MESSAGE OF HIS EMINENCE, THE BISHOP OF CORFU, MR. NEKTARIOS ON NEW YEAR 2019.
My dear fathers and fellow people, my dearly beloved children,
There are three ways in our lives to approach time: the secular, the liturgical and the apocalyptic one.
The secular has to do with history, in which we all participate. As humans, we have a beginning and an end. We are invited to live, to create, to progress, to meet with other people, to be happy with what life and culture offer to us.
The liturgical has to do with time, when we worship God as a community and fight for the Divinity. The guidelines of this way are every day’s Saints, who without rejecting life and history, see everything with the Gospel’s eyes, that is with love for Christ and fellow people. Everything then, becomes liturgy, offering, sacrifice, glorification to God, within the church and during every moment of life.
The apocalyptic one is the timeless time of eternity, in which humans are invited to participate, expecting the resurrection of our bodies, while at the same time, pre-tasting the Paradise of our communication with God, the love that cannot be taken away. Through which, we are encouraged freely, to meet with our fellow people. Since God does not force us, He gives us the opportunity to choose hell of loneliness, that is the absence of communion with Him and the fellow people, the spiritual death, which unfortunately becomes eternal.
Today, most of us treat life through the secular perspective of time. Everything happens is done so that we won’t be lonely, to justify our ego, to enjoy the moment, as they aim to persuade us. As a result, we forget that time is “of (our) favor” (Corinthians 2. 6:2) in order to live in Church with a way that leads to the Kingdom of God. That is, to fight for kindness, love, forgiveness, the virtues of divinity, the target that gives meaning of authenticity to our time and allows us to enjoy what does not hurt us spiritually.
Only within the Church, time turns into joy and is experienced under the perspective of eternity. We shall build with determination our spiritual identity, which will combine faith to the Triune God and the model of divinity, resulting in everything becoming new, real, joyful under the perspective of eternity!
Happy new and blessed year, for all of us, my fellow brothers and sisters!
May God give His light to you and your loved ones!
With paternal wishes and warm in love Christ,
YOUR BISHOP OF CORFU, PAXOI AND DIAPONTIAN ISLANDS
NEKTARIOS
