Anglican Orthodox Church of France, 22 Rue des Champs de la Halle, Frédéric-Fontaine (2026)

Groupe ecclésial vivant la beauté et sainteté des Écritures et branche francophone de l'Anglican Orthodox Church, il adhère strictement aux 39 Articles de religion, à la Bible et au Livre de la Prière Commune traditionnels.

03/06/2026

SERMON for the 1st Sunday after Trinity.
1 John 4:7-21; Luke 16:19-30.

LOVE THE BROTHERS

My dear brothers and sisters. It's easy to say, "I love you." And it's much less easy to act on it, because we all are imperfect people. We have our small and big faults, we have our unbearable tics and our exasperating hobbies, and it is difficult to perfectly love imperfect people.

Our first duty to love – and the easiest for us – is to love God. Indeed, only God is perfect. As a result, we can love Him perfectly, without any fear of being disappointed. God will never reproach us for loving Him, or even for loving Him too much. (1 John 4/19): “We love him because he first loved us.” Curiously, the Greek text does not say “we love Him”, but “we love”: “”; we cherish, we value those who are dear to us, all our brothers and sisters in faith, for sure, but above all our Father in Heaven, the One who created us and gave birth to us again, we who believe in His Name through the spiritual illumination conferred on us by His Holy Spirit who dwells in each one of us.

When we love our Christian brothers, we not only love their little selves, but above all else we love the Holy Spirit who dwells in them. We appreciate all that comes from the Holy Spirit, present in the hearts of true Christians, and we close our eyes to the imperfections of human nature, always marked by Adam's sin. This dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers makes them different from infidels, from those who do not know God and therefore cannot love Him, for we love only what we know and can recognize.

Let us therefore have no qualms about marking - even publicly - a difference between Christian brothers and sisters, on the one hand, and the rest of humanity, on the other, for whom we feel pity, because we only too well know what fate they themselves deserve after their own choice. Like the rich man in the parable, they will also die, they will be buried. Like the selfish rich man, they will be “in torments” (Luke 16:23). Like the rich man, insensitive to the misery of Lazarus, his Jewish Israelite brother, they will suffer cruelly “in this flame” (verse 24), for they will “also come in this place of torment” (verse 28).

You have noted that Lazarus is a Jew, and that the rich man is also a Jew. They are therefore brothers in religion, but they practice external rites in a legalistic way, with no heart, that is to say, without having the Holy Spirit in their hearts, the true Spirit of Love. Both of them lack only one thing: the love that Jesus Christ taught and practiced by giving himself up to death on a cross, to save His elect. (Luke 16:29): “They have Moses and the prophets” but they do not listen to them. They don't read their Bible. They practice a minimal religion, short-sighted, without the loftiness of vision that only hope of eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven gives.

It is no discrimination to consider everyone according to what they are, because before God, men are not all equal. (Romans 13:7-8) “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” Here, the Law is the Law of Moses - the Ten Commandments. Paul continues (Romans 13:9-10): “For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love does not exempt from the fulfillment of the Law. On the contrary, love is manifested by a right fulfillment of the Law, but with biblical discernment.

Did Lazarus love the selfish rich man? The Gospel does not say this. Lazarus had eyes only for the crumbs that fell from the table of the wicked rich man. Both were frozen in a materialism closed to any authentic spirituality. They kept the Commandments of God to be free from God and the people. That was enough for them. Now, our wealth as Christians is not of this world; we have a treasure in heaven, as Jesus Christ says to God's beloved rich young man (Mark 10:20-21): “… Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.” With these words, Christ teaches us that the riches of this world will pass away, but that the riches of eternal life are priceless. The grace that God gives cannot be bought with silver, gold, or anything material. Do not cling to these passing values, and “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33).

The Gospel of Luke makes a subtle distinction between Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:22-23): “And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments...” If both characters die, only one is buried and relegated to hell. Lazarus is exempted from this, and is lifted up to heaven by angels, just as Jesus ascended to heaven, in the presence of the angels of God (Acts 1:9-10): “And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel.” This similarity reveals to us that the Lazarus of the parable is a type of Christ who became poor by leaving Heaven to incarnate Himself in Jesus. And this same Jesus Christ recovered beyond all that He possessed in Heaven by ascending back to it, like Job - another type of Christ - after his trial (Job 42:10): “And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.” In the same way, Our Lord is restored to his reign (Revelation 19/6): “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”; and also this: (Revelation 12:10a): “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ..." What an incomparable treasure! Can we hope any better than to believe in Jesus Christ the Messiah, our Lord and Savior, and to be eventually part of His royal retinue in Heaven, for eternity?

