In this episode, Father Andre shares his experiences and lessons learned from a mission trip to Lebanon, illustrating the ongoing challenges faced by Christians in the Middle East. Discover the profound connection between scripture and contemporary issues as we explore how each individual can contribute to the solution. Learn about the mission of hope and mercy and how it continues to inspire believers around the world to act in faith and unity.
One day you stole me, nuncia vit Mariae, At age 10, Father Andre escaped Christian massacres by living in caves in Mount Lebanon with his family. Today, Father Andre works tirelessly to encourage American leaders to keep God in the public square, defending religious freedom at home and abroad, so that all might live in peace for the glory of God. Founder and President of the Mission of Hope and Mercy, Father Andre has learned the secret to safety, joy, and peace. Love God and one another. Now, let us spend 33 minutes on the Lord’s Day, retuning ourselves to the truth of love in the hands of God.
SPEAKER 01 :
Praise be the most holy name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ now and forever. Amen. Good Holy Sunday morning my dearly beloved brothers and sisters and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I want to wish all of you a happy and wonderful Palm Sunday. On this Sunday we say Hallelujah. Praise be the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Praise be the son of David. And from the mouth of babes and children, the Lord has made for himself a beautiful entrance, a beautiful hymn, a beautiful melody, has proclaimed his glory as he walks into the city of Jerusalem. It’s a busy week for not only for us as Christians in the world, in the East and in the West, as we prepare for festivities, but you can only imagine it’s also been a busy week for Jesus Christ himself. You know, when I tell you, let’s put ourselves, first of all, in a beautiful spirit of prayer together as we celebrate today with Hosanna Sunday, with Palm Sunday. The solemn entrance of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into the city of Jerusalem. Yerushalayim or the city of peace. The city that contains the temple of God. It’s the house of God. And, you know, as Jesus enters, he enters there and he cleanses the actual temple, as we know, in the accounts of the Holy Gospel. And we also know that inside that city, Jesus will stand in the temple and he will give his eschatological speech in which he says, you take down this temple and in three days I will rebuild it. And Jesus, of course, will somehow foretell about the destruction of the temple, which is a very historical, unfortunately, war and incident that took place in the year 70 AD. after our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So the week is busy in Jesus’ life. This is a time where Jesus, in the holy city of Jerusalem, he, according to the gospel of St. John, chapter 16 to chapter 17, he speaks with his Father in heaven. We call it the monologue. We call it Jesus’ prayer, speaking to his heavenly Father in heaven, praying for us, praying for you, praying for our needs. praying for our unity, praying for his apostles, praying for the world, praying for Jerusalem, lamenting over Jerusalem somehow. It is a busy week for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but it is also a busy week for us in our lives as faithful Christians here in the United States and abroad because we prepare for the festivities. It’s good now to start thinking about the egg hunt. People in the Eastern traditions, they make the beautiful cookies. We call them mamoul in Lebanese language. Beautiful dough that is filled with nuts, all sorts of nuts, with cashew nuts on the inside, with pistachio on the inside, with almond on the inside, and rose water and orange blossom. And of course, there’s some sugar in it as well. So this is a time also where people, they diversify their basically diet. You know, like in the East, this is a separate week for the fasting. So, of course, we are still in the time of Lent, but this is no longer the season of Lent. Today, on Palm Sunday, we enter into a very specific season by itself. In this season, we do fast and we do abstain from food. And this is the only week in the entire year in which we as Christians actually are required to fast, including on Saturday. So it’s been always the tradition in Christianity. If you go back to the Didascalia Apostolorum, it’s a book, it’s a manuscript that goes to the year 180 after our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s the teaching of the 12 apostles. And this book of the teaching of the 12 are known in history of Christianity. manuscripts as didaskalia, or teaching, apostolorum, meaning the apostles in plural. It’s just a fancy sentence from the Latin language. You see that Jesus actually appeared after his resurrection and he stayed with his disciples for 40 days we all know that right if you open the gospel of saint luke and if you open the acts of the apostles chapter 1 in the beginning saint luke actually tells theophilus he tells him as i told you in the first book meaning referring to the gospel Now I have to tell you that Jesus, after his resurrection, he appeared to his disciples and he stayed around. He stayed around for 40 days until Ascension Thursday. And during that time, the apostle or the evangelist Luke tells us what was Jesus doing during those days, during these 40 days. He told his disciples to meet him in Galilee. You know, I always take pride in that because, you know, I just returned from the lands of the mission. I just returned from Lebanon and I had the pleasure and it was an honor yet not without risk. I mean, I saw the airstrikes and we got bombers around our truck that was carrying food and carrying gifts and carrying medical aids to Christian villages actually in South Lebanon. And it was a little bit scary, but thank God, It wasn’t my time yet. I salute all the volunteers who also in our mission of hope and