The Archbishop Makarios of Australia celebrated the Great Festive Vesper at the holy temple of Bankstown in Sydney, on the occasion of the feast of St. Euphemia the Great Martyr.
Archbishop Makarios spoke to the congregation about the true joy offered to man by his acquaintance with Christ and his participation in the spiritual life of the Church.
“An environment of joy is the one in which our Church wants us to live”, the Archbishop emphasized and added: “This is the environment in which the Saints of our Church lived, who, even when they suffered martyrdom and shed their blood, they did not have sorrow or grief, but they had joy. And their faces shone with joy, because they knew what they were doing, but above all they knew where they were going. And we see this very clearly in the life of Saint Euphemia, who had martyred, and in fact after a series of cruel and painful tortures she surrendered her soul to Jesus Christ and the Church”.
At this point, the Archbishop emphasized that the true joy, that of the Saints of our Church, can be found only in Jesus Christ. “Christ is the only one who can give meaning and joy to our lives,” he said.
That is why he paternally urged the faithful to knock on the right door in their lives in order to find joy, pointing out that “this door is Jesus Christ”. “To know and relate to Jesus Christ”, he stressed, “and when our life is oriented to many wrong destinations, to be redirected to Jesus Christ, because he is the beginning and the end, but above all he is the source of joy “.