Join Father Andre on a soulful journey exploring the profound relationship between time, space, and Christian faith. Drawing from personal stories and biblical teachings, Father Andre delves into the repercussions of removing God from our daily lives. Against a backdrop of global challenges, he advocates for restoring the sanctity of time through intentional prayer and devotion, offering listeners a fresh lens to view the rhythm of their existence.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 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 praise be the most holy name of our lord and savior jesus christ now and forever and ever good sunday morning my dearly beloved brothers and sisters and our lord and savior jesus christ
SPEAKER 01 :
on this day is the first of days one of the most beautiful things that god allow us in our life is how we live within the space and the time i know it sounds a little bit strange if you come to think about it that our life depends on space our life also depends on the sequence of time And in a sequence of time, you know, we speak about time that is a linear time. We speak about a time you go from point A to point B, like you go from Lakewood to Denver, and you can measure distance by when you start and when you arrive. And of course, there is another function of time or dimension of time, if I may, and this will be called the time of the sequence of the seasons. For instance, you have in the year four seasons. You have the winter, then you have the spring, then you have the summer, then you have the fall. So in some places, you have just summer. In some places, you have summer and winter. So time also is a measurement reference to the seasons in which we live. And such a time affect in a big way. In fact, our reports, right, was the life. Our report was society. Our report with the environment in which we live. It affects our food. We prepare for winter, which is a season. We prepare for the fall, which is a season. It affects our social life as well, even our work. Well, closer than the time that is divided according to season, we speak also of the time that is divided in a sequence of numbers of days. And every day is divided in hours. And even during the day, we speak about a morning, we speak about a noon, we speak about an afternoon, we speak about an evening, we speak about, you know, at least there are in our prayers sequences, which are time prayers that we divide according to the 24 hours, which is a full day. We speak about the liturgical prayers, which go for seven type of zones inside one day. So you have the early morning prayer, then you have the morning prayer, then you have the mid-morning prayer, then you have the moon prayer, then you have the evening prayer, then you have the late evening prayer, then you have the midnight prayer. and the christians as a matter of fact lived in the sequence of time and for every zone for every period of time they actually pronounce a very specific prayer so even today if you still go to the sequence of the office of the hours so here you go this is what we call the prayers that we divide according to times On this morning show with Father Andre and on these minutes that we spend with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as we are living in a season of land, of course, we want to continue speaking about what is affecting our life today as Christians in the world. Remember, I have said earlier on our show that we are still continuously talking about the the scandal that is in this life, right? And there is in this life, there is a big, big scandal. And we said, in order for us to understand the scandal of this life that we are going through, in which there are massacres, in which there is corruption, in which there is hate, in which there are problems in the world, today we want to look a little bit at the aspect of time. How does time affect us? the scandal on our life. And again, and I’m talking about the scandal in a very, very, very deep way. The scandal in some sort is an obstacle. It’s an obstacle to achievement, right? So let’s say I want to give it an ambient meaning. I do not want to speak about a scandal meaning an immoral way or, you know, like talking about the immoral acts of life. But, you know, for instance, you go from point A to point B, you’re going from Lakewood to Denver, or you go to Colorado Springs, let’s say, from Cassarot, and all of a sudden there is an accident on a highway. Let me tell you, probably I’m trying to make us consider an accident is an accident, but an accident is a scandal to what we want to accomplish. Imagine you have to go to the hospital, for instance, you’re rushing your baby to the hospital, and then there is an accident on a highway. As a highway is a parking lot, you cannot go anywhere. And then you start cussing, you start cursing, or you start going impatient, or something happens, God forbid, to the baby. Time accidents could produce scandals, and these scandals are like extraordinary factors, forces, that would unfortunately cause consequences for us. In this context of speaking about how do we go about our life, avoiding scandals in our lives, and getting a deeper understanding for how we in our life, every time we are in an absence of God, when we render God absent, when