{"id":222561,"date":"2018-12-26T13:46:51","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T11:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=222561"},"modified":"2018-12-26T13:46:51","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T11:46:51","slug":"the-nativity-of-the-lord-reveals-gods-endless-love-for-humans-patriarch-of-romania-says-at-christmas-divine-liturgy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/the-nativity-of-the-lord-reveals-gods-endless-love-for-humans-patriarch-of-romania-says-at-christmas-divine-liturgy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nativity of the Lord reveals God\u2019s endless love for humans, Patriarch of Romania says at Christmas Divine Liturgy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u2018The Feast of the Nativity of the Lord reveals God\u2019s endless love for humans, which is above all understanding,\u2019 the Patriarch of Romania said during the Christmas Divine Liturgy celebrated on Tuesday, December 25, at the Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Concelebrants for the Divine Liturgy included His Grace Bishop Qais of Erzurum (Antioch Patriarchate), the Patriarch\u2019s auxiliary bishops Varlaam of Ploiesti and Ieronim of Sinaia, as well as the Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Bucharest, Timotei of Prahova.<\/p>\n<p>Offering his reflections on the supernatural Incarnation of the Son of God, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel said that the Divine Logos from love of humans and their salvation became that what He loved, a Man.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The eternal One becomes Man in time, the Uncircumscribed becomes circumscribed in the Virgin\u2019s womb, the Indescribable becomes describable, the Inaccessible becomes accessible and dwells among men,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Patriarch pointed to the church hymns chanted during Christmas time, noting that they show that \u2018the earth offers the cave, heaven offers the star, the Magi offer gifts, and we humans offer the Virgin who gives birth to the Child Jesus.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ is \u2018a blessing for humans, but also for the entire Universe.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Through his birth from a Virgin, Baby Jesus sanctifies human nature from within,\u2019 the Patriarch said adding that \u2018by being born in a cave, Jesus Christ sanctifies the nature of the earth, and by the fact that He was laid in a manger where food was placed for animals, He sanctifies the flora and fauna.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018He sanctifies the entire nature because that is why he came, to sanctify the world and to present it as a gift to God the Father after He would sanctify it perfectly through His sacrifice on the cross,\u2019 Patriarch Daniel said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ftrinitastv%2Fvideos%2F281590835880762%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Patriarch of Romania used his Christmas homily to present the symbolism of the gifts offered by the three Magi since through these gifts we are able to recognise \u2018the identity, dignity, and ministry of Baby Jesus.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The Magi offered Him gold \u2018because Jesus is the King of the ages.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018He is presented with frankincense because He is God,\u2019 but also because \u2018He is the High Priest who brings Himself as sacrifice for the sin of the world.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>He is offered myrrh because according to Eastern traditions \u2018myrrh and aloe were used to anoint the departed.\u2019 This points to the fact that \u2018the King, the eternal Son who became Man, would pass through death to give resurrection and eternal life to humans.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The Patriarch noted that \u2018we bring gold to Christ by fulfilling Christ\u2019s commandments to love God in prayer and our fellows through good deeds.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The gold of our good deeds is the greatest adoration we can bring to Baby Jesus, when we show love to those around us, since he became a Man out of love for humans in order to save them and grant them eternal life,\u2019 His Beatitude stressed.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Frankincense is our daily prayer.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018We bring myrrh to Baby Jesus when we change our pagan, evil, fallen, sinful behaviour to a gentle, helpful, merciful behaviour.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Ending his speech, the Patriarch congratulated those who celebrate their name day on Christmas (Christian and Christiana) wishing them \u2018good health and salvation, peace, joy and much help from God.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018During these days, let us show merciful, humble, generous love to those around us in order to answer to God\u2019s love shown in Baby Jesus and in the entire salvific work of our Saviour,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n<p><em>For more pictures check out our exclusive <a href=\"http:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/in-pictures-2018-christmas-divine-liturgy-at-patriarchal-cathedral-in-bucharest\/\">Photo Gallery<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Photography courtesy of Raluca Ene \/ <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em><strong>Basilica.ro<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018The Feast of the Nativity of the Lord reveals God\u2019s endless love for humans, which is above all understanding,\u2019 the Patriarch of Romania said during the Christmas Divine Liturgy celebrated on Tuesday, December 25, at the Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest. Concelebrants for the Divine Liturgy included His Grace Bishop Qais of Erzurum (Antioch Patriarchate), the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":222369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[17960,18000,3701,13653,66,53,15620],"class_list":["post-222561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-romanian-patriarchate","tag-christmas-2018","tag-christmas-divine-liturgy","tag-homily","tag-nativity-of-the-lord","tag-patriarch-daniel","tag-romanian-orthodox-church","tag-stiri-ortodoxe-en"],"better_featured_image":{"id":222369,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":1900,"height":1267,"file":"2018\/12\/AGB_7362web.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"AGB_7362web-360x360.jpg","width":360,"height":360,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/AGB_7362web-360x360.jpg"},"medium":{"file":"AGB_7362web-890x593.jpg","width":890,"height":593,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/AGB_7362web-890x593.jpg"},"large":{"file":"AGB_7362web-1024x683.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/AGB_7362web-1024x683.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"5.6","credit":"BASILICA","camera":"NIKON D5","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1545731173","copyright":"Agentia de stiri Basilica","focal_length":"14","iso":"4000","shutter_speed":"0.0125","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":222561,"source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/AGB_7362web.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222561\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=222561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222561\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222369\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=222561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=222561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=222561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}