Yesterday, the second Sunday of the Lent, of Saint Gregory Palama, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel participated in the Divine Liturgy celebrated at Jercălăi Monastery, county of Prahova – informs the daily newspaper “Lumina”. His Beatitude delivered a sermon in which he underlined the significance of the celebration of the great hierarch, also explaining the wonder of the healing of the paralysed man in Capernaum.

The Primate of our Church explained the reason why Saint Gregory Palama is celebrated on the 2nd Sunday of the Lent and mentioned a few essential data on the life, activity and importance of this saint for the Orthodox Church.

“Saint Gregory Palama appears as a great teacher of the prayer and of the divine light, just on this second Sunday of the spiritual ascension to the light of the Holy Easter, in order to show us that once we confess the right faith, we must intensify and increase more and more our prayer, both for us and for others. Let us pray for our good health and salvation, as well as for that of our dear ones, of our neighbours, relatives and of all the people who have nobody to pray for them and they themselves cannot do it any more, because they are too sick or in too great a sufferance, as this hope that stems from prayer strengthens them a lot. Saint Gregory Palama is remembered today not only because he was a great scholar, but also because he prayed for and defended, at the same time, those who prayed, the hysichast monks whom he called prophets of the Kingdom of Heaven, because some of them were worthy even in this world to foretaste the glory of the never setting light of the Kingdom of Heaven, the light of Tabor”, said His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel.

His Beatitude explained that the Romanian people has a special affection for the personality of Saint Gregory Palama given, on one hand, the fact that he passed away the same year when the Metropolitan See of Wallachia was established, namely in 1359, and on the other hand, the fact that the Romanian monks have been very receptive to the hysichast movement, whose main promoter was Saint Gregory. The close relation between Saint Gregory Palama and the Romanian people is also due to the fact that the first theologian who has discovered the special value of this saint’s writings was a Romanian: Rev. Dumitru Stăniloae.

His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel also referred to the teaching of the Gospel read at the Divine Liturgy and pointed out the importance of praying for other people and the need to fast and do good deeds. “Today’s Gospel shows us that we must have both right faith, much prayer and repentance. We must intensify our confession, confess more often, repent more for our sins, especially during this period, when the entire Church repents.” The Patriarch of Romania explained that Jesus Christ, our Lord, shows us in today’s Gospel that “our diseases are often the result of the sins we made but for which we have never repented. But when the sufferance of disease appears, man is inclined to repent”.

To end with, His Beatitude also showed that “if we go to Christ in faith whenever we are sinful or sick because of our sins, He wants to heal us and, at the same time, to adopt us, to show us the fatherly love of God-the-Father. Christ heals directly and discretely, heals with special compassion, having a together-sufferance with the sick and fallen one, in order to raise him and give him the joy of forgiveness and the light of adoption”.