Our Firm Foundation, Our Refuge, and Our Deliverer Making the Gospel Good News Again by Archbishop Michael Fall 2018
For many, going to church is bad news. They are reminded of all that is wrong in our world by the lack of love from their fellow parishioners. What they hear preached seems to be just more railing about how bad the world is or how bad they are. It is difficult in such an environment to motivate yourself to attend the divine services, let alone commit yourself to a parish. The gospel of Christ is not a message about how bad the world is, but how good it can be. It is not a message about the brokenness of the world, but its redemption, its transfiguration. The life of our parishes, the content of our preaching must be Good News to the ears. Active participation in the life of
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God intended. But too often we are like the Pharisees who “…bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger” (Matt. 23:4). What we demand of others must not exceed our own charity and readiness to share that burden with them in cosuffering love. Our gospel is not about laying more burdens on men, but helping them carry what they have. Each has his own cross to bear, some heavier than others, but we are all called to be like Simon of Cyrene.
“Do not imagine it a victory, holy Sopatros, to have denounced an opinion, which apparently is not good. …” In this letter from Saint Dionysius to a priest, the saint steers the clergyman away from his preoccupation with the untruth others say, pointing out that it is far safer to focus on what is true and good. Merely because a man has shown his opponent to be wrong does not make him necessarily right. Rather, the saint advises him to do the following: “…cease to speak against others, but rather speak on behalf of truth, that everything said is altogether unquestionable” (St. Dionysius the Areopagite, Letter VI to Sopatros). Our identity is not in what we are opposed to, but in what we stand for. We don’t preach against something, we preach for something. We have good news to proclaim. Our identity is in what Christ taught us and has done for us, not in the horrible things others are doing. Archbishop Michael at SS. Peter and Paul Church, What then is the content of this good news of ours? Bodružal, Slovakia. The content of the Good News is hope. Hope is Church must, if we expect our parishes to grow, essential for human life and wellbeing. Without hope measurably improve the lives of its people. It must that better things will come, that the evil and suffering bring inspiration, hope, consolation, and strength to that has occurred will be conquered and redeemed, those who hear of it and see it and to those who live it. man slips into despair. Because without hope life loses its vitality, its meaningfulness, and becomes hard “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, to endure. We need hope to get up out of bed each and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Our parishes morning and to withstand the hard tasks ahead of us are filled with those who carry burdens too heavy for (and the hard people we will encounter). We have no them; they are worn down, broken, and wounded. greater hope than in the gospel of Christ. Who would see a doctor that only tells them how bad their disease is? No one. We want a doctor who can tell Not only are we promised a future age of delight where there is neither sighing nor sorrow, and life us of a cure. We need to preach the cure. unending, but we are promised unspeakable foretastes We want the people to come not out of guilt, or in this life, as witnessed to by our saints. We have hope mere duty, or force of habit, but in hope. We want that we can conquer our bad habits; we can attain great them to believe that life in the Church improves their heights in prayer; we can be forgiven; even of that lives, transforms them, and allows them to flourish as Continued on page 10
