SPEAKER 02 : 0:00

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:12

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 : 0:50

Praise be the most holy name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Good holy Sunday morning, my dearly beloved brothers and sisters, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And welcome to this beautiful radio show on this Sunday morning. You know, it’s been in the middle of November now. We have had wonderful experience in the weather in Colorado. It seems we went from heavy snow, an early snowstorm, with the feeling and the emotions or, you know, the excitement that we had on all levels, basically, in the country. With the celebration of coming back to the school, with the fall beginning again, a new season begins, drawing to the end of this year, 2024. the presidential election in the United States of America with all its outcomes and results. For those who are happy, I want to wish you all the best and most wonderful time in this administration. And we hope it’s an administration that seeks to unite, that seeks to heal and to reconcile, and that actually approaches even those who do not like it to a time and to achievements that that, in fact, are likable by most Americans. Hopefully, there will be good surprises rather than bad surprises. We pray for our current government, and we thank him for serving our nation, and we pray for the upcoming government. We wish them safety. We wish them peace, and also we wish them the virtues of humility, the virtues of wisdom, as Solomon the king prayed to Almighty God, in the bible when he was becoming the king of the jewish nation of the jewish kingdom yes solomon asked for wisdom but god gave him on top of the wisdom many other gifts and the people were happy We pray that at this time also, we are entering into the wonderful season of Christmas. You see around us, the time tells us so. The change of the colors in the trees tells us so. And the beautiful snow that we already experienced in Colorado and Denver area and Colorado Springs and all the various parts of Colorado, it all tells us that a good season is here, a season that comes with white robe, a season that comes with a newness of life, a season that comes as our children, our younger people, our college students are heading back to schools. Now they’re going to head back towards home starting next week to begin the celebration of Thanksgiving Day, of Thanksgiving weekend. And then we have Black Friday and then we have the Advent season, which begins in the West at the end of the month of November, then we enter into the season and the feel of Christmas. My dear friends, this time is a time of giving. This time is a time for the family. This time is a time of rejoicement, of happiness. It is my wish also that this time for our families in the United States, inspired by the cold weather outside in most of the parts of our beautiful country, will be a time in which we warm up each other. We warm up to one another. Neighbors who were on opposite sides of politics to reconcile, to have a conversation. Neighbors and family members who probably did not speak because of competition of some sort. or intimidation or simply a distance the distance of the few steps that there are between two nearby houses that they notice one another they observe each other and they say good morning my dear neighbor It is really my wish on this Sunday morning that we encourage neighbors in our neighborhoods in Colorado, in Denver, in all of these beautiful areas, in Colorado Springs, in Fort Collins, and the other states that are listening to our radio show, Good Sunday Morning with Father Andre, and those who are tuning in to KZ Radio Station for 33 minutes on the Lord’s Day. Look at your neighbor, greet them, try to open your door when you want to pick up your newspaper, if you still are picking up your newspaper or your dog picks it up for you, or no matter how and for what purpose you open your door, it will be so lovely, so nice to greet your neighbor. Another wish I have also to make America better again and somehow is when you open your door, if you are in a place where there is a snowstorm, you know there is an elderly person, a woman that lives by herself, a man that lives by himself, not being able to clean the snow, to shovel the snow in front of their homes. This is a time where children, young adults, and people known to us in our neighborhoods, it will be so lovely, so nice that we warm up to one another and ask your neighbor, do you need help? Can I help you? What better would be also in the spirit of Christmas that we come now drawing near to the celebration of Thanksgiving. If you have extra clothing, if you have extra scarves, if you have extra gloves, if you have a hat, if you have extra socks, boots, or something, we have a huge, unfortunately, homeless population. And in reality, the homeless population, whether it is made of our own people who are born and raised in the United States or from the migrants, be kind. Please be kind. Please be nice. Be nice from all of your heart. Meet person and meet in this person the face of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are not saying that by giving them a piece of bread if they are hungry, it means you gave them citizenship, right? We are not saying that if you give them a piece