mercy have helped us to bring the food over to these villages in South Lebanon. So we were right at the foothills of Mount Hermon. And it’s a splendid vision, right? This Mount Hermon, you see this like 2,800 meters above sea level almost. This wonderful, magnificent mountain from where you see the lands of Abraham from Iraq all the way to Syria, all the way to Jordan, to the 10 decapolis, the 10 cities. And then you see Israel, you see the parts of the Galilee, the high Galilee. And then you see the western district of Galilee, which is touching the sea and the eastern district of Galilee. And that’s the place where Jesus told his disciples to go up and wait for him after his resurrection. And there they met and they spoke. And one of the traditions tells us it was on top of that mountain, Mountain Hermon, that Jesus ascended into heaven. And the two angels told his disciples, When the cloud was covering Jesus as he was ascending, I can only imagine this beautiful vision of Ascension Thursday, which is about 40 days after the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from the tomb. I can only imagine what a splendid view that is when these apostles and the Virgin Mary and other closer people to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ were kneeling. were standing. I do not know what they were doing, but we know there is a precedence when Jesus was being transfigured. on Mount Tabor, you know, before he entered into Jerusalem, which we are celebrating this Sunday, it was Palm Sunday, you notice I am telling you stories from all over the place to tell you how busy Jesus’ life is and how fantastic and how much we have revelations from heaven and divine visions. If you live with Jesus, the gates of heaven are open, angels come down, the windows of heaven are open, the throne of heaven is shown, and you have all the community of the saints and the angels And you have the power and the might of Almighty God revealing itself to us, we people here who live in the valley of the shadow of death. Really, the earth is our home, but the earth seems to be also a place of exile. If we come to compare it to God’s divine kingdom, But when we Christians bring God’s kingdom into planet earth, you know, we pray there in a prayer that the Lord himself taught us to pray. When we say in Aramaic, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. We tell him thy kingdom come. We tell him let your will be done. You know, and the Hebrew language says, as it is in heaven, let it be also on earth. I think we as Christians turn this. We have our obligation, right, by virtue of our love for God and for one another. By virtue of our desire to help Jesus saving the souls. By virtue of listening and being obedient to our call. Which is go therefore to the whole world. The Gospel of Matthew chapter 28 verse 16 to 20. The Gospel of St. Mark chapter 16. The Gospel of Luke 22. The Gospel of St. John. You know in all of these four Gospels Jesus commands his disciples. Go therefore to the whole world. to all the nations and announce the good news, the Evangelion, or the gospel basically. And that’s basically our duty and our obligation and our sense of recognition that we have seen the vision of heaven, like the apostles and the Virgin Mary, and we have believed And the powerful joy and the powerful satisfaction, the powerful victory, the sentiment, this experience of beatific, beautiful, glorious victory that we experience in our life as we believed in the eyewitnesses that they saw Jesus on that Mount Hermon. Again, we go back to South Lebanon to High Galilee when Jesus was ascending into heaven. We saw that in the transfiguration how some of the disciples also hid their faces. Yeah, they told Jesus, Peter told Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to make a dwelling here. One for you, one for Elijah, and one for Moses. Because the vision of heaven spreads peace, spreads, perpetuates actually the eternal dwelling of God. You feel like you are in the house of God. And remember what the psalm tells us, Oh, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord. My soul and my heart and my mind are yearning to the house of my Lord. So it’s important to know that this week is busy. As I was telling you, we were delivering the food to this beautiful area in South Lebanon. I noticed that the land is sacred, even though there is unfortunately a lot of violence, lots of violence around these territories. I noticed that our story as Christians is a real story. It’s not a fictive story. You know, we live in Jesus Christ. It takes us to a specific people. It leads us to a specific land, specific language, specific culture, specific geographical places. There are actually archaeological and still living society that from Jesus’ time, from our Jewish ancestors, from the very early settlements of our Jewish people in that land of the Holy Land. you know that we can still see and all of that you see when you go up around that mountain of Mount Hermon which is in South Lebanon you see the entire place of the sacred land or the holy land the land that God gave to his people and of course that sacred mountain where God dwelled himself with this being said myself yes we are going into a busy week and to be in Christ means being a completely new creature This is the week in which we experience the newness of life. Everything of the old is gone. Now everything is made anew. You know, it’s one way we take it for granted. Imagine yourself as a human being living before Jesus Christ, where you had to battle and to struggle with the end of death. The end of life, basically. Because life was, okay, we are born and then we die. Even in our Jewish tradition, we did not know for sure that the resurrection existed. You know, the Jews were divided in their theological thoughts. You had the Sadducees, they did not believe in the resurrection of the body. And you had the Pharisees, they did believe in the resurrection of the body. a saturday before palm sunday which was