His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church explained in the sermon delivered on 14 April 2013 in the chapel of Saint Martyr George of the Patriarchal Residence the significance of the Evangelical Pericope of the 2nd Sunday after Easter, of Saint Evangelist John, chapter 20:10-31, presenting the appearance of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Risen from the dead, to Saint Thomas, the Apostle.
“We see that Saint Thomas not only confessed that Christ, the Crucified, was raised from the dead, but also His Crucifixion which was an unusual thing for the Jewish people. He saw a human body and confessed God, the spring of life. He saw a limited body and confessed the unlimited God. He saw the body of the crucified One and confessed God-the-Man, Jesus Christ Risen from the dead. From a man with hesitating faith, mixed with doubt, Apostle Thomas turns into a confessor not only of the Resurrection of Christ, but also of His Divinity”, His Beatitude explained.
Faith is a living communion of man with God
The Patriarch of Romania emphasised the fact that the fruit of faith is getting eternal life: “Today’s Gospel ends with the following words: “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name“. So, we see that the purpose of writing the Gospel is to strengthen and cultivate the faith, while the fruit of faith is getting eternal life. In other words, when we confess our faith that the Crucified Jesus Christ is the Resurrected Jesus Christ and the Resurrected Christ is the Crucified Jesus Christ we confess that He is the Son of God who was made man out of love for the humans and for their salvation we are on the way for getting the eternal life. Faith is not only an intellectual conviction or a simple cultural phenomenon, but a living relation, a communion of man with God, which helps man see the unseen ones, see the God Unseen, the Creator of the Heaven and earth present in His creation and see Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was made man in the saving work of God for humans. Therefore, faith is seeing beyond the physical sight. Happy are those who have not seen but believed means happy are those who have the gift of faith as spiritually seeing God unseen with the eyes of the body. God is unseen because He is unlimited. He is eternal, unlimited and non-material”.
Next Sunday the Orthodox will be on the 3rd Sunday after Easter, of the Myrrh bearing women.