Jesus concludes His parable with these words (Luke 16:31b): “And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” My friends, you know what you have to do: listen to Moses and the prophets - Read the Bible! The Holy Scripture is the key to the faith that opens the door to Heaven. (Article N°6 of Anglican Religion): “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation...” Do not look for things in Gnosis or esotericism that are not biblical. And the same Article 6 specifies: “… so that whatso-ever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” Do not listen to the so-called particular (especially late!) revelations that claim to add anything to the Bible. They are at best paraphrases of what you already have in the Bible, and at worst lies, if not outright blasphemies.

The Bible does not claim to inculcate in us a superior science that would make us supermen. On the contrary, the Bible reveals to us that we are mere creatures drawn from the dust of the earth, and will return to dust. (Hebrews 2:6): “But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8, David, verse 5). If we rise through pride, we will never reach Heaven. On the other hand, if we are united to Christ through faith in Him, we will ascend with Him into His Kingdom, as He did on the day of Ascension. And no one will be able to dislodge us from it (John 10:27-29): “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.”

And it is out of love that God saves us; our salvation is even the proof that God loves us (1 John 4:9-10): “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” No man can save himself by his own merits. For our salvation to be perfect, a perfect Savior Himself is needed, and there is no other besides Jesus Christ alone (Hebrews 5:9): “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” Christ sacrificed Himself out of love for us, and He puts us to the benefit of His one Sacrifice, offered once and for all (Hebrews 10:14 ... 19): " For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified ... Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” And not only are we declared Saints if we believe in Jesus Christ, but we are invited to love one another in a perfect way (Hebrews 10:22-24): “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.” John says the same thing (1 John 4:11): “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” We can also say with the same John whom faith saves (1 John 4:15): “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” Again, it's very clear.

Lazarus and the rich man both feared God. Now “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18). How could we be afraid of the One who loves us the most in the world? Those who are afraid of God take refuge in the arms of Mary, because who is afraid of a mother? This is an error resulting from a lack of or erroneous teaching about God, and ignorance of God's Word. (1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” There is no question nor influence of Mary in our salvation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we receive so much love that it has implications for us. It is not a question of conditions, because God loves us unconditionally, but of simple consistency. “Indeed, If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.” (1 John 4:20-5/1). It cannot be more plainly said that we love our Christian brethren with a special love, for they are truly our brothers or sisters in Christ, and we have the same adoptive Father, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. On the other hand, we love with another kind of love those who do not belong to Christ, we respect them as God's creatures, but we do not approve of the sin that sticks to their skin, and we pity them for not having washed their robes in the blood of the Passover Lamb. We are not from the same world!

But as John tells us, love does not exempt us from obedience to God's commandments, quite the contrary (1 John 5:2-3a): “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” With Salvation by faith, and by His grace, God even gives us to love His Commandments! Amen.

Rt. Rev. Yves Méra, AOC Bishop of France.

27/05/2026

SERMON for Trinity Sunday
Revelation 4/1-11; John 3/1-15

BORN TO GLORIFY GOD

Our first birth was a mistake (Psalm 51:5): “Yes, since my birth I have been guilty; When my mother conceived me, I was already marked by sin” We all were born sinners, all doomed to evil and rebellion against God, our Creator. Just like the bad fairy, Satan has cast an evil spell on us, the devil has encircled us in his hooked claws, he has bound us and shut us up in his lair, which is the antechamber of eternal hell.

To Nicodemus who came to question him in secret, at night (note that Christ did not sleep, but watched and prayed) Jesus gives this astonishing answer: “… Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3). Our carnal birth was a mistake, and Christ tells us that it has to be done again. Completely to be redone. There is nothing good in us, and our works are evil because we are evil, because our nature is evil, and because it is vitiated by Adam's sin, and by our disobedience to God. (Genesis 2:15-17): “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” And what did Adam do, I ask you? (Genesis 3:6): “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Adam disobeyed. His wife disobeyed. We all disobeyed God. We thought we were intelligent, as if we could do without God, and we cut ourselves off from His Wisdom. We have become stupid, ignorant, and spiritually ugly. We have become mortal.

