His Holiness Pope Tawadros II delivered his weekly sermon at the Wednesday meeting this evening, from the ancient Church of the Martyr Abo Sefein in Old Cairo. The sermon was broadcast on Christian satellite channels and the C.O.C channel of the Church’s Media Center on the Internet.

His Holiness continued the series of “Strong,Short, Prayers from theLiturgy” and addressed part of the first chapter of the book of Jonah the Prophet, verses (3-17), referring to a short request that the Church raises in the Gregorian Mass, which is: “Restore the Unbelievers”, and explained that Humanity has gone through many acts of worship in search of a powerful God, examples of which include: nature like the sun, idols like the god “Moloch” in the Old Testament, animals like the cow, magic and divination to attract the evil power of Satan, then man began to know the one God and the call of Abraham, the father of the fathers.
His Holiness explained that as man’s knowledge advanced, he began to worship his mind, such as inventions and technology, then to worship his desires and artificial intelligence, and there are still pagan worships, so the Church prays “Restore the Unbelievers”.
His Holiness explained that “non-believers” are:
1- Those who have no faith and have abandoned God.
2- Those who do not know God.
3- Those who deviated far from the faith, “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” ‭‭(Psalms‬ ‭14‬:‭1‬)
His Holiness referred to St Paul the apostle when he entered the city and found many altars to different gods, and he wanted to introduce them to Christ, “for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:” ‭‭(Acts‬ ‭17‬:‭23‬)

His Holiness addressed a number of church prayers for a person to abandon pagan worship, such as: “The worship of idols, utterly uproot from the world”, in the Litany of the Meetings, “Ask Him (the Virgin) to give salvation to the world that He created” in first hour prayer, “Oh God, do not turn away from those whom You have created with Your own hands, but manifest, O Good One, Your love for mankind” in the ninth hour prayer, “May the bishop care for every one to save him” in the Dyscolia.
His Holiness also addressed some of Jesus Christ’s dealings with these “non-believers” in the Bible, through:

-Christ goes to them, as happened in the miracle of the healing of the centurion’s boy “And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”” (Matthew‬ ‭8‬:‭7‬)
– Christ sends and uses man, just as happened with the Samaritan woman “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”” ‭‭(John‬ ‭4‬:‭29‬)

His Holiness laid out the role we should play for the “non-believers” as follows:

1- We show them pure love,
“But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?””
‭‭(Jonah‬ ‭4‬:‭10‬-‭11‬)

2- Get to know them and build a human friendship with them.

3- Compassion for them because they have not yet known Christ, “But you are merciful to all, because you can do all, and you dismiss the sins of man because of repentance.” (Wisdom 11:24)

His Holiness recommended completing the role by praying with faith for every person who does not know Christ, and searching for “non-believers.”who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (‭‭I Timothy‬ ‭2‬:‭4‬)

This page is also available in: العربية