we neutralize God, when we step away and move away from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it’s actually, it could be that we might be exposing ourselves to some sort of a scandal. And also, so last week, we spoke about the massacres and the destruction that are happening in Syria, for instance, the massacres that are happening in Congo, for instance. Now in Lebanon, things are getting back again. into probably bombing and some bad violence situation. Recently in my travel inside the United States during the season of Lent, to raise awareness about the work of the Mission of Hope and Mercy, I’m also realizing that in our way that we spend our subjective time, our personal time, There is somewhere else in the world events on a scale from 1 to 10, major events with negative energy, with negative consequences that are happening in the world. And we in our time may not be aware of them. And it’s actually sad. I mean, in Myanmar and in Taiwan, I believe earlier this week, there was a major earthquake and you saw buildings falling, right? And there is nothing we can do about it. And what is this earthquake? 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds. So imagine in a lapse of time, a 40 second of continuous shaking of the ground, it could produce lots of harm. It could produce death. That’s a scandal that actually depends also on a time of a disaster. A scandal of time in our Christian faith, for instance, if we do not know how to pray within the hours every time during our 24 hours to consecrate all of our time to Almighty God. See, this is how Christians sanctified the time. This is how Christians in the past, they understood that we have a responsibility to ask for God’s dominance, for God’s blessing over the time, to save us from dangers, to save us from persecution. You know, last Sunday I spoke to you also as we draw nearer to the Holy Week, Palm Sunday before Holy Week and then Holy Week and then Easter. We spoke about Lazarus, right? And we said that Jesus delayed his visit to Bethany to go visit Lazarus and his sister Mary and his sister Martha. And actually, Martha was upset with the Lord, a little bit disappointed. And I’m not trying to subjectivize the gospel to what we might feel ourselves, our emotions. But it is obvious that Martha somehow was telling the Lord, hey, You are late. Had you been here, he would not have died. Had you been here is a function of time. And Martha somehow is expressing her sadness because her brother, who she knew, the Lord Jesus Christ, loved so much, cherished so much, he left him for four days in a tomb. That’s another scandal that is depending on a time sequence. Because as I said last week, a body and death, Laying in a tomb for four days, it’s completely corrupt, and the soul left that body, and it roams around, and then it goes to the netherworld, to the Sheol, as we called it last week, and it can’t find its way back to the body. And therefore, the body decomposes, and the body becomes corrupt. And then the sod takes over the body, and the body starts going back to rotting and to dust, unfortunately. So Martha looked at Jesus and she told him, you delayed, you should have been here. And when he said, remove the stone, where did you bury him? You know, remove the stone. And she told him, she told him, Lord, he has been dead for four days. Four days, it, you know, I do not know if you know in the Aramaic symbolism, right? In the Aramaic symbolism of time and of numbers and of numbers. You know, the week is seven days. We say the Lord created the world in seven days. And the number seven in the Aramaic symbolism is three plus four. And the three plus four or the four plus three It’s an indication of quality and quantity. So when we speak about God creating the world in seven days, why number seven is a perfect number? And here’s a little scoop for us to understand why. Because number seven is composed of three plus four. And that three is the number for the perfection, basically an absolute perfection of quality. Number three. That’s why when we speak about God as well in the Aramaic tradition, we look at God and we say, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s three persons, one God. Not three gods. Three persons and one God. We’re talking about the perfection of the deity, the fullness of the deity, in quality, in omnipotence, in power, in magnificence, in love, in faith. in hope, and in charity. And that’s the perfect God, that’s the God, there’s no other God. And then as well, when we say number four, so three plus four equals seven, again, this is Father Andre on Good Sunday Morning, and on these 33 Minutes with the Lord’s Day, explain a little bit how we live in a function of time. And if we do not dominate the time by blessing the time every time in our Lord and Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will be looking at time as probably a component that allows distance, that allows a space where we roam away from the Lord, where we would be somehow affected by accidents, which is a scandal for the intention for which God made us perfect. And explaining the number four to add it to number three, so three plus four becomes seven. So the number four is the symbol of the perfection in quantity. So imagine what we say in the Aramaic