First Sunday after Easter AD 2025

We live by the grace of God. We exist because God created us. Everything we need for life is a gift from God, with which He, in His immeasurable, sometimes even incomprehensible generosity, blesses everyone – not only the righteous, but also the unrighteous.

Isn’t it true that when we talk about unrighteousness, we are tempted to think about others – when in fact we should look into our own hearts so as not to be like the Pharisee who did not go to the temple to repent and seek forgiveness, but to demonstrate his alleged piety by pointing out the sins of others.

“All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” writes Saint Paul, and this means that we too are sinners who live only by the grace of God. If this were not so, then Christ would not have had to die, “for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”

Jesus is the only way to God – and since God is our life, Jesus is the only way to true and eternal life: “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. To live in Jesus Christ, to walk the path of eternal life through Him, reconciled to God, we must necessarily live in the truth – even if it hurts. St. John writes: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The Son of God became man and suffered and died for us to reconcile us to God and to open for us by His resurrection the way to a new and eternal life. Here, in this world, this means daily repentance and returning to the cross of Christ every time we have sinned to once again find forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace with God.