Minassian presides over Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Savior in Bourj Hammoud

Armenian Catholicos Patriarch of the House of Cilicia, Patriarch Raphael Bedros XXI Minassian, presided over the Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Savior in Bourj Hammoud.

After the Holy Gospel, Minassian delivered a sermon in which he said: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” “The crowds that came to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. They carried palm branches and went out to receive him, chanting: Glory be to God! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed be the King of Israel!” (John 12, 12-13). This crowd was the same crowd that Jesus accompanied when he called Lazarus from the grave and raised him from the dead, so they bore witness to him and so the crowds came out to meet him because they heard that he had performed that miracle” (John 12, 17-18). At this stage, I ask myself how I would like to repeat these words while I regret my sins, but I repeat these words while I fight my brothers in the Lord. I bless him who comes in the name of the Lord, and I dishonor the children of the Lord. I trust and bless the name of the Lord, and I dishonor all his commandments because of the jealousy, envy, and corruption in which I live.“.

He asked: “Where is that blessing, and why is praising the name of the Lord when harsh wars surround us and making a living difficult for us?” On this day, Christ the Savior ascended to Jerusalem, and the pure people welcomed him and walked with him, surrounding him with olive branches, a symbol of the peace that we lost and are still losing today in the land of peace. The entire East also received him with date branches, a symbol of victory, and we are still paying the price of injustice and tyranny in the world, wherever it may be. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, by faith, we open the doors of our hearts and let God the Savior work in us according to what we need of purification and purification, for He is the Creator and Savior, and He is the All-Knowing and All-Powerful. He is the one who knows us more than we know ourselves. Let us surrender ourselves to Him so that He may work through His Holy Spirit and open the right path before us so that we may work according to His will. May He enter our hearts and consciences as He entered Jerusalem, expel evil and the wicked from our lives, bless us just as He blessed those who walked with Him, and bring us together in a homeland based on sincerity, respecting the laws and denying the forbidden, as well as a servant of the righteous. To gather us under the banner of peace and equality just as He gathered the children and blessed them and said to His disciples: If you are not like these children, then you have no place in the house of salvation. Yes, our children today are being slaughtered and killed by the hands of tyrants, and God’s will is being killed with them“.

AndHe added: “Come then, my beloved brothers, let us build ourselves on the foundations of this divine initiative, and adopt the tool of reconciliation with ourselves and with God, then reconciliation with our brothers and our society in this torn homeland, Lebanon and the rest of the East, and take avoidance, giving, and dedication, and emerge from selfishness, the cause of permanent conflict. On this blessed feast, the feast of the entry of the incarnate Lord into Jerusalem, the entry of the victorious king, the king who defeated evil and heralded salvation. Let him enter our hearts and consciences, let him enter our souls and cleanse us of the residue of hatred and social, political and economic divisions in this beloved country, where nothing remains, no ability for citizens to enter hospitals, no ability for patients with cancer and incurable diseases, and in the case of the Beirut port explosion, no one was held accountable. The same applies to the depositors’ case“.

He concluded: “We did not see a corrupt person in prison. The only people who pay the price are the citizens. They paid the price in their health, their savings, and their future.” We pray to God to help people and to wash us and purify us with His infinite love, so that we, in turn, can practice our good deeds, so that there remains neither trinity nor parity, but rather one homeland and one people, whose name is the People of God, the People of Salvation.“.

(National Agency)