when we read the Bible from Aramaic tradition and we say that the Lord created the world in seven days. We are literally, in our mind, we are saying, oh, the Lord created the world totally perfect in quantity, reflected by number three, and totally perfect in quantity. reflected by number four and therefore number seven and on the seventh day god rested and this is why the sabbath and this is why god is perfect and then there is a new day and this is how i began with you on this morning show to speak in the lord’s day or the day of the lord is the new day that begins all other days and we refer to that day in our aramaic tradition as ahad ahad or the day that is number one in creation and what did god do in number one of creation you know if you look at the book of genesis and you open the book of genesis chapter one we know the world was empty right the world was void there was nothing and then when god began his creation When God began his creation, the very first thing God put in the world is light. And God said, And God said, And of course, God saw that the light is very good. And the Lord saw that the light was so good. And then the Bible tells us in the book of Genesis chapter 1 on how do we define the sequence of time. And there was an evening and morning first day. This is the first day. So there’s another dimension for our time now that we try to put together that we need to consecrate our time. What did the Christian do to consecrate the seven days every day? So every day the Christians would pray seven times every day. We as Christians, we have to pray seven times. This basically is an indication that our prayer is perfect. Our prayer is perfect, just like God’s creation in seven days. He created the world. Number three being the perfection of quality and number four being the perfection of quantity. So God told us to go and abound and multiply and dominate. And he gave us the aspiration to beauty. And he gave us the blessing of the offsprings. And he gave us the blessing over the management of the world. And he even blessed the trees because of us. He made them fruitful because of us. So God basically made sure that the entire sequence of time works for the benefit of a human being. And he, in fact, told them, you know, you work for six days and give one day to the Lord. And on the Lord’s day, you shall not work. You shall rest. And the scandal today, my friends, again, talking about how we as human beings, when we misuse our time, it’s a part of the scandal of what we suffer from as Christians when we do not pray. I’m not saying to pray seven times. We should pray incessantly, right? We should pray at every step of the way. But at least we know as a community, we know as a family, we know as an individual that the Christians in the past were aware of their responsibility over time management. And to do good time management, they blessed the time by praying the invitatory prayer in the morning. Then they did an office of reading. They did the morning prayer. They did the mid-morning prayer. Then they did the midday prayer. Then after that, the mid-afternoon prayer. Then they did the evening prayer. And then they did the night prayer. So seven times the Christians, as a matter of fact, they prayed every time at every day. And the reason why I’m sharing with you all of this, my friends, is to tell you how important it is that the Sunday celebration represents basically the new beginning every week. We bless our entire week by doing our prayer of the very first day. And what is the first day? On the first day, basically, Jesus Christ opened heaven for us. On the first day, Jesus conquered death for us. On the first day, Jesus rose from the dead and he freed all the people who were held captives by evil, by Satan and Sheol. On the first day, Jesus Christ tied with the chains of his eternal commander, the evil and Satan, and he put them on the bottom of hell. On the first day, the Lord renewed our life and restored our innocence. And he freed our mother Eve and our father Adam from the snares of the devil and from eternal death. And the Lord, by the power of his resurrection as a mighty and a savior, he blessed us that even though we die, we shall rise again. And what do we do in return? We suppose, of course, to consecrate every period of time for God’s sake. You look at your watch. And starting by the 4 a.m. in the morning, or the 5 a.m. in the morning, or the 3 a.m. in the morning, and you wake up, you say the little prayer. And if you cannot, there are many, many, many monks There are many, many, many consecrated people. This is why people went to a full consecration, who became consecrated to a life of solitude, to a life of hermitage, to a life of asceticism, to a life in which they pray as a community living in monasteries, living in convents, living away from the world. And all they did for the rest of their lives is they followed the sequence of time. and they prayed at every sequence of time, so our day will be blessed. So when we are sleeping, remember, there are monks and nuns and consecrated people who are praying for you. And in such a way, the Christian prayer permeates, perpetuates the blessing of God and spreads it across all times, across every hour, every second, every season, every factor of time, every