The living Church is a communion of merciful love, Patriarch Daniel of Romania said on Sunday, explaining that the four anonymous men who brought the paralytic to Jesus through the roof in the Gospel account symbolise the Church as a serving and compassionate community.
“The Church prays not only for those present at its prayer, but also for all the sick, the poor, the captive – that is, prisoners or detainees – and travellers,” the Romanian Patriarch said. “It prays for people’s health and salvation and for the peace of the whole world. In short, the merciful Church prays for all who need God’s help and mercy.”
“When our personal faith has weakened, when our prayer has become sparse, when our soul is paralysed by sin, then the prayer and assistance of those who love us are of great benefit – those who possess stronger faith than ours, more fervent prayer than ours, greater merciful love than ours, and greater purity of soul than ours.”
Pray for your neighbour
“For this reason, every Christian is called to pray personally not only for his own health, but also for the health of others, especially for those who do not know how to pray or who, because of illness, can no longer pray for themselves,” Patriarch Daniel stressed.
From this Gospel passage, he added, “we understand how beneficial it is to invite and bring with us to the house where the Lord Jesus Christ dwells – that is, to the church – all people, but especially those who need forgiveness of sins and healing from illness”.
“On this Sunday, the Gospel of the merciful love of the Lord Jesus Christ urges us, in addition to prayer, fasting, repentance and confession, also to perform good deeds and to help the sick and all those who need our assistance.”
The meaning of suffering
Today’s Gospel also shows that there is sometimes a connection between sin and illness, the Patriarch explained. Life, health and salvation are gifts offered by God, while “illness and suffering may be a mysterious call to seek the enlightenment and salvation of the soul, together with the desire and effort to heal the body physically”.
He also drew attention to the delicacy of the Saviour: “The Lord Jesus Christ, the Spiritual Father and Physician, does not humiliate the sinner through reproaches. He heals the sinful and sick person directly and discreetly, without judging him and without revealing his sins, so as not to diminish his human dignity before the community to which he belongs.”
Sunday of St Gregory Palamas
The Patriarch also referred to St Gregory Palamas, to whom the second Sunday of Great Lent is dedicated.
“The Church has ordained that on this second Sunday of the Holy Paschal Fast – one week after the Sunday of Orthodoxy and one week before the Sunday of the Holy Cross – St Gregory Palamas, the Teacher of the Uncreated Light or of the divine glory of the Kingdom of Heaven, should be commemorated. This shows us that through the right faith the heavens are opened to us, and through prayer and holy living we receive the glory or the uncreated light of the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, the divine grace,” he explained.
On fasting
Towards the end of his address, Patriarch Daniel briefly reflected on the meaning of fasting, a period in which “we nourish our soul with the presence and working of the grace and love of the Most Holy Trinity in our life”.
“It is not a time of self-starvation or voluntary rigidity, but a time of liberation and purification from sins and selfish passions, a time of enlightenment, growth and spiritual enrichment,” the Patriarch said.
“During this period we no longer nourish the body with products of animal origin, but only with plant-based foods that encourage ascetic discipline, since plants are largely the result of photosynthesis, that is, the assimilation of light from the sun.”
The Romanian Patriarch noted that created sunlight “becomes, through fasting and prayer, a symbol or visible garment of the uncreated light, of the heavenly grace – invisible but real – granted by God to praying people, in order to nourish and illumine their souls as a pledge of the eternal glory and joy of the Kingdom of the Most Holy Trinity”.
Patriarch Daniel attended the Divine Liturgy on Sunday at the historic chapel of the Patriarchal Residence, dedicated to the Holy Great Martyr George.
Photo: Basilica.ro files / Raluca Ene
