5. In the house of God
A happy day
It was early Sunday morning and the bells of the
village church began to ring joyfully to invite Christians to the house of God.
Mum Sophia woke her children up and they began to get
ready all together to go to church.
Angela was happy because she would receive today
through the Holy Communion her beloved little Brother, as she often called her
beloved God and man Jesus.
Since her mum told her that the divine Infant of
Bethlehem, the little Christ, is the Son
of God who became man like us so that we love Him as our Brother and Father, she
didn’t stop calling Him "my sweet little Brother. "
She loved Him so much, like her little brother Joseph,
and took care not to do anything bad that would upset Him.
She was now more careful in what she said and did.
Many times a day she asked her mother if she had done
anything that might hurt her little Brother and whenever her mum pointed out a
mistake, with much regret and with tearful eyes she was immediately asking for forgiveness
and promised that she would try not to do it again.
She loved the little Christ so much, that when Sunday
was coming her childish sweet heart was beating joyfully because she would go
to church and she would receive through the Holy Communion her beloved
"little Brother".
So as soon as she heard the bells ringing today and
inviting her to the home of her beloved little Christ, she got up quickly from her
bed and started getting ready. Soon they were all ready and set off for the
church.
Their church was nice and big. It was built with stone
and according to the Byzantine architecture. In the middle there was a very
large dome which looked like heaven and it was painted with beautiful icons.
Little Angela always admired their great church with
the beautiful wall paintings. She liked the iconography of Almighty God very
much who was painted in the middle of the large dome with many angels around
Him. How she wished to also be an angel beside her beloved God!
The church was full of people and there were many
children. Some of the older children were gathered near the right chanter and were
holding lighted candles. Sometimes they sang hymns with him that they had
learned from their teacher, who was the cantor of their church.
Angela was standing near her mummy and followed the
Divine Liturgy carefully. Since she didn’t understand all those beautiful hymns
which the chanters sang melodically, she spoke to her beloved Jesus with simple
words saying that she loves and adores Him with all her heart.
Soon they all began to sing the great doxology and a
wonderful melody filled the church. The bells rang joyfully and rhythmically. They
all made the sign of the cross across their breasts and begged God to bless
them with the grace of the Holy Spirit.
In their small village, almost all the people were
going to church and all together they chanted the Divine Liturgy with the help
of the cantor, who was for many years the teacher in their village. Because the
hymns of the Matins were changing from week to week it was a little difficult
to learn them all, but everyone knew the hymns of the Divine Liturgy because
they were always the same.
It was very nice to hear almost all the people in
church chanting the hymns of love and praise to Almighty God with one voice. It
seemed that the people were competing with the melodies of the angels, who also
were chanting with them in heaven. Angels and people had joined their voices to
give thanks to Almighty God.
Our little Angela looked at the priest with much
respect, who after the doxology lifted the holy Gospel and said:
“Blessed is the
kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”
It was the moment that the Divine Liturgy began.
Mum Sophia had told her that the whole sequence of
prayers in the church is divided into two parts. The first part is called the Matins and the second part the Divine Liturgy.
In the first part, the Matins, we thank God for what
He has given us in life and beg Him to forgive us for all the mistakes we made
and we hurt Him.
We also beg Him to bless us with the grace of the Holy
Spirit, so that with His assistance, we will live the rest of our lives
according to His will.
In the second part, the Divine Liturgy, which is the
most meaningful, God invites us to participate in the divine Last Supper. In this,
we can all receive, through Holy Communion, the Son of God, who became the Son
of man for our sake. By the Holy Communion Almighty God wants to get into the
hearts of His children and there to be glorified as their most sweet and tender
Father. For man this is the highest honour that could be made by our good God.
The Divine Liturgy was proceeding and when they chanted
a simple and well known hymn, Angela sang along with others. When she didn’t
know it, she said her own impromptu childish prayers. She spoke so simply to
her "little Brother" and God Jesus, that if someone had the ability
to see something invisible, surely he would be excited to see Almighty Christ
coming like the Holy Infant of Bethlehem and entering into the embrace of this
little angel!
Christ always loved little children. They were His
little earthly angels who made His divine heart happy with their simplicity and
innocence.
But when these children let their soul love God with
all the power of their childish hearts, then the angels of heaven were
astonished to see the infinite divine love coming as a brilliant light from the
heart of the heavenly Father and God and flooding these children with the Holy
Spirit. It was the very moment that even the angels stopped their angelic
chanting in order to enjoy the childish melody of divine love which poured out
as precious myrrh from the “myrrh-container” of a childish heart!
