Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2022-2023)

My dear Brothers and Sisters,

Our Readings this Sunday tell us about God’s wisdom and show us that it offers totally different view from what the world offers.

We are invited to pray like the King Salomon for a gift of a great Wisdom which goes beyond power and wealth.

Let us us to have our hearts and our minds opened for this great lesson of this Sunday.

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In our Second Reading - Saint Paul wrote one of the most difficult to accept statements.

“We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28)

How can we believe this to be true, when our own experience seems to tell us otherwise?

How to believe that God is working during the painful chapter in your marriage, betrayal at work, chronic illness, etc.

Or when a young man, dies suddenly in a tragic car crash?

How can we believe this when tragedy or disaster strikes us in our personal lives?

There are no easy answers to these questions. At least I do not have them

And we do not do justice to them by giving naïve answers.

When we struggle with Paul’s statement, we are confronting profound mystery.

But there is a key to approaching mystery.

The key is to ask: Whom do we trust?

Do we trust the voices of our society, which tell us that belief in a God who ultimately brings good out of evil is absurd?

Or do we listen to and trust the voices of our faith which tells us that all things work for good for those who love God?

There are many examples how God can turn even evil to good in the lives of those who love him.

There is a story of Joseph, not the Husband of Mary, but that one from the Old Testament, who was sold as a slave by his brothers to traders going down to Egypt, but in Egypt he became second-in-command.

During the famine in Canaan his brothers came down to Egypt for food and he reassured them saying that the evil they did to him had been turned to good by God because now his family would be spared of starvation through him (Gen 50:20).

Every year during the Easter Vigil, not everyone come - but there is a beautiful Easter Proclamation or Exultet:

The part of the interesting sentence goes in this proclamation:

O happy fault - FELIX CULPA (in latin)

It does not make sense at all, right?

Happy Fault!

Now the whole sentence:

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

It is saying that because of the sin of Adam (necessary), Jesus came.

God righted the sin of Adam through Christ.

Sin is always evil and always need to be avoided but God in his own way can bring good out of evil.

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

Let’s bring it again what Saint Paul wrote: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28)

The Greatest example of that is Calvary.

We know that Jesus prayed in the Mount of Olives in the moment of his agony: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done.”

Yet, Jesus was crucified FOR OUR SINS - OUR FAULTS.

Without the cross, there would have been no resurrection. Without Good Friday - there is no Easter Sunday.

Our Friendship with the Lord can turn the even the tragedy into triumph.

There is a great story about one of the monks living on Mount Athos, who was alcoholic.

He drank and got drunk every day and was the cause of scandal to the pilgrims.

Eventually he died and this relieved some of the faithful who went on to tell Saint Paisios that they were delighted that this huge problem was finally solved.

Saint Paisios answered them that he knew about the death of the monk, after seeing the entire battalion of angels who came to collect his soul.

The pilgrims were amazed and some protested and tried to explain to the Saint of whom they were talking about, thinking that He did not understand.

Saint Paisios explained to them: "This particular monk was born in Asia Minor, shortly before the destruction by the Turks when they gathered all the boys. So as not to take him from their parents, they would take him with them to the reaping, and so he wouldn't cry, they just put alcohol into his milk in order for him to sleep.

Therefore he grew up as an alcoholic. There he found a monk and said to him that he was an alcoholic.

The monk told him to repent and do prayers every night and beg blessed Mother to help him to reduce by one the glasses he drank.

After a year he managed with struggle and repentance to make the 20 glasses he drank into 19 glasses.

The struggle continued over the years and he reached 2-3 glasses, with which he would still get drunk."

The world for years saw an alcoholic monk who scandalized the pilgrims, but God saw a fighter who fought a long struggle to reduce his passion.

My dear Brothers and Sisters, If we love God, keeping him first, HE can turn even our tragedies, whether big or small, into triumphs.

Saint Paul does not say just"SOME THINGS," but "ALL THINGS."

Let us be reminded that hope fills our hearts, and faith serves as our guiding light in life.

Through every challenge we encounter, God's love and purpose are at work, showering us with blessings and opportunities.

We can place our trust in God’s divine plan, knowing that it leads to a future filled with goodness and grace.