Dear Friends,

In one week we will celebrate one of the five major feasts (daghavar) of the Armenian Church – the feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ also known as Vartavar.

In preparation for this great feast the Holy Church invites us to utilize the week leading up to the feast for spiritual growth via the Lenten ascetical practices of fasting, prayer and good works. The pious reading of Holy Scripture, particularly the gospels and psalms, is also of immense spiritual benefit.

During this upcoming week as you read the daily newspaper or watch the news on television ask yourself: where does my Christian faith fit into this? How do I interpret what is happening in the world in the light of my being a child of God? Every day we hear more and more troubling news from Iraq and other areas of conflict. Increasingly we are learning more and more about natural disasters resulting from humanity’s lack of stewardship with regards to God’s creation.

It’s very easy to become depressed with all the bad news. However, this is when our holy apostolic faith needs to kick in and form our attitudes, words and actions. We need to realize that this life and present reality are not forever. In the book of Revelations we read: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.

In other words all of the things that we have grown accustomed to and comfortable with are truly temporary. Thus in our spiritual calling we need to recommit ourselves to the chief precept of the gospel: You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind; and your neighbor as yourself.

Let us use this week of preparation for the holy feast of Transfiguration as an opportunity for growth in what really matters and is eternal: love of God and love of neighbor.

Pray the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy
Divine Master, grant that
I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
Not so much to be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving, that we receive;
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we awaken to eternal life.

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With prayers.
Hayr Simeon
July 8, 2007