Our little Angela loved the Holy Infant of Bethlehem
with all her heart. In each Divine Liturgy, guided by the star of love to her
king and God Jesus, she was travelling to distant Bethlehem with the three wise
men to offer the newborn Jesus, instead of other gifts, her heart which was
beating full of adoration for Him!
The most beautiful thoughts that ever passed through
her mind and made her happy were those of the little shepherds who, together
with their sheep, were around the manger of her "little Brother".
Angela imagined holding the Holy Infant Jesus in her
childish arms and covering Him with her angelic caresses and kisses! How she
would have liked to look into His sweet eyes and say to Him as a little childlike
mummy how much she loves and adores Him! But also Jesus, like a sweet baby,
feeling the motherly adoration of His "childlike mummy", smiled sweetly
at her and let her travel into the kingdom of true heavenly joy.
Two things make the holy angels in heaven always
admire the infinite mercy of God.
The first was when they saw with their angelic eyes
God become man in Bethlehem and indeed a baby in the arms of a little humble
girl.
The second thing, which caused and always will cause
angels’ surprise and admiration, is when they see the Son of God being
enclosed, this time mentally, as an infant in the hearts of countless people
and to be worshipped by them as a person and God.
Then, in Bethlehem, all the angels and people who were
there, saw this divine Infant and
adored Him, since He was among them.
But now, many souls with childish simplicity and deep
faith embrace Him mentally as their
own baby and adore Him as a mother adores her baby. They do what their heavenly
Queen and Holy Mary did. While they enclose Him as a person in their own
motherly heart with love and adoration, at the same time, they believe and
worship Him as a God in heaven, who is one with God the Father and the Holy
Spirit.
Little Angela, without realizing it, was living what
all the angels admired.
In her childish sweet heart she was living not a simple
love but the divine love of Almighty God. She was living through it the
happiness of divine love and mercy.
Angela as a child was in the tender embrace of her
heavenly Father and was enjoying His motherly love through the love of her
mother and father.
But as childlike mummy, she enclosed the Holy Infant
of Bethlehem in the depths of her heart with much adoration and loved Him as
every mummy loves her baby.
Like the Cherubims
Little Jesus was enjoying the adoring love of His
little angel and Angela could not stop telling Him continually how she adores
and loves Him.
Little children have two great virtues that make God
very pleased with them. One is simplicity
and the other innocence. These two
virtues are like a bird’s two wings which can fly high in the sky.
Innocence is the jewel of angels. With this souls are
shining with purity. No physical and spiritual filth can blacken that soul
which is adorned with the angelic virtue of innocence like a small infant.
Those who were able to obtain this virtue look like earthly angels, as St. John
the Baptist was.
The virtue of simplicity doesn’t allow a child to
think deceitfully like adults and hold in his heart envy, jealousy, criticisms
and other mean thoughts. Whatever he has on his mind, he will say with
simplicity, without thinking about being misunderstood or not. He doesn’t have
evil thoughts against anyone. If he quarrels with a child, he quickly makes up
with him and is ready to play with him again without holding any malice in his
soul. Hypocrisy does not exist in him, even as a word. He loves his parents
with all his heart and puts himself in their arms with absolute trust.
Our God likes these two virtues so much!
How much He would wish that all His children would
have the blessed virtues of simplicity and innocence!
Once He said to His
disciples that, if we will not change and become like little children, we will
not enter easily the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 18, 3)
At that time the cantors were chanting melodically the
cherubic hymn and calling upon all believers to try to be like cherubims; the
angels who are around Almighty God and are praising Him continually.
Soon the Lord Himself would pass among all the people
in the church to bless and to announce to them that He would sacrifice Himself
for the sake of all His children, to allow everyone to enter into His heavenly
kingdom.
The priest holding the Holy Gifts was passing among
the believers, who had bent their heads out of respect for our Heavenly King.
This whole scene reminds us of the triumphant entrance of Christ into Jerusalem
just before he was arrested and crucified by the Jews, for the salvation of the
whole world.
Every Divine Liturgy is a representation of the whole
earthly life of Christ; from His birth until the crucifixion, resurrection and
glorious ascension into heaven.
Angela’s mum often explained the Divine Liturgy to her
children in simple words so they could understand and have their sweet king
Jesus living in their soul.
Our little Angela was living every moment of the
Divine Liturgy, as if she was continually next to her beloved "little
Brother" and God Jesus. Like an angel she adored Him with devotion, like
an angel she loved Him with absolute trust and like an angel she wanted to do
only His will in all the moments of her life.
