Promise The
HOLY TRINITY GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH WESTFIELD ^ NEW JERSEY
FrPeter@htgocnj.org
September 2011 ^ Volume 35, Issue 6
908-233-8533
holytrinitywestfield.org
Ecclesiastical New Year A
s we begin the Ecclesiastical New Year (September), a time in which we are called to recognize and honor God’s magnificent beauty found in the created world we are reminded, by our very own Ecumenical Patriarchate, of our duty to honor and respect the natural environment that surrounds us.
His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I has called the whole Orthodox world to offer supplications to the Maker of all things for the great gifts found in the natural world and to offer prayers for its protection and preservation from every evil that threatens it. In response to the request of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in 1989, other Orthodox Churches, in 1992, have also adopted and promoted this idea. “Everything that lives and breathes is sacred and beautiful in the eyes of God. The whole world is a sacrament. The entire created cosmos is a burning bush of God’s uncreated energies. And humankind stands as a priest before the altar of creation, as microcosm and mediator. Such is the true nature of things; or, as an Orthodox hymn describes it, “the truth of things,” if only we have the eyes of faith to see it. – His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. ^
Goodness in Creation
THE REVEREND PETER DELVIZIS
“And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.” [Genesis 1:31]
T
hese words taken from Holy Scripture speak to us about the natural link that exists between the created and the Creator. No one doubts that God Himself is the primal good. And we, being the work of His hands, by nature are also good since the product is always a reflection of its Maker. God, Who is good by essence, cannot create anything contrary to His very own essence. In similar fashion, in bringing forth new life, a man and a woman can only bring forth that which is common to their nature – a human child. As the blessed Augustine says, “we are linked to God by the simple fact that we are alive, and God is incomparably alive and the source of life.” After God created the entire universe, He looked at all that He had created and seeing His goodness reflecting in all things, He beheld His creation as very good! Being part of His creation, it is important for us to identify with and to confirm our connection to God. Only through His goodness and only Pag. 3
Wait for the promise of the Father ThePromise-SEP2011.indd 1
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