Bishop Basil (Nesterenko)

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Glory to Jesus Christ, dear brothers and sisters!

I congratulate you with the Holy Sunday and Holy Communion.

Today we have heard the Gospel of Matthew (XVII:14-23) and during the last weeks we read the Gospel, where the Lord told us about the faith. The faith is a stone, on which our Christian Church stands. And it is very important, because without a faith there is no sense to live. A lot of people suffer because they do not have the faith. They do not understand that and suffer spiritually and physically.

We see how the son of one man suffered and that man asked Jesus for help. His son was epileptic. In fact, if that boy had a faith, if he believed in God, any evil spirit could enter his soul. But the lack of faith raises in people an obsession of sins and passions.

We also see how the father suffers. There is the strongest pain for parents to see the sufferings of their children. It is truly a great grief for father. We see that he brought his son to Jesus’ disciplines, that they could heal him. But disciplines were helpless, they were not able to do that. And they understood that they could harm the faith in Jesus’ Christ Knowledge. They were in despair.

But the Lord is merciful. He saw that event, he felt bad in the soul, He suffered too. Because of that sufferings and pain in the soul he said: “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?”

It is true that it was difficult for Him to live among people and see their lack of faith and unbelief. We also feel bad when we encircled by people who do not believe in God, who drink alcohol, smoke and argue. We want to run quickly out of the influence of their energies; we feel uncomfortable with them. Jesus Christ also felt bad. But Heavenly Father gave Him strength. And we see that He said: “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will be able to do anything.” You could not only move mountains, but do much more.

And we see that later, after the Holy Spirit came to them, they did great miracles – healed people and even raised people from the dead. And a lot of Saints even nowadays heal people, because they have the strong faith. The faith is very important for the human soul.

We see that we are also imperfect, because we do not have such faith to move the mountain in our soul. The mount is our sinful passions, which are constantly in us. If we have enough faith, we will move that mounts in soul that do not allow us to live fully. But we do not have such faith, that is why we get ill and live with disturbance in this world.

So, let’s pray and believe in God, that He could help us. Because it is not easy to lose all Pharisaism in our soul and mind. Because only with God’s help we will be able to come to God and see the Kingdom of Heaven.

Let the Lord save You!