Weekly Message March 6, 2026

Beloved brothers and sisters,

This Sunday’s Gospel is one of the most powerful images of what it actually means to love your neighbor. In Gospel of Mark 2:1–12, four friends bring a paralyzed man to Christ. The house is so crowded that they cannot even get throughthe door. Most people would have turned around. Most people would have said, “We tried.”

But they don’t.

They climb onto the roof. They tear it open. And they lower their friend down directly in front of Christ.

It is bold. It is disruptive. It is inconvenient. It probably shocked everyone in the room. But it is also one of the clearest examples in the Gospel of what real love for our neighbor looks like.

For weeks now we have been reflecting on Christ’s commandment to love our neighbor. Not with conditions. Not with caveats. Not only when it is comfortable or convenient.

These four men show us exactly what that love looks like.

They did not ask whether their friend “deserved” the effort.

They did not calculate whether the situation was too difficult.

They did not worry about what others might say.

They simply loved their friend enough to carry him to Christ.

And when they could not get to Christ the normal way, they found another way.

This is the kind of love the Gospel calls us to. A love that acts. A love that moves. A love that sometimes takes extraordinary measures for the sake of another person.

Notice something else that is remarkable in this story. When Christ sees them, the Gospel says He responds to their faith. The faith of the friends becomes the pathway through which healing enters this man’s life.

That is the power of community. That is the power of loving our neighbor.

Sometimes the people around us cannot get to Christ on their own. They are tired. They are hurting. They are overwhelmed. They are spiritually paralyzed in ways we cannot always see.

In those moments, we are called to do what these friends did. To carry one another. To open a path. To refuse to give up.

Because loving our neighbor is not an abstract idea.

It is lifting someone when they cannot walk.

It is believing when someone else cannot believe.

It is bringing people to Christ, even when it requires effort, creativity, and sacrifice.

And in that love, the miracle begins.

With love in Christ,

Fr. Evagoras