OUTREACH MINISTRY

Father Anastasios Semona and all of the children from Cameroon thank the Parish of Saints Constantine & Helen for their very generous donation!  Please see the message below from His Grace Bishop Grigorios of Cameroon and the video of the children singing Αγνη Παρθενε Δεσποινα (O Virgin Pure) in their native language.

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GRIGORIOS OF CAMEROON

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Yaoundé Christmas 2021

 

He is arriving once again at His appointed time, the One Who Is. Object of constant anticipation and expectancy, Saviour of the world and of man; born once and for all from an ever-Virgin, ever-Mother; in a town called Bethlehem, overlooked and inconsequential from time immemorial. He arrives once again this year at His appointed time.

 

We all bear him. Those near and far, even those who boast in their wilful ignorance; we all bear Him in the reality and tragedy of our life. We bear Him in the hope and agony of each birth, in the bitterness and sharp wound of each death, in every departure...

 

But what do our hearts seek in this exercise of expectation? What reality is concealed by this puzzling universal anticipation? What memory does it stir, to re-surface within the human soul, in such a measureless, unreckonable cosmogony?

 

This year I feel small amidst such vastness, yet too big for such smallness. Because the "shepherds" confounded me ... and their “flutes" charmed many intο error..., who lost their way in a dark and unnavigable woods ... I suppose I come with the Magi, and all the strangers from the East, since I too come from afar, and have seen and suffered much; in the eyes of friends, strangers, and brethren... Much has befallen me, and I am departing from the land I knew... Day by day... In my poverty, I shall bring with me these, my interior eyes, to set out as gifts to You, O my Christ, while stammering and crying only one word, one prayer: Justice!

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                                                                                                          With His Love...

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                                                                          Bishop Grigorios of Cameroon