Sketch by the hand of Fr. Stamatis Skliris
JUST AS A RULER HAS VINEYARDS and fields and hires workers, so the Lord who has the entire world as a vineyard took twelve Apostles and gave them his grace and blessing and sent them to the entire world to teach people how to live well here on earth, in peace, with love, and later to go to paradise to rejoice forever. [He sent them to teach people] to repent, to believe, and to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and to have love for God and for their brother. Wherever the Apostles went and were made welcome by people, the Lord instructed them to bless that land, and whatever place they went and were not received, the Lord instructed them to shake off the dust even from their shoes and to depart.
Thus receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit, the holy Apostles, as wise and faithful servants of our Christ, ran as lightning throughout the entire world. With that grace they healed the blind, the deaf, the lepers, and those possessed by demons. And the greatest of all, in the name of our Christ they commanded the dead and they did rise.
In whatever land the holy Apostles went and were received by people, they made them Christians, they ordained bishops and priests, they established churches, and they blessed that land so that it became an earthly paradise, filled with joy and gladness, a habitation of angels, a dwelling place of our Christ. But in whatever place they went where they were not received by people, he instructed them to shake off the dust from their shoes, and a curse instead of a blessing remained in that land, a residence of the devil and not of our Christ.
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