“Our soul must remain pure, as it was when we were baptised,” Archbishop Makarios of Australia said, during the Divine Liturgy on Monday, January 6, at the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Theotokos in Sydney.
He added, “The ‘Feast of Epiphany’ or ‘The Day of the Lights’ is the third and last celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas and, therefore, in the past, it was identified with Christmas Day; Christians did not differentiate Christmas from the celebration of Epiphany. That is why today’s celebration is called ‘Epiphany’ because Jesus Christ was born today. In other words, it is the manifestation of Jesus Christ to the world.”
Archbishop Makarios also referred to the devastating fires raging in Australia and he urged the faithful to pray to the Lord for the rain: “We need to pray to God with a lot of devotion, a lot of faith and a lot of warmth in our hearts to grant us rain.” He noted that this “will probably be the only solution for us and the most effective way in order to tackle the raging fires.”
