His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, blessed on Sunday, 28 February 2016, the painting of the St Great Martyr Dimitrios church – Afumaţi II, Ilfov North Deanery. His Beatitude dedicated this church to St Hierarch Pahomius of Gledin, Bishop of Roman too, whose feast day is on April 14th.
Before the blessing service, His Grace Timotei of Prahova, Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Bucharest, officiated the Divine Liturgy, surrounded by an assembly of priests and deacons.
At the end of the Divine Liturgy, in his sermon, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel emphasised that the Parable of the Prodigal Son has a great spiritual importance because it helps us to understand how useful repentance is for our spiritual ascent unto Resurrection, as a rise of out sin and as joy resulting from our encounter with Christ Our Lord, He who has revealed to us the merciful love of our Heavenly Father.
God respects man’s freedom even if is used in a reckless or in a lustily way
The Gospel reading reveals, in the same time, the power of the repentance of the sinner, the merciful love of God the Father, and the joy of the forgiven penitent, because the father from the Gospel represents the paternal love of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father, His Beatitude said.
“The Gospel presents the fact that the young son wanted to experience the freedom as an estrangement from his father and his father’s son. We see with surprise that the father accepts the request of his son to receive his share of wealth and leave home, a proof that God respects man’s freedom to follow his own path in life. Therefore, man has the freedom to use all his life’s energy, all his natural gifts or the ones received from others as he pleases, and God respects this freedom, even if He knows that man can use his freedom contrary the divine will. However, together with God’s respect shown towards man’s freedom, the gospel reading reveals the drama or the failure of man’s freedom as an estrangement from God”, His Beatitude also said.
When man’s freedom becomes irrational, passional and self-destructive, the wisdom of God calls man to repentance
“The faraway country where the young son went represents man’s estrangement from God and from the state of normal freedom, His Beatitude also noted. When man lives a disordered life and is a slave of sin, he estranges from God and is brought in the state when he believes that freedom of becoming passional defines his person as being mature and autonomus. So, when we do not willingly restrain us from material greed we are compelled to fast. In other words, God can use exterior material difficulties to produce a spiritual change of the man enslaved by material things”, His Beatitude said.
After the blessing service, His Beatitude offered a blessing cross, and many liturgical books for the use of the Church. Also, the persons involved in the completion at this parish received distinctions.
Next, Mr. Gabriel Dumănica, Mayor of Afumati, has granted the Primate of the Romanian Orthodox Church the title “citizen of Honour” of Afumati town, Ilfov County.
