The miracle of the First Sunday of November is celebrated in Corfu
With the performance of a solemn Episcopal Vesper, the worship events in Corfu for the First Sunday of November began, during which the island remembers the miracle of the rescue of the place in 1673 from the plague thanks to the intervention of Saint Spyridon.
His Eminence the Bishop of Corfu, Paxos and the Diapontian Islands Mr. Nektarios did the service and spoke to the people. In his address to the church, he stressed that every Saturday the Church invites us to remember the divine Sabbatism. Every Saturday evening the Christian experiences the word of God: “cease from all works of creation and be baptized.” Likewise we are called to cease from the works of sin, decay and corruption, begging and thanking the all-good God for the gift of love and resurrection in our lives. In honor we may not be able to understand God’s gift, the responsibility to work in the world according to His will, to break the relationship of sonship to God and to believe in our deification. We overcame the beasts and assimilated them. God came to stop the perversion of man with His incarnation. He brought us back to the ancient beauty, helped us to overcome sin through the redemption of Himself that Christ offered through the cross and the resurrection. Let us therefore ponder God’s offering, and let us honor Sunday with gratitude to God, for we are the result of His love, we have been made in His image, and we have been called to proceed in imitation. To rediscover ourselves through the sacrifice of the Son of God himself and to follow in His footsteps in our lives.
The Church of Corfu, however, also celebrates the supernatural miracle of Saint Spyridon in 1673. The Corfiot people lived in similar situations then, with the plague that decimated the people. They found that as long as they remained closed to themselves, they achieved nothing. They addressed Saint Spyridon with self-denial, with faith, with tears, with repentance and confession. And the saint listened and prayed to God and He became a beggar. The people gratefully processed the saint and the miracle was recorded in the life of the place and the hearts of the people.
The saint was one of us, who perceived the grace of God and was graced by it. The grace of God lies in the honor of divine Sabbath. The saint lived the transcendence of sin, the hope of the resurrection and the transcendence of death. Our saint is alive. He begs before the throne of God and continues to pray for each of us.
In our time there is a lack of fervent faith. The psychic power. The joy of communion with God and people. Saint Spyridon invites us as a spiritual restaurant. He invites us to the circle of the table of God, around the table of the divine Eucharist, to receive the body and blood of God, to get rid of the sufferings, to reject every sin and the sufferings that keep us bound in the present world. Let us praise God because those in power also realize that God should not be despised. Thus, with the consent of all, the saint will be liturgized, to sing, to pray, to thank for the miracle of his presence and his love.
The worship services continue on the morning of Sunday, November 7, with the performance of a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy, with his Eminence the Bishop of Corfu, followed by the established procession, according to public health protection measures, as determined at a meeting of all relevant bodies.
