Festive Days at St. Peter and Paul Church in Kitchener, ON

This year, the Parish St. Peter and Paul Parish in Kitchener, ON, celebrated its patron saints with a week full of spiritual events, especially July 11-14. The parish feast day was pushed back two weeks due to the Canada Day long weekend and the summer season. Therefore, on Saturday, June 29, the Holy Liturgy was celebrated along with the parishioners. This week, on Thursday, July 11, the community received the visit of Fr. Ștefan Nuțescu, the abbot of the "Bunavestire" Schit of the Lacu Hermitage in Mount Athos. Fr. Ștefan spoke to everyone about the liturgical and spiritual life of both monks and lay people, after which he answered the many questions asked by those present, among whom were also Orthodox Christians from other parishes of the city.

On Saturday, July 13, the members of the parish gathered for an evening of prayer, during which the Great Vespers with Litany was performed. The next day, Sunday, July 14, the Romanians of Kitchener were glad to have their hierarch, His Grace Ioan Casian, the Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Canada, among them again. The celebration began with the Matins service and the reception of the bishop and continued with the Holy Liturgy. Fr. Dragoș Giulea, the parish priest of the church, served along the hierarch. At the end of the Holy Liturgy, HG Bishop Ioan Casian commented on the Gospel of the day related to the worries of life:

"Today's Sunday Gospel talks about life's worries. We have already started the Octoechos period, the longest period of the Church year, which signifies the Church's journey through history. During this period, we read the Gospels that talk about God's miracles, about healings, about resurrections, about His words with great power, etc. In this way, we understand that the Church, we believers, enroll ourselves in history, we are part of it. We walk the historical path of our life not alone but together with God. God has sent us His Holy Spirit to accompany and inspire us in our Christian path. This path, however, also depends because of our faith. Christ invites the Holy Apostles to follow His way and lets them make this choice freely."

Speaking about the importance of faith, which keeps us close to God, the hierarch said:

"We need faith to stay with God. God does not withdraw from us. He does not abandon the world because otherwise we and the world would return to nothingness. We and the world cannot exist without the abiding presence of God's grace and providence. By losing faith, by weakening it, we ourselves move away from the source of life, from God. We are progressively moving away from the light that is God, going deeper and deeper into darkness. God is eternal and ever present nearby us.

The lack of faith diminishes the ability to understand and know what exists in relation to God. Without faith our discernment, which otherwise is inspired and enlightened by faith in God and the presence of His grace, disappears or impoverishes. The lack of discernment means blindness. It causes a decrease in spiritual sighting. This causes us to go on life paths that are not our own. By moving away from God, we find that we are moving away from ourselves and from what is more proper, human and natural for us."

Recalling the importance of the Church and how it preserves true life, HG Bishop Ioan Casian said:

"Through the Gospels, the Church reminds us what it means to be human according to God's understanding, that is, to be His image and likeness. Following this path can only be done in the Church through the power of God's grace, through the grace of the Holy Mysteries and the Holy Liturgy and through the entire teaching, sanctifying, and leading work of the Church.

Where does the ability to discern, to see spiritually and not materially come from? Spiritual sight and understanding can only be acquired by faith. Faith and God's grace make us understand that what happens in material form in the Church are images of the heavenly ones. In the Holy Liturgy thanks to faith we understand that the bread and wine brought as an offering to God by the faithful become the Body and Blood of the Lord that we partake of for eternal life. When one does not have faith and does not receive the grace of God, he cannot receive or understand these things. Without faith, one cannot go further in the depths of understanding and closeness to God, although God remains close to us."

Bishop Ioan Casian further spoke about how faith helps us to contemplate the existence and presence of God in creation:

"Today's Gospel talks about contemplation. How one with faith seeing the birds of the sky or the lilies of the field can contemplate the existence and work of God present in creation, and another without faith, even properly trained and instructed, looks at the same reality and understands nothing but a material circuit without an origin and a Creator, but only the result of a natural process?

This is the extraordinary power of faith. It gives you the ability to cleanse your heart, to further contemplate the work and presence of God in this world. A community to be the Church, to remain the Church, must have the characteristics we confess in the Creed: oneness, meaning unity, holiness, which is the attribute of God, universal, meaning it carries the message of salvation universally for the whole world, and apostolic, that is, it continues to transmit the same saving message as that of the Holy Apostles. Without these, that community can no longer be called a Church in the full sense of the word."

The hierarch further emphasized the importance of grace, freedom and human responsibility in spiritual growth:

"In this work of God giving His grace to us, of His taking care through His providence for us, our freedom does not disappear. Seeing our ability to choose, our freedom, constrained or limited by the presence of God's grace and providence in our lives is the result of sin. It makes us see things this way. The sin is the source of our passions and our limited and sinful way of understanding God's creation and ourselves. Our responsibility remains full even though the One who works and inspires everything in our lives is God through His Holy Spirit.

Our growth to be in the image and likeness of God must be by faith. Without following this path we can grow in our lives but not spiritually, as God wanted and wants for us. Holiness is a gift from God. If we want to become saints, we must draw closer to God, to His work and His grace."

Recalling the decision to canonize 16 contemporary saints by the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church at its last meeting, the hierarch reminded their role in the lives of believers:

"These new contemporary saints are a role model for us and prove to us through their lives that holiness and confession of faith do not only belong to the first Christian centuries, but also to our modern world. The saints live among us."

The hiararch then presented diplomas and medals to Doru Cremenescu, the former president of the Parish Council, who led the community over a decade through many difficulties, and Marius Octav Gălan, the cantor of the church, for his constant dedication to the community, in many aspects, but especially for the liturgical life of the parish.

The day ended with the fraternal agape prepared by the ladies from the community.

(notes by Fr. Dragoș Andrei Giulea, PhD)