in the path following him. This refusal to accept
the situation of our life and to carry our cross indicates a lack of trust in
our heavenly Father who loves us, cares for us, consoles us, hears our prayers,
lightens our suffering, and solves much of life’s difficulties.
In spite of the many sins committed as indicated above, I invite
you to have joy; for our God who is a just judge (Matthew 5, 21-22), (Matthew
25, 31-46) is also a merciful father who does not will the death of any sinner. He
created us to share in his divine life and sent his beloved Son but we
crucified him. Nevertheless, his mercy surpasses every measure and is much more
than our sin. His sacrifice on the cross and his redemption of us are stronger
and more perfect than all the sacrifices. It is one perfect sacrifice whose
efficacy reaches out to all humanity throughout all ages and places; freely
granted to anyone who discovers Christ, believes in him and in his salvation; a
sacrifice that opens to us the doors of repentance and forgiveness, the doors
of heaven and eternal life.
Beloved brethren, how cannot our hearts move before the free love
of God towards us? We deserve the most severe punishment for the least sin. For
Christ the Lord, glory be to him, teaches us that whoever says to his brother
“You fool” deserves the fire of Gehenna (Matthew 5, 22). Nevertheless, our God,
who loved us so much, pulls us out of sins and forgives them by the merits of
the passion and death of his Son Jesus Christ. Yes, we want in this holy Lent
to encounter Christ, and that our living faith in him and his salvation gets
renewed. We want to renew our love to
him. We want to be united with him and thank him; for by his sacrifice on the
cross, he merited forgiveness of our sins. By receiving him in the Divine
Liturgy, we are filled by the Holy Spirit who abundantly grants us his numerous
gifts and graces, and brings us to cry out to God the Father “Abba” – “father”
(Galatians 4, 6).
In this Year of Faith, and by the inspiration of the new
evangelization that the Church calls us to, let us strive in Lent to be able to
see the salvific passion of Christ and his glorious Resurrection singing in joy
“Christ is risen from the dead, and by his death he has trampled upon death,
and has given life to those who are in the tombs.”
.
May
you have a blessed and holy Lent!
Archbishop Joseph Jules Zerey
General Patriarchal Vicar
for the Greek Melkite Catholics in Holy Jerusalem