yesterday an incident takes place with jesus he goes to his best friend lazarus house who has been there for four days and he raises him up after being four days in a tomb And you know that’s a bad thing because four days being in a tomb, according to our Jewish tradition, it means the body has been corrupted completely and the soul has left the body to no return. It goes to the yambos, we call it, to the sheol, to the awaiting place, to the place of darkness. With that, Jesus tells his disciples, open the tomb. And the sister of Lazarus interjects, tell him, Lord, it’s been four days since his death. He must be corrupt by now. And Jesus looks at her and he says, Martha, I told you to believe I am the resurrection and the life. What a statement Jesus makes upon his entry to the city of Jerusalem. And of course, and he says, those who believe in me, even though they die, they shall live. And of course, to prove his point, because Jesus speaks and things happen. You know, this is the same principle in the creation, right? When God would create the world by saying, And God said, So that use of the word with the fullness of the power. It comes and it never returns empty until it achieves its purpose. And Jesus screams and yells after he gives thanksgiving to Almighty God in heaven. And the gospel tells us in John, he raises his eyes to heaven. He blesses his divine father in heaven. And he yells to Lazarus in the tomb. And he tells him, Lazarus, come. Lazarus, come. Lazarus, come out. And of course, this was a wonderful miracle, bringing back a man really from the world of death. Because he’s been four days dead. Not only he was on the way to funeral, not only he just died like a little Tabitha, the 12 years old Tabitha, Like the young son of that widow in Sirfatsaidu when Jesus felt bad for the woman. And he stopped the actual hearse and he told the child, rise up. And then he brought him back to life. No, no, Lazarus was already in the tomb for four full days. But of course, this incident, as miraculous as it was, it sets the final plot against Jesus Christ to be crucified. And the chiefs of our people, they decide to kill him and they hand him to the nations. And in this handing that we see this week when he was betrayed, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I always said and I’ve been saying in our radio shows, I’ve been leaning to talk about the mystery of the betrayer, right? The mystery of the betrayer, so the one who betrayed the Lord. I am afraid and I’m concerned, my friends, that we as Christians in the world, every one of us is exposed to be part of this mystery of the betrayer, the one who betrays the Lord. Please be careful. There’s not too much between us and betraying our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, what does it mean? You know, betrayer could mean just by means of negligence. If we neglect our faith a little bit, we might be part of that mystery. We’re not the betrayer. But we might be empowering the treason against Jesus Christ. Today it is proving that Jesus Christ can make everything new. The entire creation. Even an economic fight like we see now in tariffs, you know, war between China and United States. You see the tariff war between many nations and United States. If we were to reset the economic clock of the world, You know, at the end, mark my word, we’re going to need some sort of jubilee. If nations don’t forget each other’s deaths, and if they don’t do it with the grace knowing that we’re not the owners, the possessors of the richnesses, the resources of the earth, we are only the stewards of it, therefore, I think the economical distress will lead to a war in the future, and populations might disappear, and famine might hit. Remember, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, starting with verse 42, I believe, on Jesus Christ, the King of the nations, when he comes to judge the nations and he sorts them out, he puts some to his left and some to his right. He will judge them based on essentials. He tells them. I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was naked you covered me. I was a stranger and you hosted me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you cared for me. And they tell him, Lord, when did we see you? When did we see you naked or in prison or hungry or sick or thirsty? And we cared for you. He says, amen, amen, I say to you. Every time you did it to one, at least these brothers of mine and sisters of mine, to me you did it. So remember that it’s not just a mere economical crisis we’re going through. All of these crises we see. Threats of nuclear times, threats of famines in the world, persecution against Christians, the rise of indifference, the sexual revolution, all these issues and situations we are going into in this world today are part of Jesus Christ’s mystery. are part of his splendor, of his majesty, are part of Jesus Christ telling us, I am the Alpha and Omega. I am the beginning and the end. And with me, everything becomes a new and completely new creature. And everything of the old is gone. Now everything is made anew. It is our hope as Christians in the world that we pray for the approach of messianic times. I know we in our evangelical, in our Protestant churches, in our Baptist churches, in our non-denominational churches, the term of messianic times is very dear actually. It’s very important for us because this is a time in which we prove to the entire world that the gospel for which we suffered, The gospel for which we carried so much burdens and so much harm and so much accusations in our lives. We suffer for the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At the end is going to prove it is valid. There is no solution for world’s problems away from the Jubilee. There is no solutions for all the problems away from redemption that people receive in the name of Jesus Christ. There is no solution for the world’s problems and the conflicts between nations, the conflicts between brother against brother, mother and