FROM THE PARISH PRIEST
 

A Blessed New Year!
by Fr. Romey Rosco

        It’s been a fairly cool summer; many have wished for more sunshine and warmer temperatures.  Once, during a particularly chilly June day, someone complained to me that she just couldn’t get her “old body” warm enough.  I wondered how warm everybody else felt, especially all those who skipped church during the summer months.

        People have often told me over the years that if they didn’t go to church in Sunday, they felt something missing during the rest of the week.  I would feel the same way.  Yes, we always have the Lord with us, but He requires worship and we must give it.  Only He is worthy of our adoration.  Our ongoing sacrifice of time, treasure and self for the Lord is little enough to give in comparison to all He continually gives to us.

        And what a feeling of fulfillment when we leave the church having sung the Lord’s praises and prayed to Him as the Master of our souls and bodies!  When we sincerely participate in the worship of the Church, it should warm our hearts with His love enough to last until the next call to worship.

       Summer is rapidly coming to a close.  Labor Day is here; a new school year is starting; Sunday School will also soon be in session.  And look!  The Church Year begins on September 1st!  What a coincidence!

        For farmers, it’s traditionally time for harvesting crops, canning, physically preparing for wintry days ahead.  Likewise, the Church calls us to begin anew preparing our souls in the life and activity of God’s people (the Church), giving and receiving, confessing and forgiving, indeed, LOVING AND LIVING the Christian life.  You can’t do it on your own; you need God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit altogether.  That requires prayer, worship, sacraments, charitable acts, fellowship with both God and your fellow man.  That’s why you need the Church.

        It is time to relive the life of Christ, the Blessed Mother and all the saints, through the feast days and commemorations of the Church, as we begin the Calendar Year with the birth of the Blessed Virgin (September 8) and follow through with all the major feast days, then end with her Falling Asleep on August 15.

        It was wrong to stay away so long.  But it is right to renew your life in the Lord, to be born again in Christ, and to do your part to keep this Body of Christ, as St. Paul calls it (the Church), alive so that all souls may be saved.

        If you have been neglecting your place in the Body of Christ, consider this a new beginning – a blessed new year.  WELCOME BACK!

From The Weekly Bulletin, Vol. XXXVI No. 35, 6 September 2009
Sts. Peter & Paul Romanian Orthodox Church, Dearborn Heights MI

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