Send down your Holy
Spirit upon us
Meanwhile the most important moment of the Divine
Liturgy had approached. The priest was praying for the Holy Spirit to flood the
souls of the people with His grace and turn the bread and wine, which were on
the Altar, into the Body and Blood of Christ the King.
"Lord, send
down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here presented and
make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ and that which is in this cup the precious
Blood of Your Christ changing them by
Your Holy Spirit”.
The cantors chanted with devout concentration: “We
praise You, we bless You, we give thanks to You, Lord our God…”.
All the people had bent their heads as if they were
before the throne of God and were begging the Holy Spirit to flood their humble
souls.
Our little Angela had also bent her head and was
begging the King of her heart, Jesus, to flood her with the grace of the Holy
Spirit and the absolute trust in His Divine Will, as she was taught to pray by
her sweet mummy.
Sophia was a holy mother and was teaching her
children, not so much with her words but more so by the source of her devotion
that was in her heart.
It was sufficient to look at her when she was praying
in order to know how the saints pray.
When Sophia was praying to Christ, her heart was
burning from the adoration for Him and her eyes were filled with tears of love.
She always begged the Holy Spirit to enlighten her children’s minds and to
guide them to the path of divine love. She wanted their children not only to
love God but to worship Him with all their heart, to trust Him completely and
follow His Divine Will with complete obedience. She knew that if someone wants
to follow the way of holiness, he had to walk on the safe paths of divine love
and absolute trust and obedience to the divine will.
But this is not possible for someone to manage by
himself, without the help of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, she is always
begging God the Father, through His only-begotten Son Jesus, to flood their
souls with the grace of the Holy Spirit. She liked praying to the Holy Trinity,
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the one indivisible Deity.
Sophia’s compassion had peaked at the very moment that
the Holy Spirit changed the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. A
few teardrops filled her eyes, fell upon little Angela and gave her the divine
love which was burning in her heart for her beloved Jesus. It was the most
wonderful silent teaching of mum Sophia for her little girl.
Angela said one day to her older sister, Christina,
that if there were many more such mummies like theirs on earth, the whole world
would be full of many saints. With her childish mind she had understood a great
and forgotten truth. It depends mainly on the mother whether a
child finds his way to the heavenly kingdom of God or is guided on the hard
paths of an ugly and disastrous sinful life!
Our Heavenly Father
At that time the voice of the priest called loudly
inviting everyone to say the prayer which was taught to us by Christ himself.
Throughout the church resounded: "Our Father who art in heaven ..."
"Our Heavenly Father, make us worthy to praise
Your holy name with our lives. Let the kingdom of the Holy Spirit enter into
our hearts and help us to always do Your Will here on earth, as the angels do
in heaven. Give us today, as well as the necessary bread for our survival, the
spiritual food for our souls. Forgive us for all the mistakes we have made, as
we forgive all those who have hurt us. And finally, please do not allow us to
be harmed by Satan’s temptations, but save us from the evil plans he has
against us. "
There is no greater power for a man here on earth than
leaving his soul with absolute trust in the hands of his heavenly Father! The
only thing which Satan fears, like nothing else on earth, is the absolute trust
that man has in His God the Father.
Who can hurt a child lying in the protective embrace
of his father or mother? Nobody!
Exactly, nobody can hurt a soul which is hidden in the
arms of God the Father! It is impossible for Satan to destroy a soul who is
covered by the affectionate love of God himself.
God can allow Satan to test His children from time to
time, in order to see if they trust Him, but He never abandons them to his
disastrous fury.
God’s greatest joy is seeing His children, when they
are getting teased by demons, fighting bravely against them and telling them
that the only One they love, trust and obey is their merciful God. This is also
the biggest wound against Satan.
There are two words so strong and frightening to the
devil that whoever says them and lives with deep faith, is armed with the most
terrible weapon against him.
These words were revealed by the Lord Jesus himself,
when He taught us the Lord’s Prayer that we have to say to our God the Father.
The words are "Our Father ..."
The words "our Heavenly Father" determine
our relationship with our Creator.
God is our Father and we are His children. And as long
as we stay under His fatherly protection by our own will, we do not have to
fear anyone or anything.
Divine Union
Our little Angela was living this wonderful
relationship of trust in God the Father in her heart. She was the little girl of her heavenly
Father and He was for her the sweetest Dad in the entire world. When she was
praying, she was calling Him, "My sweet Daddy."
