We need a person who will bring God to us, - from the Head of the UGCC on Sunday of the Paralytic

“Today's Gospel describes God's mercy to us. It shows us our God as one who hurries to a person. Even more, it is the source of her life and health. Every time a person separates from God, separates herself from Him, she becomes paralyzed, she gets sick”, the Primate mentions.

As for him, today's Gospel very well describes the relationship of love and mercy between God and His people.

In his homily, the Head of the UGCC drew attention to a man who had no one to help him into the pool in which he was called to find his healing. Interestingly, he emphasizes that it was God who wanted to be the one for whom the patient had been waiting for thirty-eight years.

“The Son of God, the second person of God, came in person. Not an angel, not a messenger, but God himself came to pour out his mercy on a man to save him. God himself wanted to be the man who had never been with the sick”, the preacher emphasized.

The Head of the Church assumes that, probably, the man asked for help from more than one person and expected that help. It so often happens that we live among people, yet without having one. How often do we feel that even though we have everything we need - mind, will, various gifts - we cannot put it all together.

“God is the first to meet a person and pour out mercy on her, even when she does not know Him”, stresses the Archbishop.

His Beatitude Sviatoslav pointed out that today the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is experiencing a special day of prayer for the sick - for those who need and seek a doctor, looking for a person, humanity.

“Today we are also praying for the medical workers who have a lot of special work and service during wartime, because there are millions of those who cannot help themselves in Ukraine. Today we entrust them to God's mercy”, assured the Head of the UGCC.

“When I had to see the mass graves in which the russians dumped hundreds of murdered people, the army that is advancing on us and is many times higher than Ukrainian troops, when we understand that Ukraine has taken up a struggle, similarly to David against Goliath, in the first and most difficult moments of the war we said to ourselves: “We have nothing” – says the Father and Head of the UGCC.

And adds: “Nobody believed that Ukraine would resist. Even our so-called Western partners predicted that Kyiv would be taken in three days. But in three days Christ rose from the dead. And in those days when we felt that all of us had left, suddenly Kyiv turned into a dead city. A lot of people have fled. Embassies of foreign countries were evacuated, shops were closed, and it was even impossible to get food”.

 “We were crying out to heaven then, ‘God, we have no one! We need Your mercy”. Thus, our capital turned into a large font, just as in the time of Prince Volodymyr, Kyiv was a baptismal font, where our people received a new life, where they were baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. And at the beginning of this war, our Kyiv became the center of resistance. The Lord was with us”, His Beatitude Sviatoslav emphasized.

“May the merciful Lord bless all those who are waiting for God's mercy, since this is a story about each of us. We are all sinners who, being in the sea of ​​our own sin, our own weaknesses, cannot heal ourselves. We need a person who would bring us God, - said the Head of the Church and stressed: Everyone who does mercy to another person becomes a messenger of God. Every time we show mercy to the victims of war, refugees, migrants, those who have lost relatives, personal property, that person who feels God's mercy on herself, says: “God himself sent this man, God did not forget me”.

“May the feeling of God's closeness in the most difficult circumstances of the war be for us the strength, hope, key, and secret of our victory - the victory of Ukraine”, wished the spiritual leader of Ukrainians.

The UGCC Department for Information