‘We should accompany the preaching of merciful love with the practice of merciful, humble love toward our fellows’, Patriarch Daniel says

Predica Patriarhului României la Paraclisul istoric al Reşedinţei Patriarhale

On Sunday, Patriarch Daniel said that through gratefulness and merciful love we become co-workers with God. His Beatitude offered his reflections on the Sunday gospel reading and stressed that we behave in an unnatural way when we do not show gratitude for the bounties received because as we can observe from the two blind men healed by Jesus, gratitude is a normal behavior and reflects a healthy soul.

Gratitude means to show respect and appreciation to those through whom God has helped us to get out of a difficult situation, Patriarch Daniel said July 23.

His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel delivered a homily during the Divine Liturgy celebrated on 23 July 2017 at St George Chapel of his patriarchal residence, offering spiritual explanations to the gospel passage that relates the healing of two blind men and a mute demoniac by Jesus Christ. The Head of the Romanian Orthodox Church focused on the importance of gratitude and faith.

The patriarch noted that through the miraculous healing presented in the Gospel Christ teaches us to have faith when we ask for the help of God, but also to manifest gratitude.

By healing the two blind men and the mute demoniac, Christ the Lord shows His merciful love ‘healing every sickness and every disease among the people.’ (Matt. 9:35). The patriarch pointed to the faith of the two blind men and their perseverance in prayer. We see that they show their gratitude immediately after they were healed and ‘spread abroad His fame in all that country.’ (Matt. 9:31).

His Beatitude went on to say that the two blind men from Capernaum become our teachers of prayer, faith, and gratitude.

Through gratitude, they become missionaries, preachers of the divine work, of His merciful love, of Christ’s healing, life-giving and light-giving power, he said.

In his homily, the patriarch also pointed to the social ministry of the Church.


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His Beatitude explained that the Gospel passage read Sunday inspired the Church in her social ministry. We should accompany the preaching of merciful love with the practicing of merciful, humble love toward our fellows, Patriarch Daniel noted.

The patriarch cautioned that our Saviour Jesus Christ has taught his disciples and through them all the ministers of the Church and the entire Church that the preaching of the Gospel of the merciful love should be accompanied by the deeds of merciful love, deeds that heal, deeds that relieve suffering, loneliness, poverty, and many other forms of weakening people’s freedom and dignity.

Patriarch Daniel closed his address referring to the prayers offered by the Church for the sick and suffering, and to the charity institutions founded by the Church. All these, he said, show us that the Church has understood to combine the preaching of the Gospel of Christ with the practice of merciful love.

© ZL

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