The Head of the UGCC stressed that the Lord loves both the good and the evil. He is the One Who loves without expecting reciprocity. He loves the ungrateful, He loves sinners, He loves His enemies. “He sees our merit only when we reflect Him in our lives. When we follow Him. When we act like Him,” emphasized the preacher. Therefore, today’s Gospel, he noted, ends with the words: Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful. The Primate says that when we love those who are pleasing to us, we tend to love ourselves. When we do good, subconsciously expecting to receive something back, then we love ourselves, our own good, and not that person. “True love is pure. It is selfless,” reminds the Head of the UGCC. “Everything that a person does consciously and voluntarily must be learned first. If love is the pinnacle of a person’s ability to act consciously and voluntarily, we will say that we must learn to love,” says His Beatitude Sviatoslav.

The Primate believes that our families, our church communities, have as their primary task to be the school of love. “For it cannot be said that I believe in God unless I love my brother,” says St. John the Evangelist.

(from The Way – November 17, 2019)

Angels We Have Heard On High

“Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, have no fear about taking Mary as your wife. It is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived this child. She is to have a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’”