of cloth because they’re naked and cold outside in a hard and harsh weather, that means basically you’re giving them social security benefit. We are not saying that if you give them an over-the-counter medication or tent for them or make them a soup or invite them to a soup kitchen, that means basically that you started giving them their hire and their job and their working and you’re giving them the benefit of… acknowledging their presence just by them being in our country. See, this is a contradiction. This is the dilemma of our life in the United States. On one end, we have to be faithful citizens to our nation. On the other end, we have to act with good faith towards one another. We have to act with kindness. We have to act based on our Christian charity. America can and will and must lead the world in purity and in charity. And in order for us in America to start leading the world in such a way, we have to put ourselves in the Holy Scriptures. You know, if you Google or if you search how many times America is mentioned in the Holy Scripture, none, right? Yet America is the most country that prints millions and millions of Bibles and we send them to the entire world. If you Google, for instance, you know, let’s say the Rocky Mountains of the state of Colorado, to see how many times the Rocky Mountains or the Cypress Trees or the Blue Spruces or Aspens, how many times they are mentioned in the Bible? None. Zero. You will find zero. But you will know for a fact that in America, we as private citizens, Christians, Catholics in general, Christians, all of us as a mystical body of Christ, do you know that we as Americans participate and share through our giving, through our charities, Probably $500 million, most likely. Billions. The number is actually huge. When I read the number, I think it’s either in the 500 billion or there is a huge number that we share in our giving and basically in non-for-profit type of giving or activities that we do as private citizens and as our country in the United States of America. These are wonderful things. This is a great legacy for us as Americans to do. This is also the time in which we draw near to the time where families gather and we watch the best of our Western American movies. There is nothing in the world, trust me. You know, when I travel in the world, in Eastern Europe, in Italy, in France, in Lebanon, in the Middle East, in Africa, the best activity that families can do is what we in the United States used to do once before. sit around the TV, not for the right, not for the wrong reason, but watch the oldies, watch the beautiful old movies. Movies about the singing nun, movies about Christmas, movies about the giving, movies about Our Lady of Fatima, movies about the lives of the saints, movies about the history of Christianity, movies about our patriotic families and the old times, how our families settled in our country, how they used to do good things. Movies that basically depict where we came from. They tell us a lot about our identity, our roots, and our humble origins as Americans who came to settle in a new world. And how we, for nothing, we told the ground and we planted and we developed and we progressed. And look now, we have the greatest nation in the world. The reason why I am saying this is because we must remember, we as Americans first, we are a family. We as Americans first, it is true that we have been founded by wonderful fathers. We call them the fathers of the United States and the founding 13 states in the United States. And then we became the 50 states Remember in our foundation, we say in our constitution in the last paragraph, that by the hand of the founders, basically, and their personal sacrifices, what they suffered in order to come up with such a constitution, but also they said, counting on the divine providence of God. counting on the divine providence of God. This is a time where you can sit with your child and basically clean up their mind from the corrupt information that they are getting. You know, the media has a lot of misinformation. This is by no means a place where we attack or judge any of the media outlets. No, I am sure all of them have great principles they follow, have wonderful ethics they follow. But also, you know, sometimes when we politicize our media, you know, we become a propaganda tool, basically. We become a weapon somehow. It is my wish and my desire on this radio show, Good Sunday Morning with Father Andre, and on 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day, every Sunday morning on KNUS and on KLZ, I ask you, my dear American friends, slow down the gossip on the media. Go back to the time of the media where we used to enjoy to listening to beautiful hosts, to beautiful radio hosts, to beautiful TV hosts that we remember them for years and years and years. And once they passed, nobody took their place. Nobody was able to fill up their spot, their place, basically. We have a void. It is beautiful and it is my dream that in the world of our radios, in the world of our TVs, in the world of our social media, God will rise again. Radio hosts and journalists and People who present again beautiful conversations for us as Americans that would lead us to healing, that would lead us to restoration, that would educate us again about joy, about peace, about life. It is so sad to see how we