St. Dimitry the Myrrh-Gusher celebrated
in the Romanian community in Richmond Hill/Toronto
On the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian made a pastoral visit to the Parish from Richmond Hill/Toronto dedicated to St. Dimitry and St. Hierarchs Basil, Gregory and John.
The celebration began on the eve with the celebration of the Sacrament of the Anointing of sicks service, where the hierarch of Canada had by his side Fr. Viorel Țencaliuc - parish priest and dean, Fr. Mihai Cristea, Fr. Eugen Revencu, Fr. Petre Busuioc, Fr. Lucian Azoiței, Fr. Emanuel Țencaliuc and Hieromonk Polycarp Athenagoras.
The next day the celebration continued with the Holy Liturgy. At the end of it Bishop Ioan Casian spoke about the meaning of the two pericopes read from the Epistle and the Gospel:
"In his words St. Paul teaches us what salvation means, how it can be obtained and to Whom we owe it. It is important to remember this passage from Holy Scripture because it summarizes, in a few words, what we live in the Church. He makes us understand in an authentic and concrete way to Whom we owe the work that happens in the Church. St. Apostle Paul says: 'by grace you are saved, through faith, and this is not from you: it is the gift of God'. What we live in the Church, the Holy Apostles lived, and all generations will live until the end of time; this is the gift of God. We do not owe this work to ourselves. St. Apostle Paul understood this early. If we remember, he was a persecutor of the Church in his time. He was going with a letter to Damascus to persecute the Christians, who at that time were considered a Jewish sect. He quickly understands that in his encounter with God on the road to Damascus, he has absolutely no merit. When he falls to the ground, he hears the words: 'It is hard for you to kick the thorn,' he loses his sight and remains blind until the moment of baptism by Ananias, to whom he was also sent by the same voice that appeared to him then in the light. Paul asks: 'Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said: I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.' He now understands what plan he was going against. From the meeting and dialogue between Paul and Christ we understand that Paul was fierce against God's plan, a plan that was beyond him and all of us. Paul regains the vision at the time of baptism in the city of Damascus from Ananias. Then the scales fall from his eyes and he begins to see. It will take him a few years to meditate on this. His return takes place, but there are a few years that he will spend somewhat away from the tumult of the world he used to frequent, precisely to meditate, to understand better, to study the Scriptures, to deepen the experience of meeting God, because after that we will see him returning with so much power in his preaching, either to his fellow Jews or to the heathen nations. (…)
When our mind is dark, when wickedness is in our heart, we cannot be good to others, we cannot have a settled, spiritual, kind and loving behavior. What is in your heart and mind, it will be in your gestures, in your deeds and in your whole life. You cannot do two things, because the mind will always be determined by what is in the heart. That is why we need to establish peace, good order, good thinking, of our life both in the heart and in the mind."
Faith is an act of freedom and spiritual courage that has the role of freeing man from passions and sin:
"St. Apostle Paul clearly says in today's Apostle that salvation comes by grace, that is, by the gift of God. Then, by faith we enter this work of saving grace. When we do not have the faith to adhere to God's work, we cannot participate in it. He does not force us. Faith is an act of freedom, in which you put your hope in the word of God, that He is stronger than all the things that happen in this world. It is truly an act of courage and freedom, because man is constantly subject to sin and to the dynamics of evil, of conflict. If we look at all the conflicts these days in all corners of the world, we see that they all speak of the fullness of our hearts: malice, contradictions, passion, enmity, desire for power, oppression and wealth, injustice, etc. These are things that speak about us and the society we have built. But Christ the Redeemer tells us that there are two rules or laws that are the basis of a well-ordered society: love for God and love for neighbor. Without these there cannot be a settled, well-ordered and clean society. The conflicts precisely manifest this problem of the society which, most of the time, does not have at its center the concern for the love of God and for a proper relationship with the neighbor.
St. Paul also says: 'we are built up in Christ Jesus for good works'. This means that when God thought of us in His eternity and created us in Heaven, He created us by founding us for good works. Good deeds are what define us. They are what best describe our human nature.”
