† IOAN CASIAN
by the grace of God
Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Canada
To the beloved clergy and Christian worshipers,
peace and joy from Christ the Lord, and from us pastoral blessing.
“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people - for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2, 1 - 4)
On the first day of the ecclesiastical year, St. Paul invites us through the words of the 1st Epistle to Timothy to direct our thoughts from the beginning to God. The prayer stands before us as means of formation in dialogue with our Creator God. Prayer introduces us into the spirit of God, that is, in the authentic altruistic spirit of caring for our neighbors, for all our fellow human beings, and for those who are elected to bear responsibility for the good progress of our organization as a society.
The various ways - petitions, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings – to which the Apostle of the nations invites us show us precisely the richness of the dialogical potential available to us to draw near to God and to ask for help for those around us. The dialogue with God in the various ways mentioned above must guide the way.
The purpose of all our work is to reach a peaceful and quite life with all the cuteness and kindness. All our attention is directed to what is pleasing to God. Harmony with God also means our harmony. A way that is not correlated with God's work brings with it a lack of harmony between people. Through prayer and faith man is in secret connected with God and contemplates through His eyes the world in its divine foundations: "And God looked upon all that He did, and behold, they were very good." (Acts 1:31) Similarly we must look at the world in its essential goodness.
In order for man to be able to understand the world and become a co-worker with God within it, he must acquire the knowledge of the world as God created it. The world is an indirect means of dialogue with God and of His knowledge. Our whole life of faith is aimed at harmonizing our personal life and that of the society with the profound reasons after which God created the world. The beginning of the ecclesiastical year is a good opportunity to remember this. It is a good opportunity to plunge through prayer, faith and action helped by God's grace in the contemplation and the knowledge of what God has ordained for us and for the world. The universe is our enlarged home about which we have limited knowledge yet, but which we are called to know in full by faith and reason. Man has these two foundations of knowledge - faith and reason - as pillars guaranteeing the knowledge of the truth. The truth is neither a fruit of the pure speculative imagination of man nor that of becoming without rationality. Man is specially created by God as a crown of His creation and a visible representative of Him.
At the center of the ecclesiastical year cycle stands Christ with all the virtues we enjoy as people in the Church and in the world. With Christ in the Church and in the world dwells the Holy Spirit who inspires and sustains the whole work: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.””(Luke 4, 18 - 19).
Like Christ, each of us must become missionaries and fulfillers of the work of God in the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit speaks to all of us working to restore the beauty of the first creation made by God. Blessing, healing, liberation, sight, redemption, and the like are actions that anticipate and manifest the work of God. The Church through its three works - teaching, sanctifying and leading - present in her cult and in her social and administrative work and by active participation by faith of her members, manifests the knowing and saving vocation for which she was instituted.
So let us meditate at this beginning of new ecclesiastical year and pray that we get renewed inspiration from God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - en redoubling our efforts to bring about the divine grace through our freedom as children of God.
With blessing and love in the Lord Jesus Christ,
+ Ioan Casian
The Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Canada
Saint-Hubert, September 1, 2019