father, children against their parents, parents against their children, siblings against one another, communities against communities, race against another race. There is no solution away from the Christian pardon, the Christian forgiveness. And this week, Jesus sets the tone and sets the law of pardon. When he was on the cross, he saw his father in heaven becoming so angry because the sun stopped its light and the moon stopped its light and the world darkened and there was three hours of complete darkness on the face of the earth. And when Jesus was about to give his soul back into his father’s hands, the earth shook and the veil of the temple broke from top to bottom. and the temple was shaken the earth and there was this earthquake and people saw the tombs burst open and the saints the bodies of the saints rose from the tombs and they walked into the holy city this is the effect of the power of the forgiveness of jesus christ when he stood on the cross and he said abba forgive them for they do not know what they’re doing And he delivered his soul and he says, it is done. My friends, we have a busy week. We have to pray. So bless the Lord, my soul. Lord God, how great you are, clothed in majesty and glory, wrapped in light as in a robe. You stretched out the heavens like a tent. Above the rains you built your dwelling. You make the clouds your chariot and walk on the wings of the wind. You make the winds your messengers and flash and fire your servants. You founded the earth on its base to stand firm from age to age. You wrapped it with the ocean like a cloak. The waters stood higher than the mountains. At your threat they took to flight. At the voice of your thunder they fled. They rose over the mountains and flowed down. to the place which you had appointed. You set the limits they might not pass, lest they return to cover the earth. You make springs gush forth in the valleys. They flow in between the hills. They give drink to all the beasts of the field. The wild asses quench their thirst. On their banks, their birds of heaven dwell. From the branches, they sing their song. So glory to you, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. My friends, for those who are about to leave us on Good Sunday Morning with Father Andre with KNUS, I want to remind you that we just started our campaign for the mission of Hope and Mercy. for Holy Week and for Easter and for Divine Mercy. You know, we owe it to them, as I always say. They were pleased to share with us the spiritual blessings of the risen Christ. I’m speaking about the Christians in the Middle East, the Christians in the Holy Land, the Christians in Lebanon, the Christians in this beautiful area of the world that is now being taken by wars, by captivity, plagues and hate and hunger. So let us now share with them from our physical wealth so that Christ will be glorified in all in this beautiful holy season of Holy Week and of approaching this time of Easter. Please go online, missionofhopeandmercy.org, missionofhopeandmercy.org. And sign up there to receive our newsletter and go to the donate page and help us as we are planning to raise about $500,000 to support Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East and in places in Africa through advocacy, through food, through water, and through medical help and through advocacy and through education. I want to say thank you and may God bless you and happy, wonderful, blessed Holy Week and happy Easter. My friends, the ones who are staying with us, who are still walking, I do believe that this coming Sunday, with Easter Sunday, the title of our show finds its fulfillment, right? So this is KLZ Radio, and we are on 33 Minutes with the Lord. And when they asked me first, why do you want that title 33 minutes on the Lord’s Day? I said, because it depicts the age of Jesus Christ. That’s first of all, 33. You know, that’s the age of Jesus. And for me, three, as you know, God created the world. in seven days. And the seven in our Aramaic symbolism means three plus four. We always have to break things down. We have to simplify numbers in the Aramaic tradition to find their meaning. And three actually is not a simple number. Three for us is a number of perfection. And not only a perfection, it’s a perfection of the quality. For Jesus to live free, free, he is the perfect God. He is the perfect God. And of course, he is the son of God and he is a perfect man at the same time. And Jesus’ life, Jesus’ age on planet Earth, it means he fulfilled perfectly our salvation as human beings. And you know, on the fourth day as well, three plus four, number seven. That’s why seven is a good number, is a perfect number, because number four is a number of perfection in quantity. So when we say God created the world in seven days, there is a three plus four, and we say basically God created the world perfect in quality, referred to by number three, and in quantity and abundance, and that’s referred to by number four. and 33 years in the lord’s life here on planet earth look he affected as i was saying on our show every aspect every fragment of our history including time isn’t this beautiful you know let them try they might wanna there are other times settings existence in order there are other calendars that they count you know probably um according to other religious calendars we might be in the year 1400 something 7,000 something, 1,000 something, but the world will always be subjected to the zero hour of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are in year 225 to the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So, in year 2033 from now, Until then, I’m not going to change. If we keep this radio show going, I’m not going to change the title of our radio show, 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day. I’m looking forward to the year 2033. If I’m not killed or if I’m not dead by God’s divine grace, you know, I will come back and we will celebrate the 2033 year will be the 2000 year anniversary to the crucifixion to