Beloved servants, we have walked together today through a landscape of love. We have sat with the fathers of our faith — with St Augustine, who taught us that our hearts are restless until they rest in God; with St John Chrysostom, who showed us that love must expand the heart and overflow into action; with St Cyril of Alexandria, who reminded us that God loved us so fiercely that He crossed the infinite divide to become one of us; and with the saintly Fr Pishoy Kamel, whose life was a living gospel of love poured out to the very last drop.
Through their witness and the witness of the Church Fathers who illumine our path, we have tasted something of the width, length, depth, and height of divine love — dimensions that cannot be expressed in words or letters, nor measured by any standard. Christ is our friend, He is our brother, He is whatever is beautiful and good. He is everything. But most of all He is our friend, and He cries out to each of us: "I love you. I want you to enjoy life with Me."
We have reflected on the words of Christ: "You did not choose Me, but I chose you." We have heard Him say: "Abide in My love." We have wrestled with the searching question of whether our service flows from the deep well of belovedness or from the shallow streams of habit, duty, and self-interest. And now, as this day draws to a close, the question is not what you have learned. It is what you will carry with you when you walk out of this room.
What We Pray You Carry
Here is what we pray you carry: the unshakeable knowledge that you are loved. Not because you are useful. Not because you are talented. Not because you show up every Sunday without fail. Not because you have sacrificed your time, your energy, your Friday evenings and your Saturday mornings. You are loved because you are His.
You were loved before you ever lifted a hand in service, and you will be loved long after your service on this earth is done. This is not a truth that depends on your feelings. It does not waver when you are tired. It does not diminish when you fail. It is the bedrock beneath your feet, the ground that holds you even when everything else shakes.
We also pray that you carry with you a holy honesty. Today, we have created space for questions that are not easy to ask: Am I serving from love? Have I let the routine of service replace the fire that once burned in my heart? Am I giving to those I serve from overflow, or from a well that has quietly run dry? These questions are not accusations — they are invitations. They are the voice of the Good Shepherd, calling us back to the pasture where He can restore our soul.
If You Love Me
On the shores of the Sea of Galilee, after the resurrection, Christ asked Simon Peter the same question three times: "Do you love Me?" Three times Peter answered that he did. And three times Christ's response was the same: "Feed My lambs. Tend My sheep. Feed My sheep."
This exchange is the pattern of all Christian service. Not: "Are you qualified?" Not: "Are you experienced?" Not: "Are you confident?" Not even: "Are you prepared?" The only question Christ asks before entrusting His sheep to any servant is this one: Do you love Me?
And if the answer is yes — even a broken, hesitant, imperfect yes — then what follows is this: go. Feed. Tend. Serve. Not because you have proven yourself worthy of the task, but because love, when it is genuinely present, cannot help but serve. A heart that truly loves Christ will find that love overflowing toward everything and everyone Christ loves. The sheep are included. They were always included.
This is why we serve. Not to build an institution, though the Church is built by faithful service. Not to fulfil an obligation, though faithfulness has its own dignity. But to participate — imperfectly, intermittently, but genuinely — in the great movement of divine love toward the world, until the world is gathered into the love that created it.