March 2024 Letter

Dear brethren,

On the occasion of the Great Lent, we present to you these spiritual reflections by HE Anba Pachomius about “Our love for God”:

“We often answer that we love God, and we may think that our constant presence in the church is a sign of this love, and perhaps this idea will ease our consciences. As for God’s true love, it has signs that show it and confirm it. Let’s test ourselves with it, and here are some signs:

• Keeping the commandments: Christ Himself taught his disciples, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14: 15. When we read the Bible, we don’t read just for the knowledge or the blessing, but in order to know the commandments and walk in them. All the commandments of the Bible are an approach to Christian life. Keeping it practically in our lives is a sign of our true love for God.
• Being with God: whoever loves God loves to always sit with Him and talk to Him, and to constantly pray, to love praising, and to love the saints’ existence. To think always of God even in the midst of the daily burdens, and to love the activities that have a spiritual nature. All of these things reflect our love for God. As of the person who is burdened by his relationship with God, he often flees from being with Him.
• The Lord’s constant presence in life: God’s love makes us always feel the Lord’s presence everywhere we go, and with every person we meet. It makes us careful not to do anything that makes Him sad or angry. Our love for God makes us refuse to go to places of temptation, because we feel that God is present with us at all times: “I have set the Lord always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved” (Psalm 16: 8).
• Enjoying the fellowship of the Holy Spirit: is one of the signs of our love for God. A person who loves God seeks the help of the Holy Spirit and His guidance in all the steps of his life; at home, in his dealings with others, in his decisions, services, joys… etc. The sign of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is a person’s feeling of permanent peace, while turmoil is a sign of the absence of the Holy Spirit in us. Therefore, the church ends all its services with the joyful blessing: “the love of God the Father, the grace of His only begotten Son, the gift and communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, go in peace.” Therefore, let us always ask for the help of the Holy Spirit to give us peace and guidance, and let us always ask not to act according to our own thoughts, but rather according to the counsel of God.
• Serving others: as Christ spoke to St. Peter on the Lake of Tiberias saying: “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me? … Tend My sheep” (John 21: 16). Service in this sense isn’t an activity for a specific group of Christians, but a characteristic that is linked to the lives of all believers. Also it is not one type, as some may think that a servant is a person who participates in teaching in the church, but the Lord Jesus summarized the broad meaning of service saying: “inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25: 40). Offering a piece of bread, a cup of water, or a simple dress for the naked is a service, turning our brothers away from the ways of the world and calling them to the church is service, and your encouragement to a miserable person is a service. Therefore, let us provide the simplest services without asking for glory or lust for show off, while keeping within our hearts the idea that we are offering our service to God personally.

Let the period of the Lent be a period in which we examine ourselves if we truly love God as He loves us?

The blessings of St. Mary and St. Mercurius, and the blessings of the Holy Lent be with us all.

Belleville, March 1, 2024

رسالة شهر مارس ٢٠٢٤