If, in our prayers, we are able every day to be as persistent as a mother asking God for her children, believe me, Christ will hear you and will understand. For He is the One Who is looking for you and waiting for your openness.
The Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav said this during a sermon to the faithful in the parish of Borys and Glib, who are now praying in the library building in Darnytskyi district of Kyiv.
The Primate noted that the modern man is extremely bewildered and disoriented. And modern society may be experiencing the process of globalization again, but already at the level of the whole globe. Everything is moving today, but that movement poses even more problems for a person than it once did.
“A person does not know where he can get help in situations which arise every day and over which he has no control. Life seems to slip from our hands every minute and every day. And so the Church, proclaiming the Word of God, says: Jesus Christ is the One in Whom all your questions are answered and all your problems are solved. If, in our prayers, we are able every day to be as persistent as the mother asking God for her children, believe me, Christ will hear you and understand. He is the One Who is looking for you and waiting for your openness,” says His Beatitude Sviatoslav.
“Faith,” says the preacher, “is the ability of a person to accept God, to take the bread that He is willing to give us.”
The Head of the Church noted that in all our temples this Sunday the message of the Synod of Bishops of our Church is read. “We want to help all the children of our Church see, discover the face of our Mother Church, of which we are children. We say that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is both local and global today. It is very well shown here in Kyiv, in the Borys-Glib parish,” he said.
The Primate emphasized that the UGCC knows her roots. “We know that God has fulfilled some very deep vows to our ancestors. He made a new covenant with us. We became God’s people at the moment of baptism. But today this local Church is embracing the whole world. Today, there is no such continent on the globe where Ukrainians do not live,” he said.
His Beatitude Sviatoslav said that the slogan “The Church is always and everywhere with you” will be the slogan of the next UGCC Council. “Whether you are in Kyiv, Lviv, in Ukraine, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, or Canada – you are always a son and daughter of your Church. The Church is always with you,” emphasized the Head of the Church.
“We want to gather all the children of our Church so that they all realize again that we are the Ukrainian Church, but at the same time as the Church we have believers from different nations and cultures, who sometimes better understand and appreciate the treasures of Volodymyr’s baptism than we, who live near here,” said His Beatitude Sviatoslav.
“I so longed to come to you today, to Darnytsia, so you could feel here, in this wonderful library, the sons and daughters of your mother Church, who is following you where you are,” said the Primate.
The Head of the Church thanked each and everyone who opened the doors of this library to our faithful.
The UGCC Department for Information