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His Grace Timotei Prahoveanul, Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Bucharest, Thursday urged the faithful present at the Holy Mass on the feast of Andrew the Apostle, the First Called, Protector of Romania, to follow in life the example of courage of the saint.
"He, Apostle Andrew, had courage to the very end. This courage he also proposes to us, the followers of his Gospel, the same love as his, although our measures are very different. And even if we sometimes cannot walk this particularly careful path that he walked, we will have to look up to the model that Andrew the Apostle always offers us," said Assistant Bishop Timotei at the Patriarchal Cathedral.
St Andrew the Apostle "drew from an ever-living spring, from the words of the Saviour which he listened to", the Assistant Bishop pointed out
"Thus the boundless love he had to the end, his zeal in the face of the many obstacles he encountered on the road of preaching the Gospel, thus the greatest love, shown by the blood that he and most of the apostles spilled. He saw the Bread that came down from heaven. When he was with the Saviour, the Lord said to those who were listening to Him, 'I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he shall never go hungry again'. But He [Jesus Christ] interceded before the Lord to give the people, many in number, gathered one day near the Sea of Galilee, earthly bread, even though they had been told about the bread from heaven," Timotei Prahoveanul said.
The Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Bucharest recalled that many churches in the Patriarchate of Romania have as their patron Saint Andrew the Apostle.
"Especially in recent years, after the decisions of the Holy Synod of 1995, 2005, many new churches in the Patriarchate of Romania, within the borders and beyond, have received St. Andrew the Apostle as patron. We pray to St. Andrew to strengthen our little faith, he who is full of courage and boldness to help us, to protect the Romanian people and all those who worship him with great piety," concluded Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Bucharest Timotei Prahoveanul.
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Saint Andrew the Apostle was proclaimed Protector of Romania in February 1997. The day of his celebration became a national church holiday, as a result of the Decision of the Holy Synod of November 14, 2001. As an homage to the saint, one of the newly-built National Cathedral's patronal feasts is Holy Apostle Andrew.
In 2012, the Romanian Parliament declared the day of the Holy Apostle Andrew's feast, November 30, as a national holiday, by Law no. 147 of July 23, 2012 and then promulgated by presidential decree.
