The first patron feast day of the new Mission

Nativity of the Mother of God in Airdrie, Alberta

On Sunday, September 17, His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian was present at the first feast day of the new Nativity of the Mother of God Mission in Airdrie, Alberta.

The hierarch was traditionally greeted with bread and salt and the Cross and the Holy Gospel. The goup of clergy who joined the celebration included: Rev. Fr. Cristian Bujor - parish priest, Rev. Fr. Lucian Moldovan, Rev. Fr. Ciprian Roman and Rev. Fr. Gheorghe Petrovan.

At the end of the Holy Liturgy, the hierarch addressed those present saying:

"On this blessed Sunday - the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross - we remember, as we do every Sunday through the evangelical pericopes that are read, of the Savior's sacrifice and that thanks to His sacrifice we can become saints and enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Further, His Holiness showed the fact that following Christ is a free, unconstrained choice. It is an invitation to responsibility towards Christ which also means responsibility towards us:

"The Gospel from St. Mark the Evangelist, which I read today, begins with a word from the Savior Christ – ‘Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me’ (Mark 8, 34) - a word that draws attention to three aspects.

Above all, however, in addition to the three aspects - conditions, we can observe that following Christ is a free act: 'Whoever wants to come after me'. Following Christ is not an obligation. Responsibility for words and deeds, however, exists before Him. Whether we believe or not that we are creatures whose Creator is God and from Whom we come, we remain what we are - creatures of God - with a material body taken from our parents and a soul given to us at the moment of conception by God. Both - body and soul - will return to God at the end of the ages. First the body will return to earth to end this road of sin that we see in the world today.

The present conflicts speak much about the problem of sin and evil in our concrete everyday life. But we know that at the end of the ages man will be resurrected, the body will be raised and transfigured and will be united with the soul. They will be reunited – body and soul – body in a transfigured form and will live permanently near God.

Thus, the Gospel draws our attention to the fact that following God is a free responsibility. No one is forcing us. What we need to realize instead is that we are created by God and the best way to live our lives here and in eternity is to follow the Word of God, according to the way God created us, educated us in the period of the Old Testament and accompanies and illuminates us in the New Testament. All the conflicts we see presented on the media channels, all the problems, evils and disharmony in the world we live in, are but signs of our difficulties as humanity to live as we should according to our nature. Following Christ is a free choice, as is your choice to come to church and listen to the word of God, because the more you hear it, the more it penetrates your heart, and you will be able to make a way as befits according to God's order and in harmony with Him. This is the Church. No one is forced to attend a church, but what one discovers there is the true life, faith and uprightness as people."

Next, HG Bishop Ioan Casian emphasized the three conditions if someone wants to follow Christ: "The Gospel continues to present the steps we must take to grow in the image and likeness of God. And the resemblance to God brings us closer and closer to our truest, good, holy image for which we were created.

Returning to the three conditions required to follow Christ and enter the Kingdom of Heaven, here are the stages: the first step is to 'deny oneself', meaning to go away from all the bad and sinful baggage that we inherit from the family, from the circle of friends, from society or from other habits. Self-denial does not mean renouncing to our life, but to all that is bad, artificial and inharmonious in it, our sinful self with which we go against others; the second step is to 'take up one's cross', which means to assume the responsibility as the image and likeness of God, crucifying sin and adhering to Christ; and the third is 'to follow Me', which means to follow God in our life, to try, whether we are in a family or monastic life, to have a true spirit, to have true love towards God and towards our contemporaries, towards everything that is around us and towards everything that we should do to fulfill good things and reflect, thus, God's work in our lives."

The hierarch further explained what it means to be crucified and how the Mother of God remains for us the example par excellence in this regard: "In the apostolic pericope from Galatians that was read today, we find the following words of St. Paul: ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me' (Galatians 2, 20). This means that when we truly live a Christian life, we truly feel Christ living in us.

But what does the personality and life of Mother of God tell us about the cross? At the Annunciation, when the angel says to her: ‘And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end’ (Luc 1, 31 – 33). The Virgin Mary asks: ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man? And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God’ (Luke 1, 34 - 35). The angel's words are hard to grasp with the human mind, but the Virgin answers: ‘Here is the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word!” (Luke 1, 38). This means taking up the cross of crucifying one's own limited understanding, the sinful understanding and action of the whole human race. Our way of giving birth today, even after these baptismal cleansings, remains marked by the original sin of Adam and Eve. The Son of God could not be born in this way that remained marked by the problem of sin. In the Mother of God we see a concrete example of crucifying one's understanding. The Mother of God is the Most Holy arising from us humans. She is naturally born of man and woman but become an example for the way in which she understands the cross, how she crucifies the understanding both of herself and of all the chosen people who were waiting for the Messiah. The answer as a simple person, marked by the limit of sin, could have been no, but her holiness and trust in the word of God and in His providence made her say to His messenger: ‘Let it be to me according to your word!’

The example of the Mother of God cannot be equaled, but it can inspire us to fulfill the mission entrusted to us by God according to her model: "Thus we can see the connection between the cross and the personality of the Mother of God. She is an example of how we can understand the invitation to crucify our human understanding to do God's work. We will not be able to do what the Mother of God did in the literal sense because this is not our mission. But we will be able to give birth to Christ in this world through the word and deed we will do. This is our calling as Christians: to give birth to Christ in this world through word, through deed, through the children we can have, because all this bear towards the image and likeness of God."

At the end Fr. Cristian Bujor - parish priest thanked the hierarch for the pastoral visit, those present and those who worked hard for the preparations.

The celebration ended with a fraternal agape and a fundraiser.

(notes by Nun Ana)