Holy Martyr Daniel Sysoev
Many are asking the same question to the priest, “Why should we go to the church every Sunday?”. Then, they want to justify their attitude.
They reply that they have to sleep, spend time with the family, do the household chores, and now I have to get up early and go to the church.
What for?
This requirement has not been invented by the people, but it is one of the Ten Commandments: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God” (Exodus 20, 9-10). In the New Testament, Sunday was a great feast day, for Christ, resurrected from the dead, sanctified this day. According to the norms of the Church, the violator of this commandment is subject to excommunication (80th canon of the Third Council of Constantinople). Under no circumstances would God give us absurd commandments, and the canons of the Church are not destined to mess around people’s live.
What is the meaning of this commandment?
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in the,” according to the words of Ioannis the Evangelist (1 John 4, 16), and to come into contact with Him is possible only through love.
If we love someone, then we do not seek to meet him more often? Is it possible to imagine that the lovers avoid meeting each other? In fact, you can call somebody on the phone, but it’s better to talk face to face. Likewise, if someone loves God, then one seeks to meet Him. In the temple of God, the Lord always keeps an eye on you.
In the church, He is the one who makes us feel new born through the sacrament of baptism. That is why the church is our little heavenly homeland. There God forgives us when we confess our sins. There He gives His body and soul through the Holy Communion.
Have you ever found this source of eternal life in other places?
In the church, the Lord not only protects and gives us strength, but also teaches the Divine Word. The Divine Liturgy, the mass, is the only true school of love of God.
Sunday’s Divine Liturgy serves as the best remedy for the numerous sorrows and depressions, which afflict us during our gloomy everyday life. This is a shining rainbow of God’s testament within the woolliness.
*The article was originally published in Greek in ikivotos.gr