Anticipated feast of Saints Peter and Paul

patron-saints of the parish in Kitchener

On Saturday and Sunday, June 24 and 25, His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian was present in the parish of St. Peter and Paul in Kitchener. The visit was made on the anticipated celebration of the patron saints of the parish.

On Saturday evening, the hierarch served the Sacrament of the Anointing of sick with Fr. Viorel Țencaliuc - archpriest, Fr. Dragoș Giulea, Hieromonk Polycarp - hegumen, Protos. Corneliu,and Fr. Emanuel Țencaliuc.

The next day the hierarch served the Holy Liturgy. In his address to those present, the hierarch said: "In their preaching, the Holy Apostles gave advice to people against the worries of this world, to help them solve the difficulties of their lives in a Christian way. The foundation of their advice was the need for faith in human life. (...)

To have faith means to have peace with God, because when man rebels, as was the case with Adam and Eve, he becomes disobedient to the will, the word and the order of God, due to a temptation, a suggestion of the evil. Thus, to lead a settled Christian life, we need peace with God, which can be achieved through the peace we acquire in our souls through Christ. This can only be the result of faith, which is a work of God and His grace. This peace was brought to us through Christ the Savior. What we live in the Church we live because of the gift of God, the gift of the Savior's life fulfilled in His earthly life. From this fulfillment of Him in His human nature, He gave the Church through the Holy Spirit to us people fellowship in it every Sunday and holiday and at every Holy Liturgy and every moment when we are in the church or in the spirit of the Church."

Faith is the basis of man's entire journey towards God. This path is made in several stages: "Today’s Epistle reading says that from faith springs several stages that we must go through in order to reach this peace – pointed the hierarch. Faith makes us able to endure, to suffer like the Savior Christ at our level, to be able to take on the hardships that life puts before us and which, even if we do not always consider them justified, they are known and permitted by God. God's holy men also understand them because they have clear, transparent vision beyond the events themselves into God's reasons for them.

Furthermore, suffering brings us patience: the moment we take on these difficulties of ours, they show us that as they grow or multiply, we realize that there is an inner strength within us that does not come from us, but from God. This increases our patience, because we realize that there is a power working in us, the providence of God, which is beyond ourselves, and which speaks to us and gives us the certainty of the eternity and the kingdom of God.

From patience comes trial because we begin to understand that the difficulties, we encounter, are actually part of a path strewn with obstacles that lead us to our ultimate goal—the encounter with God. And once we go through all these stages - the suffering, the patience, and the trial -, hope is born in us, because we realize that God is with us every moment in this life in everything we do and that the end of our journey is the Kingdom of Heaven. Once we have received the grace of God and fulfilled all these stages, resulting from the fact of having faith, the hope that we can reach the end of our life - Kingdom of God, is born.

This is the way we must look at all the difficulties we encounter during this life, and which, most of the time, in the absence of faith, can destabilize us. It's easy to start doubting, to hesitate, to back down, to start blaming anyone, even God, for everything that happens to us."

The hierarch spoke about the role of faith in this spiritual journey of man: "This faith, in the path we travel, makes our vision clear and pure and keeps us open to God and His work. If we want to see this world and everything that happens in it according to God's order, we must have our eyes clean. Inasmuch as our eye is clean because of faith that has done its work and we have followed its steps, we can truly see the work of God. And then we will make our life a transfigured life, a life that follows Christ. (...)

The conclusion we can draw from the reading of today's Holy Gospel is that the priority of our life is the search for the Kingdom of God and His justice and the other small things can be solved in the context of this search, thus becoming useful and helpful for our life. Because everything we will do will be in the spirit of faith and hope in God. We will live in the presence of God by faith and everything that will happen to us in this life will happen in this spirit."

At the end, HG Bishop Ioan Casian blessed those present. The fraternal agape prepared with great love by the ladies' committee closed the celebration.