NEW YEAR GREETING FROM HEAD OF UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
December 31, 2020
"...we rediscovered the importance of meeting, encountering other persons.... we rebuilt human relationships..."
HIS BEATITUDE SVIATOSLAV: THANKSGIVING FOR 2020; JOY AND LIGHT IN 2021.
"2020 is coming to an end," said the Primate of the UGCC in a special New Year's video greeting, "a year full of special experiences, difficulties and challenges, but also singular blessings, discoveries and joys." This year we experienced and learned a lot for the first time. We have realized that human life is priceless, and human health cannot be valued by any money, economic benefits or political expediency."
According to him, we struggled with a disease - heretofore unknown to the world, but we also witnessed strength, joy and the victory of human solidarity as well as the importance of ordinary human kindness in our lives.
"We realized," he said, "that indifference kills, while love of neighbor sustains, gives new hope, saves lives. In particular this year, we came to value the family as the domestic Church, where the Lord Creator and Savior Himself is present in our home." The same Lord that assured us that, "where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in your midst".
"Our families became our domestic Church, where we prayed together, listened to God's Word, even blessed our Easter baskets; they became a space where our lives and health could be saved, a sanatorium for the human soul and body ..."
The Head of the Church also noted that in 2020 we also especially came to appreciate medical science and the heroism of our doctors and medical workers who put their own lives at risk to save the infected and all those that turn to them for help. We want to thank the Lord God for the past year that we have just come through, and we want to be grateful for everything we now better understand and have learned.
However, as well as looking back, His Beatitude Sviatoslav gave some assurance for the future, explaining that, "we look to the new year of 2021, which we are now entering, with joy and light. We feel that in the New Year we will still be together, in the same boat navigating our way through the sea of life. And in this same boat with us - all contemporary mankind - will be Our Lord and Savior, Who is come to be born in Bethlehem of Judea,"
His Beatitude wished all and every one - "God's blessing, optimism, strength and joy, so that we will really move forward together".
"Happy New Year to you, dear brothers and sisters, Happy New Year to you...!"