May Pastoral Message
Rev. Father Christ Kontos

"He is not here, He has Risen!"

Beloved,

Prayerfully pondering what it was like for the first Apostles on the days leading up to Pascha is truly overwhelming. Those men and women who walked the pages of the New Testament that you and I have the blessing of being able to read must have been inspired, bewildered and even greatly troubled at times.

They anguished watching as the God-man, the Christ, their friend and teacher, while He was being persecuted, slandered, spat upon and lied about. They were frustrated as they would hear Him say "I thirst!" Their hearts wept when He looked up to heaven from the Cross and cried out "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Their despair, loneliness & helplessness must have been overwhelming when He bowed His head and said, "It is finished!" They must have felt very alone.

The loneliness, despair & fear of the Apostles is what all of us experience throughout our lives when we too do not have Christ in our midst as they did then. But then, they heard the news, “He is not here, He has Risen!”

Those words reverberate throughout the world to this day and into eternity. What they meant to the Apostles and continue to mean for all is that things are different now. Receive the Risen Lord in your hearts and He will transform your lives in a blink of an eye. St. Paul speaks to that when he writes to the Church of Corinth:

"Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, & we will be changed".

What is encouraging for you and I is, that change can begin here and now. Through the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and receiving Holy Communion, we not only get a glimpse into the Paradise that is promised to us, but can indeed experience it by allowing Christ to live in us.

May the Risen Lord transform your life into a life of mercy and love.

In the grace of the Resurrection,

Rev. Father Christ Kontos, Pastor