Easter. Easter will be 2,000 years old in year 2033. The crucifixion of our Lord, Jesus standing on the cross and saying, God, my Father, forgive them their sins for they do not know what they’re doing. We will be commemorating in 2033 this beautiful feast day of the new Passover, of the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Please, hold on tight. Try to put your acts together. We have to bring every aspect of our livelihood, of our being together to be as united as possible with one another, with our Christian brothers and sisters in the world. And in these seven years that are coming ahead now, between 2025 to the beginning of 2033, we have a unique opportunity to be with God in these seven years to recreate the world, to fulfill, to be in Christ according to St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 17. To be in Christ means being a completely new creature. We have seven years. Let us make the world perfect again. Let us bring it again to the love of God and love of the neighbor. Let us bring it again to the ten commandments that we receive from the Mosaic law. Let us bring it again to the two greatest commandments of the Bible, the love of God and the love of the neighbor. Let us bring it again to the mystery of redemption that we received in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us rise again those beautiful Christian virtues, the realities of the theological virtues we received from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ according to St. Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 13. When he speaks about three virtues will remain, and these are divine. And he will be talking about faith, hope, and love. My friends, we have been tempted in our faith as Americans. And I see us. Some of us became ignorant. Some of us became somehow foolishly adversary to the faith. Some of us fell into the darkness of atheism, communism, socialism. And we started creating those beliefs. We made our own kitchen of doctrine. Some of us started worshiping the coffee beans. Others started worshiping the earth, the nature, the whatever. I do not want to criticize anybody. Anything that brings you close to be in touch with the Spirit is good, but not good enough because you have to be in touch with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who calls in us Abba, Father, who tells us that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. This is the intent of our religious freedom. Is that we discover the true God. The God of heaven and earth. As a creator. As father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As redeemer of mankind. As advocate in the Holy Spirit and consoler. All these mysteries now. Between 2025 which is a jubilee year. Can you believe we are already finishing the first quarter of the hundred year. Between 2000 and 2100. There is a jubilee this year. I pray that this jubilee affect us in our human relations with one another. To pardon each other, to forgive each other. That’s to the maximum of our ability possible. Let us reset the clock and let us help the sun. of God our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ bringing newness to life bring completely newness to creature and let everything of the old gone and now let everything new begin and let it be made new our will counts our learning counts we do need the gifts of the holy spirit and for me to be a little bit selfish but not for purposes of personal selfishness but because i care for others i ask you to please go online go to the mission of hope and mercy dot org mission of hope and mercy.org and in the season of renewal and resurrection I ask you to join us in a special mission of hope. We are raising $500,000 for critical programs to provide food, medicine, surgeries, education, and advocacy to those in dire need. I have included a summary of our planned programs that you can find, how much we would like to spend on food, on medication, on education, on advocacy. the Center for Blessings, emergency relief funds, and essential community projects for our Christian brothers and sisters in Lebanon, in Africa if possible, and even here for us for advocacy in the United States. Our goal is to serve our Christian brothers and sisters, those faithful people who are spreading the gospel of life and salvation. you know these people are like shields for us in africa shields in china in asia in eastern europe in places actually believe it or not including in europe including great britain and ireland for god’s sake we’ve been hearing on the news how now the christian brothers and sisters are being persecuted for terrible things for horrible things that doesn’t make sense we in united states we have to take advantage we have a wonderful administration at this point they did open a beautiful office to defend the persecuted Christians but you can do defend the Christians in a different means as well that is to stand in solidarity with them by supporting missions like the mission of hope and mercy in our outreach program through which we help them provide for them in their essential food water medicine education and advocacy And happy Easter to all from now, and blessed Holy Week before everything. May Almighty God bless us all, protect us from all evil, forgive us our sins, bring us all to the peace, joy, and victory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who enters to Jerusalem. We tell him, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Amen.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day. To hear previous programs, visit the show page at missionofhopeandmercy.org. Listen to Father Andre every Sunday morning at 7.30 on KLZ as he speaks on the unity of Christians, religious freedom, and the biblical foundation of Judeo-Christian values and traditions. Join him in bringing hope and freedom to people across the globe while also strengthening your own faith, family, and community right here in Colorado. Reawaken the spiritual strength of America. Go to missionofhopeandmercy.org.