For Angela the most beautiful day of the week was
Sunday, because she would go with her parents to the church and would receive
through Holy Communion her beloved God. She couldn’t ever think that she could go
to church without becoming one with the Holy Infant of Bethlehem, her beloved
"little Brother" through Holy Communion.
Her mum had told her once that every time she receives
Holy Communion, she becomes one with her beloved Jesus, as it happens with a
glass of water and wine. Angela was longing very much to be one with her sweet
"little Brother" and God.
Her heart had already begun beating joyfully! The
priest holding the Holy Chalice had come in front of the Holy Gate and was
inviting the faithful to come to receive the Saviour of their souls.
He was saying to everyone: "Approach with fear of
God, faith, and love."
Many people began coming to receive the Holy
Sacraments. Mum Sophia first let her children, then her husband receive Holy
Communion before her.
With great reverence she opened her mouth to receive
her heavenly King. Two pearly tears were rolling from her eyes, which the
angels took immediately and put them before the throne of God with respect and
joy. They were shining there as the most precious gifts that man could give to
his Almighty God.
The Three Temples
The hearts of Sophia, her husband, her children and
every pious soul who received the heavenly King with love, were the most
beautiful temple that God could live in at that time!
Angela remembered what her mum had told her about the
three temples of God.
The first temple is
all His creation, in which people
live. All this wonderful creation of God the Father with the beautiful sky, the
stars and the sun, the sea, the land with forests, rivers, animals, and all the
creatures in it, should remind us of our God the Creator whom we all owe
respect, love and adoration. We can pray anywhere, wherever we are, because
this whole creation is the great temple of God.
God’s second temple
is every church that people build for the
glory of God to hold the Divine Liturgy there. In this, by the power of the
Holy Spirit the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.
So people can receive God himself, through Holy Communion, and become one with
Him.
The third temple is
the precious heart of man, in which God
himself wants to live as a tender Father of every soul.
The third temple is the most valuable for our good
God. God wants to come like a Mother and Father into the heart of man to
embrace His child tightly. The heart of man is the living room of his soul. The
pious man receives his God King there.
As our real home is God our Father’s heart, so the
heart of every man is the house of our God. For this reason we should always
pay attention that our hearts are always pure from any spiritual filth. Since
our good God likes living there, we must always clean His little house.
As Angela was afraid of infecting her heart, she had
asked her mum what things she must be careful of. She always remembers her
advice and tries to implement it.
-My girl never let your heart feel badly towards any
person. We are all children of God and siblings to each other. Some of His
children can be prone to evil and sin by the cunning ways of Satan, but we
don’t have to criticize and speak badly of them.
Instead, we have a duty to pray for them so that when
the time comes when God will judge them, He will help and save them from
Satan’s claws. We must be merciful, as our good heavenly Father is. All the
children of God will be recognized by the compassion that they will show to all
people, even the bad guys. Therefore, good Christians are not jealous, not
envious and do not harm others. Only in this way can we keep our hearts pure,
so we can receive our beloved God without hurting Him.
-If we make a mistake, can we receive Holy
Communion?
-When we sincerely apologize, then we can. Our good
God knows that because we are weak we easily fall into making various errors.
That’s why He said that every time we apologize to Him, He will forgive us. He
will forgive us, however, on one condition.
-What is the condition, my mummy?
-We must forgive those who have harmed us.
-Do we have to spend time, mum, with those who harm
us?
-No, my little girl. Although we must forgive
everyone, we must be very careful with those people who harm their fellow
beings and do not respect our good God. We should not criticize them or hate
them, nor do them evil, but to pray for them, so that our good God has mercy on
them. But we have to stay away from them, so that our soul is not influenced
badly. When we have compassion, we are like our beloved God the Father and we
make Him very happy.
Angela was determined to look like her beloved God
Jesus, therefore, today before going to receive Holy Communion she had begged
Him to grant her the gift of divine mercy.
She said:
"Please, my very sweet Jesus, make me merciful
like You and love all people, like You do. I always want to do only what You
would do. Enlighten also my sweet mummy
so that she guides me correctly to Your Divine Will. I thank You very much also
for the good dad You gave me. Bless also my sister Christina and our little
Joseph. May all the people be well and forgive those who hurt You with their
mistakes. I am coming to receive You in my heart and become one with You, like
water with wine, as my mum told me. I
believe You, I adore You and I love You. "
With these words she went to receive, through Holy
Communion, her beloved King Jesus and to live the happiness of her love with
her sweet heavenly Father in her childish sweet heart.