year, every anniversary, And in everything, the Lord God himself blesses our time and he brings us back into the fullness of his presence by us blessing the time. It’s beautiful. And the scandal in this, my friends, is you see that there are no longer monks and nuns to pray, right? There are no people to follow the Christian office and the Christian office of the hour, basically. When I say office of the hour, I am referring to the prayers, the breviary. It’s called the breviary. It’s a set of books that follows every season, that follows every season. event that is a major in the history of salvation that the Lord Jesus Christ did or passed through and that time affected our life. For instance, the birth of Jesus Christ, God is with us. The entrance of Jesus Christ in the temple, God, Jesus Christ is with his father. The miracle of Cana of Galilee, the very first public miracle, which is three years before Jesus’ death. The annunciation of the Virgin Mary, which is March 25, which is exactly nine months before the celebration of Christmas, right? Which is December 25th. So those festivities, the time of Easter, the time of Lent, the time of Epiphany, the time of the baptism of our Lord, the time of Holy Week, the time of the Triduum Pasquale, or the Paschal Triduum that we call it, Holy Thursday, Holy Friday, and Holy Saturday of Holy Week. See, all these holy times, we as Christians have sorted a unique celebrations and unique events, liturgical events, prayers and psalms and adorations and holy readings and the mass that is always offered on daily basis or on weekly basis, on monthly basis, on every Sunday, on every day of the week, on every year, at every Easter, at every Christmas, at every major festivities. of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Christians knew from the beginning that one of the main objectives of our Christian prayer is to sanctify the time and bring to every time the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to it. And when you bring Jesus Christ to the time, what does Jesus do? He blesses. Miracles happens. The sick ones will be healed. The eyes of the blind will open. The lame will walk. You know, those who have paralysis, those who have illnesses, those who have been tormented by devil will be freed. The brokenhearted will be healed. And the widows and the orphans and the lepers and the storm will be calmed, right? The storm, the storm will be calmed. Jesus Christ is God with us. He is the Amanu’il. He is the Emmanuel. And as such, he flows with miracles. And how do we render God present in our life so that every aspect of our time is rendered holy again? Meaning, it’s safe. Meaning, no accident. Meaning, we order that the divine providence, we open the path to the divine providence to take over our time management. And in such a way, we avoid the problems in the world. I do believe, my brothers and sisters, on the Sunday morning with Father Andre, and on those 33 minutes with the Lord on the Lord’s Day, every Sunday morning, I do believe that the effect of the Christian prayer is to create harmony between space and time. When we create harmony in space and in time, we avoid accidents. We avoid issues. We probably avoid massacres. When we are aware of the pain and of the suffering of other people, it is important to take a few minutes and to pray for the Christians in Lebanon, for instance. The Christians, you know, I do not know, across the borders. The Christians in Congo. The Christians in Nigeria. The Christians in South Sudan. The Christians in China. The Christians in many places in the world where Christianity is really important. hurting as really being persecuted. So organically, imagine that the Christians spend their days and their time to consecrate time to the Lord so that the Lord can shine light in the world, can shine grace upon the world, can shine healing upon the world. And what is it that the world hates? The Christian prayer. this is a scandal right why why do you want to hate the christian prayer is like the engine that makes the sun rise the christian prayer is like the hospital that treats the people when they are sick the christian prayer is a profound weapon against all evil it’s the best weapon the christian prayer and the christian fasting in the season of lent they are the best prayer My friends, before a few of us leave on this beautiful Sunday morning with Father Andre, I want to remind you to please make sure you go online and you support the work of the Mission of Hope and Mercy. I would love that the listeners to share the Mission of Hope and Mercy’s website, missionofhopeandmercy.org. where you can make your donations and become a recurring donor. Help us to continue our good work. If listeners, you can contact your pastors and your congregations, tell them about the work of the Mission of Hope and Mercy in the Middle East and Lebanon, for the advocacy we’re trying to do for Africa, for Congo, and for the many of the persecuted Christians. Please support the mission’s efforts during the season of Lent and allow us to have a successful Lenten appeal. Your donations and your help matter. I want to tell you, thank you so much for listening to my call and for being great contributors to the work of Mission of Hope and Mercy. And may God bless you all from all my heart on this Holy Sunday. And now, my friends, with the remaining time that we have with these 33 minutes on the Lord’s Day, first of all, let us consecrate the place, the space to Almighty God by praying with Psalm 24. You know, it’s the Lord’s entry into His temple, the Lord’s entry into His temple. And let us pray. O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was, and the beginning is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Who can climb the Lord’s mountain or stand in his holy place? The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness, the world and all its peoples. It is he who set it on the seas, on the waters he laid it firm. Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? The man with clean hands and pure heart, who desires not worthless things, who has not sworn so as to deceive his neighbor, he shall receive blessings from the Lord and reward from the God who saves him. Such are the men who seek him, seek the face of the God of Jacob. O gates, lift high your heads, grow higher ancient doors, let him enter the King of Glory. Who is the King of Glory? The Lord, the mighty, the valiant, the Lord, the valiant in war. O gates, lift high your heads, grow higher ancient doors, let him enter the King of Glory. Who is he, the King of Glory? He, the Lord of armies, He is the King of glory. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. My friends, remember that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was unjustly condemned. Remember, this is the Lord God who had to go through the 14 stations of the cross. Remember, this is a Lord who fell three times under the weight of the cross. Remember, this is a Lord who spent, as we know in the gospel, three of his public ministry, three years of his public ministry. Being an obedient son to the Holy Bible, he lived the law of Moses. He perfected it. He applied it all and he went beyond it in spirit, not only in a letter. He himself went to the nether world. He himself laid in the world of the death for three days and three nights. And there he crushed evil, our enemy. And he destroyed the walls of animosity. And he freed all the people who were laying down in the world of death. Remember this Lord who was unjustly condemned. He was our God. Remember he was surrounded by the impious. This is the Lord who today is crying out to us. Come to me, all you who are burdened and worry about life and have trouble in life. Come, take my yoke, for my yoke is easy and my burden light. He is the one who said, come and drink from my heart. From my heart springs forth rivers of flowing and living water. This is the Lord who was surrounded by the impious. And we Christians, in our management of time, when we make our time holy, my friends, we can educate the world that the love of Jesus Christ is way stronger than all evil. We can educate the world that every time they see the sunrise and the sunset, they go to rest or they go to work or they go to spend a beautiful restful day with their families, such as on this beautiful day of the Lord on this Holy Sunday, as we draw nearer to Easter. that they can always give thanks to Almighty God before food, before work, before driving, before doing anything, and before going to bed and at sunrise when they wake up. We bless ourselves with holy water. We remind the time that this time obeys our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who we call the Lord of Time. Kurios. You know, in our church, we say this famous Greek word, and we chant it, we sing it, Kyrie eleison. And the word Kyrie eleison, it comes literally from the two components of time and lordship. Kyrie eleison, meaning, O Lord, have mercy. But the Kyrios here, is the Lord of time, the Lord who consecrated time, the Lord who sanctified time, the Lord who redeemed time, the Lord who blessed the time, the Lord who dominated the time, because the time aimed to give us death, right? This is what Satan wanted. We live and then we die. This was the curse. And Jesus Christ, he came in time. He became man of the pure Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit. And he sanctified the time when he on the cross said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they’re doing. And then he said, it is done. Our salvation, it is done. And he opened this detrimental curse that Satan laid on us. He crushed it. And then he gave us back our eternity. It is so beautiful to see that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he entered into the time, he set us free. So when he became a mortal being as a reflection of his life in time and in space, he and his resurrection brought us back, gave us back our immortality. And therefore, we became living being again through Christ Jesus, our Lord. May he watch over us as his people. May he watch over us as a treasure of his divine and holy and sacred heart. And may he guide our steps along the safe path across time and space so we can see his holy and mighty face. I want to thank you again, and please don’t forget to go online, missionofhopeandmercy.org, and support the Mission of Hope and Mercy. And may Almighty God bless us all, protect us from all evil, forgive us our sins, and bring us all to everlasting life. 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.