Unlike people who deny the existence of God because He cannot be seen, the demon who speaks to the Savior has no doubt about Christ’s divine identity:
"When he approached the Savior, the demon began to cry out: 'What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Please, do not torment me!' The whole dialogue between Jesus and the demonized reveals very well what the demon understands very clearly: he knows very well Who he is talking to. He does not say 'What have you to do with me, Jesus?', in general, but defines Him very clearly as 'Son of the Most High God'. This is what we confess in the Creed: Christ the Savior is the Son of God incarnate, the One who appeared among men according to the flesh but is in His divinity the Son of God. Christ came in the flesh to be able to connect with our body, with our person and to save us. According to His divine identity, he is the Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity - the Son. That's how demons know very well Who they're talking to."
In the miracle that happens to the demonized, Christ shows the wickedness of the demons:
"When the power of God casts out these demons, they ask not to be cast into the depths of hell, but to be sent into the herd of pigs that graze in the area. The Savior allows them to do this to show how evil the demon is and how powerful his work is and how protecting the power of God was even in the demon-possessed man, to keep him from doing what the swine did (they thrown into the sea and drowned). God also took care of the demonized because the demons could have taken him to death. God keeps him in this condition in which, unfortunately, he had entered, so that the time will come when Christ will purify and release him from bondage. Only when the Savior Christ came and rebuked the demons, only then is this man completely freed."
Man freed from the dominion of evil and healed returns to his inner harmony and normality. He becomes an apostle of God:
"When they all return from the city to the Savior to know Him and see what is happening, they see the former demonized 'clothed and of sound mind, sitting down at the feet of Jesus.' When man is cleansed of passions or, above all, of the power of evil, he comes back to himself. The man who does not have God in him lives apart from himself. He does not live his own life, but lives what is in his mind, or lives from the passions, but is not settled in himself. This man after healing returns to be like his contemporaries. He is clothed, he has his mind in peace - for when we suffer from the passions, from the dominion of the evil one, our mind is not where it should be. The healed demoniac sits at the feet of Christ the Redeemer, which shows that he had entered the order of obedience of God. The people of the city, seeing what happened, that the Savior managed to heal the sick man, to cast out the demon, were frightened; first probably because of the damage they had by the drowning of the herd of swine, but also seeing that man so dreadful to all, who was demon-possessed, becomes a man peaceful, clothed, quiet, like one of them. Thus, they realize the great power of Christ, and perhaps begin to understand that the Man before them is much more than what they thought He was, and because of this, they ask Him to leave their lands. On his departure, he who had been healed, and who felt best the effects of the healing and the deliverance from the suffering caused by the demons, begs the Savior to remain, but hears these words from Him: 'Return to your house and say how much God made for you.' Christ makes the formerly sick apostle of God."
The release of the demonized from the land of the Gergesene is a free gesture of the goodness and love of Christ. He shows the gracious, completely free character of man's liberation and salvation by Him:
"The Gospel proves to us what St. Paul says in his Epistle: 'by grace you are saved, through faith, and this is not from you, it is the gift of God'. This deliverance of the sick man is not due to the faith of the multitudes, nor to his faith, nor even to a request. The Savior operates alone, knowing the suffering of this man and the fact that his example will be relevant to many who saw the miracle. The release of this man is due to the foreknowledge of Christ the Savior and to the suffering He saw. It is the free, simple gesture of the Son of God who wants to free His creature from the terrible suffering to which she was subjected.
Let us rejoice every time we come to Church and hear these examples, because they strengthen us in our faith and give us the certainty that, coming here, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit freely for Christ’s mercy and great love with which He has loved us. Because of His boundless love, He gives us out of His great mercy salvation, liberation, which we can receive or not. This is our act of freedom: we can receive or refuse the gift of the Holy Spirit; but this refusal means the continuation of suffering, of the oppression of evil and the lack of freedom."
Next, Fr. Viorel Țencaliuc thanked the hierarch for the visit and those present for their participation. Afterwards, the hierarch blessed those present.
The fraternal agape skillfully prepared by the ladies' committee concluded the celebration of the Richmond Hill/Toronto community.