We disobey God because we do not know Him. And here is the first sin: ignorance of God. Ignorance of God is not simply a gap in the field of knowledge that we could fill in with education, by reading the Bible. For if the Holy Spirit does not come into us and allow us to understand the Word of God, we will miss out on His life-giving message, and we will see in Christ only a man, a prophet, a healer, a miracle worker. And we still wouldn't believe Him, we still wouldn't be saved. Jesus is God incarnate! That is the truth!

Paul castigates the unbelievers in Romans 1:18-22: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” The whole Creation cries out that it was not made by itself. So much harmony, coherence and beauty, despite the Fall of Adam and its repercussions on all of Creation, should encourage us to believe in God the Creator. But no, we qualify what is properly divine as natural, according to evolutionary theories that try to drown the fish in the sea by diverting the question: "it has been done over millennia"... But they do not answer the question of the origin of the world. In fact, they don't know, and they don't want to know. Above all, they don't want YOU to know.

They are unable to explain why the world is the way it is, and not otherwise. The devil keeps them in ignorance of a major fact: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1); "God said, 'Let there be light!' and there was light" (Genesis 1:3). And God didn't just say, He brought about the physical world, according to His will: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:11-12). Note that evolutionary theories are not entirely false, for they take passages from Sacred Scripture, truncating them: “The earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind.” The earth brought forth, certainly, but it did not do so of itself! It is nevertheless curious to see the lack of imagination of sinful men: they know not how to create anything, to invent anything spiritually new; they only distort the Holy Scripture. They continue the work of Satan (Genesis 3:1): “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” “Did God really say...” Well YES, God really said (2 Peter 1/21): “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”, starting with Moses (Exodus 3:4-6): “… God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.” The truth is that a sinful man, even Moses, is afraid to look God in the face and prefers to erase Him from his conscience, but does not succeed completely, resulting in a persistent existential malaise.

On the last day, we will all stand before the throne of God, and we will be judged not only by our deeds, but above all by our faith: Have we believed and obeyed God, or will we have lived and acted as if He did not exist, to do as we please? There are not two solutions, there is only one: “… Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3). Jesus then clarifies to Nicodemus: “… Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:5-8).

It is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit to confer faith on God's chosen people who have the wisdom to ask Him for it (John 3:34): “For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.” (John 5:24): “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” “... is passed from death unto life” that is, he was born again, he was born to a life without end, to an eternal life. The new birth by the Spirit is invisible in itself. It can be noted through just and holy actions. It is noticeable in a life which is changed, transformed by the love that the Father puts in the hearts of His adopted children, by His Holy Spirit.

All this is very nice, you will say, but what is the purpose of the new birth, what is the use of eternal life? What is the use of being born again? The same John who wrote the fourth Gospel tells us in Revelation 4:9: they “… give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever,” saying, “… Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” (Revelation 4/8b).

This is confirmed to us in verse 7 of Revelation 4: " And the first beast was like a lion (Mark), and the second beast like a calf (Luke), and the third beast had a face as a man (Matthew), and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle (John)." The four evangelists wrote on behalf of God, addressing men, so that men and women might give glory to God the Creator, who lives forever, the author of life, the source of all wisdom and all good (Revelation 4:11): “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” This is the meaning of the new birth. So, we will follow the four evangelists in praising God in heaven, eternally.

Children will probably say to me, "What a bore! I prefer my video games!" The ladies may say to me, "Where's the suspense? I prefer my detective novels!" Gentlemen will surely say to me "What? There will be no football matches on TV, no beer to drink?" All these things are amusements and distractions that distract us from the essential: God loves us and He sent His only begotten Son on earth to die on an infamous cross in order to spare us and allow us to praise and serve Him later in Heaven, but also on earth, right now, in His Church. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16). And here is the good news: In Heaven, we will live an eternity of Love with the One who loved us more than He loved Himself and sacrificed Himself out of love for us: Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And now, it's no longer a novel or a game. It is a reality that surpasses all the entertainment and emotions we experience here on earth, in our world, disfigured by sin.

When we have left our fleshly envelope and flown to Heaven with the elect, then, and only then, will our true life begin. We will have passed from an imperfect existence to a perfect life, in God, as we left the womb when we came into the world. This is what faith in the Gospel commands us to believe. We will not regret anything we have known and experienced on earth. Our most thrilling matches, our most exciting games, and our most exciting novels will be pale sensitive emotions compared to what awaits us (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17): “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Is there any greater joy than to spend eternity, out of time, with the One who loves us most and whom we love the most, in return? (1 John 4:9-10): “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (Revelation 3:14): Christ is “… the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God” He is called “Faithful and True” (Revelation 19:11). How come we should not trust Him!

