Sunday's message (audio message)
of His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim of Kythera & Antikythera
Sunday I Matthew (01-09-2024)
WRITTEN DIVINE PROCLAMATION
This year, the first day of September coincides with the resurrection day of Sunday.
Surely, most people are unaware that today is also the beginning of the new church year. Indeed, few people know that today is the «New Year» of our Church, and it is called the «Beginning of Indictus».
The word «Indictus» is Latin and Greekized to mean a definition, a proclamation, issued by the Roman emperors to their subjects for the payment of taxes, and was valid for fifteen years. Constantine the Great was the first to set the official count of the year, the Indictus, which began on the first of September.
After all, the annual cycle of cultivation of the land, especially of wheat, begins in autumn and ends with the harvest of the fruits in the summer. Various human activities and even the school year begin in autumn. Thus, our Holy Church has the first of September as the beginning of the new year for its liturgical, pastoral and preaching cycle.
Always, as today, the passage of the Gospel of Luke is read, which mentions the first and shocking preaching of Christ in His homeland Nazareth. The Lord in the synagogue of Nazareth, reading this prophetic passage of Isaiah, which refers precisely to His person, emphasizes to His fellow believers that this prophecy is fulfilled in His person. It should be noted that the Old Testament prophecies number about three thousand, and of these, three hundred and thirty spoke accurately of Jesus Christ as the one and only Messiah.
The first thing, then, that today's Gospel tells us is that Jesus had the habit of going to the synagogue every Sabbath. This reminds us and motivates us to have the blessed habit of going to church every Sunday, so that we too may know Christ, in Whom the prophecies of the Old Testament and the expectation of all nations for justice, forgiveness, love and salvation were fulfilled.
Once, to a Christian who neglected the Sunday church service, St. James Chalice asked a question: «There is a king and he gives you every week one hundred and sixty-eight (168) coins to do with as you wish, and asks you to give him back two. Would you give him the two coins?-Yes, the man replied. -Well, says the Saint, the Basil is God, and the one hundred and sixty-eight coins are the hours he gives you every week, and don't you have two hours left over to go to church?.
So too, dear brothers and sisters, let us not neglect the blessed habit of going to church. In this way we thank God for all the visible and invisible blessings that He generously provides us through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Happy and blessed church year!!!! Amen.-
Fr.Dem.
