Bishop of Corfu, Mr. Nektarios: Having our Saints as examples, we should rebuilt the family
On Tuesday morning, September 17, 2019, his Eminence, the Bishop of Corfu, Paxoi and Diapontian Islands, Mr. Nektarios did the Divine Liturgy in the celebrating Church of Saint Sophia.
Addressing the large congregation, Mr. Nektarios emphasized that St. Sophia, the wise mother of three daughters who gave them virtue names from the Apostle Paul’s word, Faith, Hope, Love, followed a cross-word during her life at a cross. according to which the then emperor Hadrian and the powerful of the earth saw this word as a baby because they did not believe in the resurrection of Christ. For St. Sophia, the word of the cross was power and true wisdom, because through him we live the kingdom of God and find the Christ who is the Truth.
The saint chose for her daughters what she lived for: she who lives in the love of God is united with Christ. He who hopes in God is not in a hurry. In the rock of faith, God’s ideologies and denials are crushed. And they crush not only those who did not back then, but also those who invest in the false deities of our times, divinizing the means that God has given for our lives.
The mother, the prudent and the daughters are wise. They left the present and the good ones and I gained eternity. They were led to martyrdom, reminiscent of the three Babylonians who opposed the wicked king with the phrase, “There is God!” Our God, who bestowed love on mankind, gives hope to the despair of the world, is the rock of faith.
We witness in every Divine Liturgy around the faces of our saints. We honor them, we beg them to be ambassadors, especially in our present, unoriented, confused time, both in faith and in our duties to God. And through this gathering we are called upon to make the decision to reconstitute both our family and our lives. The breakup of our family is sad. Faith gives unity and cohesion to the family. Prayer, struggle for Christ, and the rebuilding of the family will bring about a rebuilding of society.
Our estrangement from the true God is the cause of the breakup of the family. Today we have come to seek only our own interest and not to see the divine light, forgetting that if we become shareholders of the resurrection, shareholders of the sweetness of God’s presence in our lives, everything will be added to us.
We need a family with Christ and a decision to resist those who refuse the word of the cross, concluded Nektarios.