Brothers and sisters, if we were born in sin, we are born again by the Holy Spirit to glorify God in eternity. No one in Heaven will ask themselves, "What am I going to do?" We will have nothing more urgent than to sing the praise of God who has saved us, out of love for us. See how engaged couples are attracted to each other, as if they were magnetized. Yes, we will be magnetized and drawn to God, irresistibly, from the Old Testament (Song of Solomon 4:9a): “You have ravished my heart ... thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes...”, until the New Testament (Revelation 21/9-11): “And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal"

Let us live and act to the glory of God, and everything else will be given to us, all for free. Amen.

Rt. Rev. Yves Méra, AOC Bishop of France.

18/05/2026

SERMON for Pentecost day.
Acts 2:1-11; John 14:15-31a.

THE SPIRIT OF JESUS

Fear gathers and unites men. On the day of Pentecost of the year of the Lord 33, the “And in those days … (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)” ... (Acts 1:15) (notice the weakness of the early Church: only 120 people, after three years of teaching! Let us not be discouraged if we are in a similar situation, but let us persevere); “... into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.” (Acts 1:13-14). They were gathered in the upper room where they usually stood, trembling with fear. They feared that they would suffer the same fate as their crucified Lord Jesus Christ, if they showed themselves out, but this was sinning by excessive anticipation of how they would enter into God’s glory.

Christ had promised them a Comforter who would strengthen them in their faith and make them strong to the point of facing death without fear. They knew it and were waiting for this Comforter. But they had no previous experience on which to rely and base their confidence.

However, on closer inspection, Christ had indeed spoken to them in John 14:16 of another Comforter: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” Who, then, was the first Comforter, if not Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ? In the next verse (16), Jesus defines the Holy Spirit as He defines Himself as “… the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” The Comforter who once dwelt with the disciples was Christ himself. A few verses earlier, John told us these essential words of Jesus: “... I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6). Christ and the Holy Ghost are the same and only Truth that created the world with all that is in it; They are worthy of our faith and praise. We must serve them by obeying them: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Jesus says in John 14:15.

“The Spirit of truth ... shall be in you” (John 14:17), our Lord promises. What does this mean but that the very Spirit of Christ will be in us? The only begotten Son of God the Father became physically incarnate in the womb of Mary through the Holy Spirit; and He now tells us that this same Spirit will be in us, incarnated not carnally but spiritually, invisibly.

Men are reluctant to believe what they do not see with their own eyes. And the Romans accused the early Christians they persecuted of being atheists, because they served an invisible God that was no god to their own eyes. For the Romans, what is invisible does not exist. It would be easy to tell them about the light spectrum extended to infra-red and ultra-violet which exist but stand beyond our vision capacity, but they would not believe it, because they could not see the full spectrum of light with their own eyes. For the pagans, if there is no visible statue representing the divinity, and if the divinity cannot be represented, it must be because such a divinity does not exist.

The atheism of today’s laity differs little from ancient paganism. These miscreants proud themselves of being modern progressists, when in reality they are regressing to a form of credulity dating back to Antiquity. And it is this pagan philosophy that is taught in our high schools, beginning with the great Socrates, who was condemned to death for atheism because he refused to prostrate himself before blocks of stone, carved in various zoological forms. But our Eternal Father is not a block of stone nor metal nor wood: God is Spirit, and the Spirit is invisible like the wind, it is pneumatic. We must therefore get rid of any idea of a visible representation of the God of Love. The Love that God gives is not an arrow shot by a chubby, romantic and baroque cherub - a wound - but on the contrary a power of life that surpasses even death!

The Spirit of God comes into us, invisible, like Jesus in the womb of Mary, through the same Holy Spirit (John 14:17): “The Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” The world only believes what it can see. It ignores invisible realities, and it is afraid of them because it cannot grasp them, appease them nor enslave them. For pagans and progressists, everything that is invisible is evil, like viruses that we can't see with bare eyes, that make us sick and eventually kill us. Atheism is a spiritual hell from which one cannot escape without a special grace from God.