as Americans, with the incomes that we make, with the possibilities that we have, with the freedom that we have, everything comes for us almost granted, even though we work hard for it. We have beautiful roads. We have beautiful infrastructures. We have beautiful electricity. We have wonderful equipments. We can plan our year. I always say this on our radio show. If you look on the other side of the world in Lebanon, and I want to take an opportunity to thank our great American donors who have been helping us in the mission of hope and mercy to feed many people amidst war, amidst persecution in Lebanon, in South Lebanon, and now in East Europe. we are hosting people running away from Lebanon just to relax for a while because of the places where they come from in South Lebanon and in areas in Beirut. These are wonderful Christian people who really suffered extreme losses somehow, and they can’t stay in a country where 24-7 you are listening to a sound that is being made over your head, which is a sound of a plane, basically, that goes… Our young people in Lebanon, they are living now 24-7 in every city, in every town, at night and in the daytime with such a noise above their head. An airplane that comes, you know, and it basically with a radar and it’s trying to spot where the terrorists are in Lebanon. But the sound that it makes and every so often, every few hours, there is a huge bombing that goes off and people shake, their bats shake, their windows shake. Their kitchens shake. Everything shakes. You know, the buildings are shaking. The earth shakes. And you know what? It really demolishes their spirits. And we in the United States are so lucky. We, all of us, looked at the presidential election to the president who most speaks about peace, not war, about healing, not dividing, about uniting, not hurting our government and our nation’s unity. It is my hope and my wish that we as citizens as well in the United States now, we look to our public leaders and we tell them, let us expand the peace project and let us share it with the entire world. See, peace is a gift from God. When we come now to the time of Christmas, remember what the angels have sang when they appeared to the shepherds in the beautiful field. This is a chant in the Aramaic language. Imagine this is a language that the angels spoke with to the shepherds of Bethlehem and they sang with them this glory to God in the highest and peace on earth and goodwill to all. gloria in excelsis deo gloria in excelsis deo it’s amazing reality that heaven gave to us, it really deserves our silence. It really deserves a glance on a moment of deep meditation in which we meditate and we contemplate in these beautiful words of the angels. What does it mean when the angels sang, glory to God on the highest. And good hope to the people of man, to the children of man. It is amazing. Reality, it’s an amazing announcement. And this is, in fact, where the gospel comes from. The good news, the evangelium, the suburto, the beautiful. This is the kerygma of the entire gospel being good news. We as Americans now, can we be good news for one another? This is what I wanted to share with you on the Sunday morning, of course, to help us meditate about those things, to remind us how lucky, how blessed, and how big is our responsibility as Americans. You know, as I said earlier in last Sunday’s show, you know, when we voted this time in the election, we all were trying to vote for what we know and felt and understood and were told. that it is the best choice. But I want to ask you, what is the best choice for Americans to be, not for an American president? Have you thought how great you are and we are and I am and you are as American? Have you thought about our greatness? Have you thought about how exceptional we are? Have you thought about how respectful of the law we are and other countries dream of having basically laws in their countries and they don’t? Have you ever thought about the freedom, the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, the freedom of private property that we have in our nation, the freedom of this capitalist movement, the capitalist system that moves around, that we make the money, we spend the money, we invest in the money, and the money returns to all of us, and we share in the blessings and goodness of the earth. Have you thought about all of these things? I don’t know. But if you did not, we really have to think about those type of things. Again, I remember that we as Americans have learned a lot from major American television talk show hosts. You know, the history, just go on Google and you will see, for instance, in the history, there have been many wonderful television talk shows, people and hosts who taught us the best, told us the best stories, taught us how to joke with one another, told us how to look at the dramas and the tragedies of life with an eye of hope, with an eye of comedy. with an eye of sometimes irony and sarcasm, but they wanted to always boost our energy up. We are the people of hope. We are the people of power. We are the people of great capacities and capabilities as a people in America. And as such, we are asked, we have a mission on our hand. I’m not only speaking about the mission of hope and mercy, but we as Americans, the whole world is our audience. We as Americans, the whole world is our little