For a child, there’s no such thing as bad parents, and for parents—bad children. Our father and mother had nine of us, but the Lord took one of us away from this life during infancy. We had a Christian upbringing and had a very religious mother and grandmother on my mother’s side. However, our father was a Protestant. Although we were born in such a family, all of us were baptized in the Orthodox Church eight days after our birth. Our father never forbade us to go to church, although he himself only prayed the “Our Father” and never made the sign of the cross. He was strict in our upbringing and always said, “One that’s been caned is worth two that haven’t”. We would also remember the following words that he used to say: “I’d rather endure pain once than be ashamed of my children for the rest of my life.”

When I was about sixteen or seventeen years old and was in high school, then, out of interest, I visited some Protestant congregations a few times. I wanted to understand their perception of the faith, what kind of spiritual state they were in, and what they do during their so-called services. But there I saw the absurdity and emptiness of these people. Truly: This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me (Mt. 15:8). If a person pulls out the bricks holding together his house, it will surely fall. The same happens when people abolish the dogmas of the Church, the structure of the services, the Holy Tradition of the Church and the Apostles.

Our Christ has allowed us once again this year to celebrate the great and light-bearing day of His Resurrection: “Pascha, the Lord’s Pascha.”

Pascha is translated as “passing.” The human race received the grace and blessing from God to ascend from the earth to Heaven; to pass from transient death into eternal life.

Our Christ was infinitely merciful to us. He felt sorry for us and came down to our earth in order to raise us to Heaven.

Every year we celebrate Holy Pascha. Every year we all eagerly anticipate it, so we can once again feel the special joy and light of the Divine Resurrection within our souls; in order to taste a “small sample” of the endless jubilation of the eternal Pascha; to get a glimpse of the light that illumines the other world; to experience a tiny bit of the eternal blessedness that is felt in Heaven above by the souls who already have the privilege of being saved and who now celebrate the never-ending, eternal Pascha.

Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto Him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on His head, as he sat at meat. But when His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, “To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.” When Jesus understood it, He said unto them, “Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon Me. For ye have the poor always with you; but Me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on My body, she did it for My burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall be also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.” Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, “What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you.” And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him. (Matthew 26:6-16)

In this passage of Scripture, we read how, as our Lord prepared for His Passion, a woman came and anointed Him with very precious ointment; and it is very touching how our Lord accepted such love from simple people. But at the same time Judas—one of the twelve who were with Him—looked at this act, and something in his heart changed. This was apparently the “last straw,” because Judas was the one in charge of the money and he thought that this was a waste of money. We can even see the logical processes going on in his mind. We can hear him think about Christ: “I thought this man was somebody important. He wastes money, he doesn’t do things right, he thinks he’s so important…” and all kinds of similar little ideas which the devil puts in his mind. And with his passion (his main passion was love of money), he was caught by the devil and made to betray Christ. He did not want to betray Him; he simply wanted money. He did not watch over himself and crucify his passions.

—Your Beatitude, we often hear the same complaint from the unchurched about Great Lent: Why such extremes—to eat only vegetable products for a month and a half before Pascha, often even without oil, and on certain days eating nothing? The opponents of the Church see something dictatorial and cruel even in the very concept of a “ban”…

—We mustn’t look at Lent as a ban. Fasting is one of the voluntary components of spiritual practice, and keeping the fast is an expression of our obedience to the Lord and His holy Church. Obedience was already introduced by the Lord to our forefathers Adam and Eve. There were many trees in the Garden of Eden that bore beautiful and desirable fruit, and Adam could eat from any of them, except for one. The Lord forbade it not because He didn’t want to share this fruit with Adam, but to give him a commandment of obedience, through which he could perfect his love for the Creator. If there is no commandment, man cannot develop spiritually and be perfected.

When children obey their parents, they thereby express their love for them. They are sorry to disappoint their parents, and when they are disobedient and do bad things, their conscience immediately begins to reproach them, and there arises a psychological barrier in communicating with their parents. And children often run to their parents with tears of repentance to remove the burden from their youthful soul. We, adults, must obey the holy Church, fulfilling its precepts, submitting to its typikon and its rules. And thanks to this obedience, our love for God grows through the grace received from Him. When we act contrary to the will of God, we depart from Him, and it’s difficult for us to be with Him as it was difficult for sinful Adam in Paradise.

Why are so many people depressed today? Because they see nothing other than their misfortunes; because they are indifferent to the truth, to the humiliations and suffering of others. Because there is no generosity and no sacrifice in us. So then what do we expect from today’s feast of a saint who loves to please everyone? He wants to give us all joy today.

As the Lord said, there are two joys: the joy of receiving and the joy of giving. We all know the Savior’s words: It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). The Holy Fathers call the joy of receiving a human joy, and the joy of giving, a Divine joy. One joy is linked to the other. Generally speaking, we have nothing to give until we receive earthly and Heavenly things from the Lord; but if we only receive and do not give to others, we will be deprived of Divine joy. And when our earthly life ends, instead of eternal joy we will have eternal torment. The Lord and His saints, including St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, rejoice when we share what we have with others. And this joy is transmitted to us, so even now we can feel Divine joy and the grace of Christ in our hearts. According to St. Paisios the Hagiorite, sublime joy comes from sacrifice. Only by sacrifice does a person enter into kinship with Christ, for Christ is the Sacrifice. This is the Christian labor of total self-giving, and it is manifested primarily by martyrs. It is no coincidence that today we also commemorate the holy Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II and the whole host of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. And St. Nicholas reveals it in the ever-increasing joy of mercy, so the Bethlehem manger, the Cross and the Lord’s Pascha, which the saint wants us to participate in with his love, become visible in it.

Thine angelic life hath been the foundation of repentance, the prescription of compunction, the model of consolation and spiritual perfection, O venerable father John, who abode in prayers, fasting and tears. Entreat Christ God in behalf of our souls. (Troparion to St. John of Rila)

Today the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the glorious memory of our Venerable Father John of Rila, the earthly angel and heavenly man. From earliest youth he labored in mind, heart, and with all the power of his will to address the Christian’s main task: to put aside the old man with his pernicious deeds and to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24). Thanks to his firm and unrelenting determination and to the grace of God, which is always ready to assist the true laborer, he resolved this task triumphantly and gloriously, attaining the glorious crown of incorruptible life.

The fact is, my dear brothers and sisters, that from our very conception and birth we have all inherited the filth and corruption of sin, which separates us from God the source of life; it decays and gradually destroys our entire being, both soul and body, plunging us into eternal darkness and torment, corrupting the body and turning it into earth.

Nativity 2016 Encyclical – Bishop of Canada