November 9, 2015 - The Bishop as Pastor and his Flock
November 9, 2015 - The Bishop as Pastor and his Flock
November 9, 2015
The Bishop as Pastor and his Flock
“The Lord calls bishops to pastor His flock and He gives them the grace of the Holy Spirit…..They have the power to abstract our mind from the earth and to direct it towards the Lord. They grieve when they see that we offend God and, thus, hindering the Holy Spirit from residing in us. They are burdened by the sorrows of all the world and they pray unceasingly that we will find comfort in our sorrows; that peace will come to the entire world…Our Lord loved us so much that he suffered for us on the Cross. And His sufferings were so great; it is difficult for us to understand them [the bishops] because we do not love the Lord enough. Our spiritual pastors suffer for us in the same way, even though, many times, we do not comprehend their sadness. As great is the love of the pastor, the greater is his sadness. And we, the sheep, are obliged to understand this and to love and to honor the pastors. The Holy Spirit placed the bishops in the Church to pastor the flock of the Lord. If people would have remembered this, they would have loved their pastors with great love and their soul would have rejoiced just with the presence of a pastor.”
St. Silouanos of Mt. Athos