May you have blessed years, and may you continue to pray, and say, “Give me, O Christ, the faith and the patience of the Saints!"
From what it seems, and from what you can see, we have reached the years of great patience and of great faith; the faith of the saints.
For we will need the patience of the saints, and the faith of the saints; the one which is Orthodox.
Even the people who should be guarding the Orthodox faith do not do so properly, but rather they dilute it; an extremely, extremely dangerous act.
Why is this act dangerous? It is dangerous because the life that everyone will live, will be according to what their own conscience and what their circumstances allow.
But the glory which we will receive in the Eternal Life, will depend on the faith we possess!
Look at the Apostle Tychicus (one of the Seventy Apostles), a young man, very educated, full of knowledge; he could have lived a life of honor as a man of the law, or as a doctor.
And all the apostles who had certain talents, such as the Apostle and Evangelist Luke, the Apostle Paul; they were not all fishermen.
Some of them had a vast knowledge and education, and they were very talented, and had worldly opportunities to make a career for themselves; to express myself in a contemporary way. And yet, for the love of Christ, and for the truth of the Gospel, they dedicated their lives to making the Holy Gospel a concrete thing (not just preaching it with empty phrases).
Their example, their word, and their epistles, for those of them who wrote, to this day are our source of spiritual support and guidance; for the past twenty centuries.
Generations come and go, but the works of the Holy Apostles remain undiminished and they are the foundation of our Faith.
That is why our Church is also called Apostolic, and our Faith is also called Apostolic.
Therefore, if we lose this faith, or if we dilute it, our salvation is in danger! Our Eternal Life is in danger! The eternal glory of our souls and bodies is in danger!
That is why we must be very sensible, and very careful how we will approach the Mercy of God in our lives, and how we will confess our faith and the truth of the Gospel!
The application of the Gospel to our own lives is the best "passport" to arrive at eternal life. This is the Life that the Holy Apostles longed for, and the one they rejoice in! We too can be co-inhabitants with them in the Eternal Glory, in the Eternal Life, and in the Eternal Joy!
Our times (the age in which we live) give us many opportunities to get there. Many opportunities! If we confess the Christ Who was Crucified, Who Rose, and Who will come again with glory!
If we impart Christ to our children, and to our grandchildren! First of all, through our own example, and then according to each person's education and each person's faith; according to what they are capable of doing.
But even today we must strive to build bastions of faith; forts of resistance.
Very difficult moments for humanity are coming. It seems that these difficult moments are just now starting. When this virus will end in May, other grievances will come; far greater than this one.
Therefore, we will need even more patience and even more faith. Now we are in the stage of practice, and of exams. These exams will pass, and more difficult ones will come.
That is why I am asking you, and I have said this in other places as well, in every town the priest should find ten prayerful people. If he finds more, all the better!
Give each of the ten people to read every day, at any time they can, two Kathismas from the Psalter of David.
Two Kathismas take about 15 minutes... That's why we call them Kathismas.
And where it writes, "Glory be to the Father...", we get up and make three crosses (prostrations).
At the end, we will commemorate the names of the living and the dead, those who love us and those who hate us, those who serve us and those who harm us, and the people who are in pain (suffering).
There are many people who are in need of being commemorated and in need of our love.
This is the best way, which God has enlightened me with, and which I have received as counsel from enlightened people, so that we can build bastions of faith in every village and in every place. Let's do concrete things, not just words and sermons!
As you can see, the situation is worsening; the times are worsening.
What should the Christians do? Are they only capable of putting on masks to protect themselves from these things? During the next illness we will not be able to protect ourselves with masks, nor with "shots" (v......s). What will we do then?
"Shots" will prove themselves to be very dangerous for people. In the same way we have genetically modified food, we will have, slowly, slowly, modified people.
Therefore, Christians must do the the things which are difficult. Christians are meant for the difficult things. Atheists are meant for the easy things; who think they can change the world, but in fact they cannot even change themselves.
The Christian is the one can change, he is the one who can transform, the one who can be sanctified. Us bishops have a great responsibility!
If we cannot influence the many, we can help through the mediation of the few. God can do His work even with only two or three people!
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20.)