backyard. We as Americans, the whole world is our classroom. We as Americans, the whole world is our hospital. We as Americans, the entire world is awaiting for us to give them clothing to wear, to give them food to eat, to give them medicine that they can be treated with, to host them, to free them from injustices. to basically stand and care for them and their brokenness. Many nations in the world have failed in realizing the dreams of their own people. But do you ever imagine and think and thank God how much better we are in the United States that so far, despite the atrocities sometimes in the political world that we see, despite the grave divisions we see in the United States, and with this, my friend, Despite the harshness that we saw on the media between the current president and the upcoming president, between the candidates to the presidential campaign, all of a sudden you see them as civil people, as good people, as nice people, sitting across from one another in the White House, which is a symbol of our nation’s greatness. and the house of the people of the United States, and sitting behind them, this beautiful image of a blazing fire in a fireplace, and they shake hands, and they are smiling, and then they promise each other, and they promise each other the peaceful transfer of power. a peaceful transfer of power. And this is how a great nation is. This is how a wonderful nation rules, with the virtue of the humility of its leader, knowing that it never would have gotten to them had it not been passed on to them first as to lead this nation. With this, my friends, I want us to take a moment and I want us to pray. Today, I want us to pray with Psalm 122. A song of ascents. I rejoiced with those who said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built like a city that is closely compacted together. That is where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, to praise the name of the Lord according to the statutes given to Israel. There stand the thrones for judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels. For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, peace be within you. For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your prosperity. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Praise be the most holy name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, my friends. On the other side of the world, there are bombings every day in Lebanon now more and more. Many people are being killed, many people are being internally displaced. Every early morning in Beirut time the missions, large food truck and hygiene supply leaves our center for blessings in Halat and we go from place to place to feed families who are in displacement, to support towns who refuse to leave their homes, towns with their own priests. and to give them food and to give them support and to send to them oils and to send to them water and to provide them with milk supplies and with food supplies. This is one of the most amazing and fantastic solidarity movements our donors enabled us to do from the United States all the way to Lebanon. You know, if you look at the stories of the south of Lebanon, remember, this is the land which was evangelized by our Lord Jesus Christ himself. This is the land which was evangelized by our Lady, the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God herself, in the areas of High Galilee in the Eastern District. In the central district of the High Galilee and then on the coastal towns of Tyre and Sidon, Jesus met with his apostles. The very first miracle that Jesus did in Cana of Galilee. I know that we have five different places where we say there is a Cana of Galilee, but in Lebanon, we do have the oldest city known from the fourth century in which the fathers of the church say that this was Cana of Galilee. The miracle of Jesus when he rose, the widow’s only son in Tyre and Sidon. The Canaanite woman meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ. Earlier this week, I had the privilege to meet with the local priest in South Lebanon who are running now to feed their sheep, to tend to their sheep, to die for their sheep. It is so sad to see that churches are being closed after 2,000 years in Lebanon and the southern borders in the nearest area to Jerusalem, the mother of all churches. It is so sad to see that the population of the continuously populated Christian towns since Jesus’ time, the apostles’ times, now are being vacuumed, are being completely obliterated. No cities are left, no towns are left. It is so sad to see such a horrific fight that some say it is existential for them. Others say it’s a resistance for them. Lebanon and the Lebanese people and the Christian people in Lebanon are paying a heavy price in a war in which they have no stake. They have no winning. They have no losing. They simply are victims in it. We have to support those people. So it is my hope that you continue your support to the mission of hope and mercy, that you go on our website, missionofhopeandmercy.org, that is missionofhopeandmercy.org, and count on God’s divine grace and ask for our protection. And I beg you by our ladies’ intercession and in the spirit of this upcoming Thanksgiving, in the spirit of this upcoming Advent season, support the work of the mission of hope and mercy. It is due to the heroic generosity of our