Our New Church Address is: 5004 Cross Keys Rd, Mt Crawford, VA 22841

BLUE ROOF

February 06, 2022

BLUE ROOF
What a blessing it is to have our deep blue roof installed on our new church building. It may be raining and snowing outside, but inside it is dry. Now work can begin to build out this space as we continue to push ahead, transforming this new building into a temple of the Almighty God! May the Most Holy Theotokos cover us with her veil of prayer!
I was thinking quite a bit about the roof this week as we hovered over the roof in the basket lift installing board and baton siding, and I was reflecting on the story of the centurion in Matthew with his words he gave our Lord: “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof.”(Matt 8:8) I hope and pray that we as a church family will continue our struggles against the world and our demons so that this house of worship will offer constant praise and thanksgiving to the Alpha and the Omega. Yes, it is hospital full of very broken and ill people that are here to escape their tormentor and reflect inward on their thorns that have caused deep infections. We look to the Book of Proverbs to hear: The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, But He blesses the dwelling of the righteous. (Proverbs 3:33)
Press on brothers and sisters and build His church, we need it for our salvation! Press on and stay the course of finding healing for your sinful diseases. I continue to remind everyone that we eat an elephant one bite at a time and we will continue to build His church by taking one small bite at a time. And in this process we will also work on our healing. We will strengthen our family and add more members in need of salvation, one bite at a time! 
We heard in the Gospel reading this morning the story of Zacchæos and the Sycamore tree. (Luke 19:1-10) He was the chief tax collector and he was cheating everybody. When he climbed that tree to see the Lord, he repented and made right his wicked ways. Our Lord saw him and said: “Zacchæos, make haste and come down, for today it is needful for Me to stay in thy house.” [Lk. 19:5]
Press on, come and heal thyself and look forward to that Mansion in Eternity where your Lord is preparing a place for you! (John 14:2). Saint Paul tells us in his letters to the church in Corinth: For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. (2 Corinthians 5:1-10)
Saint Kyril of Jerusalem explains it this way: “Be of good cheer, but work, strive earnestly; for nothing shall be lost. Every prayer, every psalm you sing, every good deed, every fast, every marriage duly observed, continence kept for God’s sake is recorded,...for you shall rise clothed with your own sins, or else with your righteous deeds.” [Catechetical Lectures, Lecture XV(23, 25), in Nicene, 2nd Ser., VII:111, 112.] 
The roof you install over your bodily temple cannot be full of holes and allowed to leak in the tears of the violent storms, but should be a bodily temple of righteousness. St. Kyril continues: “For if a man is righteous, he will receive a heavenly body, that he may be able to converse with the angels; but if a man is a sinner, he shall receive an eternal body fit to endure the penalties of sins, that he may burn eternally in fire, nor ever be consumed. And righteously will God assign either state, for we do nothing without the body.” [Ib., Lecture XVIII(19), VII:139.] 
Press On!
Fr. Gabriel Weller 2-6-2022

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