Dear Friends,

In today’s gospel Christ gives us the opportunity to consider: “Where is my treasure? What do I value? What is important to me?” The message comes at an appropriate time as we are entering into the season of Great Lent. Traditionally this is a time for reflection, a time to set priorities and to focus on the spiritual rather than the physical aspect of our lives.

As physical beings we tend to focus on the physical. We naturally seek sufficient food, comfort and pleasure. Yet in our pursuit of the physical, it becomes easy for us to forget about the other aspect of our makeup, the spiritual. This happens in our own time in this society. It also happened in the time of Jesus in His environment.

Great Lent is a time for us to reset our focus. It is a time for us to think about what is really important in life. It is a time to reconnect with our Creator and a time to become aware of our existence not only as physical creatures but as spiritual beings.

In today’s gospel Jesus gives us the recipe for our conduct during Great Lent and He teaches about performing three pious acts:

• Almsgiving, which is making charitable donations to support the poor and needy
• Prayer, which is spiritual conversation with God
• Fasting, which is entirely refraining from eating or abstaining from certain types of food.

On the surface, these pious acts appear to be physical disciplines. But the Church offers them to us as practices that lead to spiritual discipline.

Let this period of Great Lent be a time for us to develop discipline in giving alms, prayer and fasting and let us seek the right treasures and bring glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

With blessings,
Rev. Fr. Sahak M. Kaishian
Interim Pastor
February 22, 2009