Peace to you dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ!
Christ is risen!
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
John 15:4
This text is read on the third Sunday of Easter, and it is also one of the texts of the rite of confirmation.
Yesterday, on the third Sunday after Easter, in the parish of the Transfiguration of the Lord (Tuim, Khakassia), Valentina Bratmayer received the confirmation. She attended church for a long time, did not miss the catechism classes. She asked good Christian questions a lot and often. The topics were always deep, and often the priest was even difficult to answer.
“When we prepare our catechumens, it is necessary to apply a large amount of patience, faith, perseverance and love in order to teach a person to think by faith. To teach him (or her) to trust God, not yourself.
With Valentina we carefully studied the catechism. We spoke a lot about the basics of faith and how to avoid the temptation and not succumb to the “philosophical” and abstract explanations of Christianity. So we all learn to believe in the Church. As we repeat it every Sunday in the Creed that we believe in God the Father and in God the Son and in the God the Holy Spirit and in one holy apostolic Church. Sometimes people say that they believe in God, but there is no faith in God without faith in the Church, because God comes to us and is revealed to us in the church, where His word and sacraments make us alive.
I’m glad that Valentina confessed her faith with the whole parish today and became a full member, tasted of the Holy Eucharist.”
Fr. Vitali Gavrilov (priest of the parish of Transfiguration).
Please pray for the Lutheran parishioners and catechumens that faith in Christ be their only anchor of the salvation from sin and death.
“Faith and hope”