And Christ's words become mysterious: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:18). Christ goes on to say paradoxically “I will come to you”. Would Christ be our Father? Yes, for there is but one God, and there is only one Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. When the Spirit makes His home in us by faith, we are indwelt by the Father and the Son. The Trinity is within us! Who will be against us? Who will be able to defeat us and make us renounce our faith? No one! (Romans 8:37-39): “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In the next verse, Christ becomes more mysterious and paradoxical (John 14:19): “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.”; “but ye see me”: Can we see an invisible God? Certainly not with our fleshly eyes! But we'll see Him in His works, as we see the leaves of the trees stirred by the wind. Where neo-pagans see nothing at all, we know that there is SOMEONE, God Himself, blessing those He loves. Only then do we live the true Life - the one that God communicates to us through His Holy Spirit. And some day we will live in heaven, with all the Father's elect, in His majestic presence (v. 20): “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” This is what we call the Communion of the Saints, which is not a simple fraternity of the elect, but a communion with God. The word Communion (unitas cum, Latin) means “Union with” God.

After concluding this important digression, Our Lord Jesus Christ returns to the theme with which he began: that of obedience to God's commandments: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (verse 15). In verse 21, He continues: “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” Woe to the hypocrites who think they are Christians, but do not obey Christ! They don't have His Spirit in them. They are only pretending. Worse: they allow themselves to lecture others, by imposing their own rules and their own commandments. Jesus says in verse 24a: “He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings.” Indeed, he who does not like the words of Christ keeps his own words - not God's!

And Jesus links obedience to love (John 14:22-23): to Jude who asked him, “… how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” You may have thought that at Pentecost the Apostles received the Holy Spirit? It's a mistake! Along with the Holy Spirit, they received the Father and the Son! Do you now understand why the feast of the Trinity immediately follows that of Pentecost? (Colossians 2:9): “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” And it is this fullness of divinity that the Apostles received at Pentecost and then transmitted to their successors: the truly consecrated Bishops.

Our Lord now continues his speech with reassuring words (John 14:24b-26): “… and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” Every student dreamed of it, Christ has made it happen: there is no need to rehearse the subject before the final exam, for the Holy Spirit will whisper to us the right answers! And these answers are already in the Bible. Look for these answers in the Bible, and you will find the Truth. The Truth is in Christ, coming from the Father through the Holy Spirit. Christ is true and He is the Truth.

As a fine psychologist, Jesus understands what His disciples are feeling. He knows that they are dying of worry and fear: what will become of them? Then He consoles them with these words (John 14:27): “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Jesus assumes the role of the Holy Spirit as a comforter, because the Holy Ghost is HIS Spirit. Let us not for a second consider a Holy Spirit who would not be the Spirit of Christ! The spirits are legion, but only one is the Holy Spirit of God.

Christ continues beyond mere consolation; He now invites His hearers to joy - decidedly, He does nothing like the world does! (John 14:28-29): “Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.” With the Holy Spirit, the Apostles were not only given the strength to preach, but the peace and joy of knowing the Truth of God, with the authority to teach it so that the world would believe. Christ says in John 17:20-21: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”, and further: “But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.” (John 14:31a).

Jesus always refers to the obedience to God's Commandments. We submit to them, not only because our Lord and Savior asks us to, but above all in imitation of Jesus Christ, who is perfectly God, that is true, but also the perfect man, the new Adam of whom Paul tells us (Romans 5:15): “... For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.” Yes, Christ died for us all; He shed His blood on the cross for all of us who believe in Him and serve Him by obeying His Father's commandments as He did and still does today in Heaven. Thus, the only begotten Son of the Father makes us new creatures, through the new birth in faith, with His Holy Spirit of Life, Truth and Love.

Having finished His discourse, Christ takes action: (John 14:30-31): “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.” Our Savior rises to walk in His torment. Oh, it wasn't a happy one! (Mark 14:36): “And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” But Christ obeyed, in spite of everything: “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:8).

In John 6:46b, Jesus declares: “… he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.” We do not imagine God, nor are we dreaming. For God created man in His image (Genesis 1:27a): “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” And Jesus Christ being the perfect man, without sin, He is the perfect image of the Father. Jesus Christ is Wisdom itself; He is as wise as an image of the Father. And this image is that of submission to the will of the Father, who is also the Creator and adoptive Father, to us who believe in Him. We not only believe, but we have seen the Eternal Father, our Father, we who are born of God, if we are born again men and women. We do not believe blindly, but we know Him whom we obey, serve, and praise every day that God makes, as we will in eternity, in His blessed presence. Amen.

Rt. Rev. Yves Méra, AOC Bishop of France.

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