Ukrainian Catholic ChurchAustralia, New Zealand and Oceania
Homily by Fr. Ihor Holovko on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 17, 2024
The Christian family is the best environment for nurturing fundamental values. Families that come together in prayer and form a wider family — a parish — have the potential to create a healthy community where both forgiveness and joy, or vice versa — joy and forgiveness — can be found.
“Community is a place of joy and forgiveness.” Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche and Faith and Light communities.
The presence of forgiveness in a community is a sign that people serve and live for each other, which brings joy to the community members. To put it another way, to experience joy, maintain love, and live happily in a community, we must forgive each other. The Christian family is the best environment for nurturing these fundamental values, as family members face the daily need for forgiveness. Such a family, which lives its faith in devotion to the Saviour Jesus Christ, is often referred to as the “home church” or the “first church” on the earthly pilgrimage. Families that come together in prayer and form a wider family — a parish — have the potential to create a healthy community where both forgiveness and joy, or vice versa — joy and forgiveness — can be found.
As the community of believers, or the Church, grows larger, the challenges each member faces in maintaining joy and forgiveness also increase. On an eparchial level, this responsibility becomes even more significant. When we consider the global level and reflect on the nature of unity among people, whether Christians or churches, we may be tempted to think that it is impossible to nurture forgiveness and joy at this scale, especially when we see weaknesses and misunderstandings. Yet, as Scripture reminds us, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
In today’s Gospel reading, on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, we hear the parable of the vineyard workers — a lesson in what not to do. It presents a negative example of life with terrible consequences. In such a gathering of people, there is no forgiveness, no joy, no life — only envy, greed, deceit, humiliation, and death. And this is not a true community.
Today, we also remember the consecration of our Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv. This cathedral, like every cathedral or parish church, is the work of a community where forgiveness is sanctified and joy is found.
His Beatitude Patriarch Lubomyr Husar, of blessed memory, stated during the construction of the Patriarchal Cathedral in Kyiv that it should not be the work of one person or a few, but a collective effort of all our faithful from around the world. This cathedral has become a shared joy and a common journey of trials, expectation, and forgiveness on the path to salvation and the bright resurrection of our lives.
Therefore, let each and every one of us seek not only our own joy but also practice forgiveness in our homes, in the parish community, and within the broader community of the faithful.
“The councils of the faithful shine in the Cathedral of the Resurrection, like the many-lighted stars in heaven, and praying in it, they cry out: ‘Establish this house, O Lord!’” (Kontakion for the consecration of the Patriarchal Cathedral in Kyiv).
