Video-message of His Beatitude Sviatoslav. June 29. 126 th day of the war

Today is Wednesday 29 June 2022 and Ukraine is already experiencing 126 days of full-scale military invasion of Russia into the territory of our peaceful Ukrainian land.
We thank the Lord God and the Armed Forces of Ukraine for surviving until this morning, living another dramatic bloody day and continuing our standing before the face of God, standing in prayer, in work, in patience, but in the name of the good of the human person and human life of Ukraine and the whole world.

Heavy, high-intensity fighting has continued along the front line over the past 24 hours, but again the most painful and criminal are the Russian terrorist attacks with cruise missiles on peaceful cities that are not directly located in the war zone. Our Kharkiv was mercilessly bombed yesterday. The city of Mykolayiv was fired at twice by the Russian rockets: yesterday during the day and this morning. In the same way, our Odesa region was hit by a missile. And every such blow has killed people, destroyed buildings, infrastructure, left dozens of wounded. That is why human blood flows in Ukraine. Ukraine is weeping, but Ukraine is praying.

Today, in the context of such a dramatic confrontation with the evil that befalls us, I would like to reflect with you on another gift of the Holy Spirit. In fact, we call it the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which crowns all other fruits. It is a kind of sign of the fullness of the human person's maturity in his life in the Holy Spirit. And this fruit of the Holy Spirit is moderation. When we hear that word, we may understand many different realities, but moderation means the right attitude of man to himself and the world around him, building the right relationship with the resources, both personal and common, that God has given to our care today. This fruit of the Holy Spirit also has two dimensions: internal and external.
When we talk about the inner dimension of moderation, we are talking about a person's ability to control themselves, a person's ability to dominate their aspirations, their various life needs, tasks, to build relationships among themselves. He who has this grace of the Holy Spirit, he then manages very well and is a good steward of his own life. If this is not the case, if a person is uncontrollable even by himself, then he loses his free will and becomes a slave to his passions and his lusts. 

Therefore, the Holy Spirit gives man freedom, freedom in building the right relationships and the right use of all the talents that man has received.
In its external dimension, moderation enables a person to organize his earthly life in all its dimensions just as correctly, to use correctly for his own good and for the good of his neighbour all that he has at his disposal, regardless of whether he has much or little. In fact, this fruit of the Holy Spirit is manifested in a certain style, a lifestyle that Christians lead. This lifestyle, the life of a God-bearing human person filled with the Holy Spirit, who shines with moderation, describes one of the earliest monuments of Christian literature: the glorious Epistle to Diognetus. This author describes the life of the early Christians as follows: Christians “they are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all.”

We thus ask the Holy Spirit to endow us with this fruit of his presence, especially in conditions of war, where the means to live with dignity are becoming more and more lacking, because war always brings destruction, always brings impoverishment and famine. May the Holy Spirit allow us to be good and wise masters of our homeland with moderation.

Today I want to thank all those people who are helping Ukraine to go through these difficult moments. In these days a special delegation from Italy arrived in Ukraine, actually beginning from the city of Bologna up to Odessa and Mykolayiv, as a humanitarian caravan with the special name "Let's stop the war immediately." This caravan is led by Monsignor Savino, vice-president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, who is the bishop of Cassano in southern Italy. Today we greet our Italian friends, thank the Italian Bishops’ Conference and all the good people around the world for properly managing the talents and earthly goods that the Lord God has given them, they today generously share with Ukraine and help the needy.

O God, bless Ukraine. O God, stop the aggressor's murderous hand. O God, give us your wisdom and moderation, so that we may overcome the evil of the attacker with Christian attitude, Christian strength and righteousness. O God, bless Ukraine.

May the blessing of the Lord be upon you through His grace and love of humankind, always, now and ever, and for ages of ages. Amen. 

Glory to Jesus Christ!