Today, 20 October 2013, the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church visited the faithful of Valea Crangului parish, deanery of Urlati, county of Prahova.
His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel emphasised in the sermon delivered the spiritual teaching of the evangelical pericope read during the Divine Liturgy (Luke 8:26-39): “The merciful love of God changes the people’s life and the sufferance into joy, the isolation or alienation into rapprochement and not knowing into knowing God. We also see that Christ, our Lord allows the demons of the man they torment to get into the herd of pigs which throws itself into the sea and dies. The inhabitants of Gerasa were not glad to see the man was healed, but sad because Jesus caused them a rather big material damage. They should have rejoiced because the man was violent and dangerous for them too. But they were interested only in the material gain so that they could not enjoy the healing of a man who had been tormented by demons years on end.”
Then, the Patriarch of Romania showed why Jesus Christ, our Lord, allowed the demons to get into the herd of pigs: “First of all it was to show that the same as the pigs died in the sea so will the demons die in the hell on the day of the Last Judgement. In other words, Christ showed that He had power over all creatures and that He could punish the demons too. Another reason was to draw the attention of the inhabitants of Gerasa that they were too much interested in the material, limited and temporary things and too little in the spiritual life. We do not know exactly why they asked Jesus to leave their land, we only know that they did it for fear, but it could have been fir another reason too, namely because they were afraid that if He had stayed longer in their territory He would have reproved them for some other sins of theirs”.
His Beatitude underlined the fact that God does not want to punish the people through material damage, but to remind them of the salvation of their souls and of the spiritual life: “The Gospel shows us that sometimes God allows the material damage of the human. A storm may come and destroy his house when he does not expect, a fire may break out that causes material damage when he does not expect, and sometimes a disease of trial may makes man poorer. God does not like such things to occur. He does not enjoy punishing the people, but if He lets sometimes people have material damage, He does it to bring them closer to Him, lest they be enslaved by material things and forget about the salvation of their souls and spiritual life.
Then, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel spoke about the life of Saint Great Martyr Artemie, also announcing that a particle of the relics of Saint Artemie will be brought from Caldarusani Monastery on the occasion of the celebration of the day of Saint Pious Dimitrie the New, Protector of Bucharest.
His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel ordained Rev Radu Manuel iconom stavrofor, the parish priest of “Saints Archangels” church of “Valea Crangului” parish, deanery of Urlati, due to his special involvement in the social – philanthropic work of the Church and offered several religious books to the parish church. His Beatitude has also awarded the homage Diploma of “Saints Emperors Constantine and Helen” to Mr. Marian Machitescu, mayor of Urlati city; the Diploma of Honour of “Saint Andrew the Apostle, Protector of Romania” to Ms. Valentina Tataru and to Mr. Oleg Tataru, for having sustained the daily centre of “Saint Stelian” of “Valea Crangului” parish – Urlati.
