www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Eparchial & Parish Events St. Elias Church Brampton Consecration

Very true, simple words, but with a less simple application in the Christian understanding of that sentiment. Consider balancing a response to the TWO great commandments -- two not just one. Consider priorities:

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read?" And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." (Luk 10:25-27 RSV)

What's the proper balance? Another incident, also from the Gospels, for consideration:

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment thus wasted? For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." And they reproached her. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me. (Mar 14:3-7 RSV)

Also, an interesting contemporary example about Mother Teresa from Something Beautiful for God (Paperback – 2003) by Malcolm Muggeridge, p. 36:

After all, the first Christians were mostly slaves. As Simone Weil says, Christianity is a religion for slaves; we have to make ourselves slaves and beggars to follow Christ. Despite this chronic financial stringency of the Missionaries of Charity, when I was instrumental in steering a few hundred pounds in Mother Teresa's direction, she astonished, and I must say enchanted, me by expending it on the chalice and ciborium for her new noviciate, 'so,' she wrote, 'you will be daily on the altar close to the Body of Christ.' Her action might, I suppose, be criticized on the same lines as the waste of spikenard ointment, but it gave me a great feeling of contentment at the time and subsequently.

Thanks for the clarification you've made above. Brampton church is hardly a "luxury" one - and is not certainly a "new" one, as it has been rebuilt from fire ruins. And IMO there are some people more deserving to hear such comments than the parish community in Brampton, Ont.:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social

Of course, the problem of "what has the church diaspora to do for Ukraine and whether Ukraine owes anything to the diaspora" is far broader than this topic's frames...