There Gospel of Matthew says: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." (Matthew Õ:37-38). This utterance has a very deep meaning, but, unfortunately, many people do not understand it. Any misunderstanding leads to opposition and brings a person to the wrong way. How can we explain the words of Jesus from the Holy Gospel in a right way? Having read or heard them somebody think: "How could it be? If I have father and mother, how shouldn’t I love them? How shouldn’t I help them? How can I leave everything and just follow God, serve to God only, and forget about my relatives?" No, our God Jesus Christ meant: a person who loves his/her relatives and neighbours more than loves God cannot be truly happy and cannot sincerely follow God.
When you sincerely love God, do not make the idols, try to follow the Commandments of God, then His love fills your soul and heart - and you automatically love your parents, your wife or husband, your children. You love them with heavenly love, not with the blind love, you don't idolize them. You see their mistakes and try to give an advice, in order that your relatives have no suffering. You don't gratify their strange whims, you can refuse when it is necessary. And, of course, you should care, show patience, you should forgive them, take care of them and try to live in peace. Thus, when you love your relatives with high love, you do right. It means - you are worthy of Lord, you follow Him. Therefore to follow God - does not mean to leave everything, stay in the church for the whole day or pray only, and forget about your relatives, neglect your children. And people sometimes run to an extreme. Therefore you should understand correctly the words of Jesus Christ, do not distort His teachings, you should understand teachings of Jesus in the right way the.
God be thanked, we understand the Bible; the lectures of Patriarch Moses help us in it. During the Divine Liturgy, after the repentance, we ask that God fills us with His gifts, - love and forgiveness. God gives love in our hearts and in our souls. And through us He gives it to our parents, children, and relatives. We should ask for His love which helps us to follow God and be worthy of Him, we should ask it from the Source of it, from God: "God, give us your boundless love to You, let love You with the whole heart, the whole soul and with the whole mind". Then God fills our heart and soul with His love, and person becomes happy, because there is love to the Creator of the Universe in his/her heart - and then person has the power to follow God.
Then God says about the cross, which is heavy but sweet. What kind of cross is it? It is the cross of service, the cross of help to the God's affair on the Earth. We come to church, we pray, we ask God to help us in different cases. We ask to develop the Church, to spread truth throughout Ukraine. In order to people become happy, get spiritual knowledge - this is the cross of service. We may think that this cross is heavy, but is it so? It is sweet. Do we feel the difficulties when we pray to God and ask for His help? We feel no difficulties, we feel grace because God blesses us with the Holy Spirit - and we feel very good. After the sincere pray, the Holy Spirit calms our hearts, our souls, inspires us to serve. When we do good deeds, then our generations are blessed, our children, grandchildren in the future - all of them.
Do you remember from the lectures of Patriarch Moses, that people who serve God get angels, which are given then as heritage to our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren? We will leave such wonderful gifts to the descendants - a lot of angels and then we will get the eternity with God, in His Divine Kingdom, in the wonderful monastery of Lord. Let us try to work and develop the Kingdom of God in the hearts, in Ukraine, to develop the God’s Church and ask the Lord to give us power, His Divine love to Him, that we love Him and always follow Him...
|