donors, the courageous dedication of our volunteers at the mission centers for blessings, in Lebanon, and now in Bosnia Herzegovina, at Medjugorje, the town in which Our Lady appeared since 1981 on June 24 and 25. Today I learned she appeared to them two days earlier than that, but then the kids, the six kids were scared, and then it took them two days until Our Lady appeared again, and then they saw her and she called them, I am the Queen of Peace. This is the gospel mere, mere, mere. The lady of peace, peace, peace. In the heart of Beirut, people are suffering. And in the heart of the United States, we have people today who are capable to deliver help and to deliver aid. And in the heart of Medjugorje, we are receiving now and welcoming wonderful Lebanese families and individuals and people running away to simply into oasis of peace, relaxation, restoration. I was telling you early on this radio show, Imagine yourself living in an area in a town where all the time your house is shaking because of airplanes passing above your head or your ears buzzing continuously with something going like… You think I’m joking, but go on Google and look at that plane that keeps circling the sky of Lebanon from town to town at night and in the daytime. It is so hurtful to the human psychology, so hurtful to the human balance, to the senses, to the intellect, to the brain. to the human feelings and emotions. People, when they came here and the minute they heard the little noise, they thought it’s a bomb dropping around them. You know, people get traumatized with experiences such as these. Whereas we people in the United States, we fight for our freedom. We fight for our peace. We fight for the balance for our security. We fight to have a government that represents its people. And we thank God every time our government delivers because we have our checks and balances. The people do their due diligence. in our voting behavior, in our accountability, in our rights, in our duties, in our obligations, in our privilege as citizens. And so will and does the government. Every government comes to rectify mistakes of the government that came before them. And our life goes even better and better and better. This is because we are mature people. We are people who realize the importance of peace, the importance of good, the importance of stability, the importance of having security in our society. I encourage you go to the website of the Mission of Hope and Mercy. That is missionofhopeandmercy.org and allow the continuously help for our huge mission trucks to carry eight tons per time for food supplies and hygiene supplies, winter support, clothing, refurnishing, and helping to reestablish places of worship for these people whose places have been demolished. Every time we do work for 200 families, 300 families, 280 families, From Hermes in South Lebanon, to Kolaya, to Al Mashab, to the areas inside of Beirut, all of South Lebanon, in the heart of Beirut, the truck always, always, always, we have now to beat bad weather with food and the truck that is with an open back because we cannot hide the food. We cannot close the food because if you cover the food, unfortunately, they might confuse it and they might become suspicious of it and unfortunately they would hit it and then people will die. My friends, it’s been such an adventure. Our American mission represents the best of dedication and generous solidarity with the poor and the persecuted. Thank you, my fellow USA citizens and fellow Americans in our nation. Thank you for your support. And again, I want to encourage you all, continue the good work. To all our current donors, to all our new donors, we appreciate your continuous and life-changing support. Coming from Lebanon, a country that for years now again and again is suffering from the war of others on its land, and becoming a citizen in the United States, have taught me how much to appreciate that the foundation of every nation comes from the blessing of God and from the civil education of the human beings in a given country. We made an active decision to fight against terrorism in the United States. We made an active decision to fight against corruption in the United States. We made an active decision to obey the law, to be fair sharers in the law to the most of our ability. and to stop and to fight against all forms of persecutions, corruptions, poverty, lack of human rights. You know, we are the people who will lead others towards more democracy, towards more freedom, in order to acquaint and teach everybody how life could become better when it’s filled with peace and with stability. Let us now not ruin it for us, not ruin it for others. It is on the mind and on the conscience of the new administration in the United States to share the peace with the world and to create this progress of political policies and through science and our ethics and our religious code that we choose God instead of evil, we choose light instead of darkness, and we choose peace instead of war. And with that, I want to thank you again and wish you a wonderful Sunday. And may Almighty God bless us all, protect us from all evil, give us peace, joy, and victory in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And may God bring us all to everlasting life. Amen.

SPEAKER 03 : 32:06

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.