Vicar’s Desk

In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, the one true God. Amen.

“I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart: I will tell of all your wonderful deeds” (Psalms 9:1)

We should always be grateful to our Lord for his benevolent mercy upon us, as we are, the Nazrani Syrian Christian community from Kerala, India who migrated to the land of Australia, Melbourne, and we have flourished. By the grace of God, we have been empowered to build a beautiful church for to worship Holy Trinity, through the sainthood prayer of St. George, the illuminated martyr of Universal Church.

Church is the mystical body of Christ, i.e., a mystical union of all Christians into a spiritual body with Jesus Christ as their head. This concept is rooted in the New Testament, especially in the letters of St, Paul, the apostle. We are inheriting the primary Christian tradition, i.e., Syriac. The Syriac Christian tradition is an important stream of Christian tradition and its spirituality distinct from the Western (Latin) and the Eastern Byzantine tradition (Eastern Orthodox, Greek).Book of Steps, fourth century book on spirituality mentioned the concept of the threefold church: the heavenly Church, the visible Church on earth and the interior Church of the heart. One of the mindful things inside this teachings are, the second is modelled on the first; and the third is modelled on the second; and the ideal is that all three should be in harmony.

If someone has doubt and despises visible Church, with its visible altar and visible priesthood and baptism that brings forgiveness, then the body will not become a temple, neither will the heart become an altar or a well-spring of praise. Our Lord Jesus and His preachers have a purpose to establish Church, altar and baptism which can be seen by the body’s eye’ i.e., by standing from these visible things and provided our bodies become temples and our heart altars, so we might find ourselves in their heavenly counterparts which cannot be seen by the eyes of the flesh, migrating there and entering in while we are still in this visible Church with its priesthood and its ministry acting as fair examples for all those who imitiate the vigils, fasts and endurance of our Lord. Interior Church of the heart dwells with the Holy Spirit and our Lord resides there as it is written,

“Your bodies are temples of the Lord and Christ dwells in your inner persons.” (1 Cor 6:19)

As for the Church in heaven, all that is good takes its beginning from there, and from there light has shone out upon us in all directions. After its likeness the church on earth came into being. Those who are diligent in this visible Church become like that of heavenly church.

“We should not despise the visible Church which brings up everyone as children; nor should we despise the church of the heart, seeing that she strengthens all who are sick. But we should yearn for the Church on the high, for she (heavenly church) makes perfect all the saints” (Book of Steps, XII, 2-3)

Tranquility be with you all,

Lords’s Servant,

Rev. Fr. Praveen Kuriakose