Father Raphael Misiaoulis: "Give bread and receive Paradise"translated

Today's Gospel reading presents an important parable, which helps us to understand the deeper meaning of our faith. Central to today's parable is the problem of death, of the afterlife. It presents a rich man whose care and concern was to dress himself in royal and expensive clothes "purple and scarlet" (Luke 16,19) to organize rich banquets daily and to rejoice with his "brilliant" friends and associates.

It is noteworthy that when Christ refers to the rich man, he presents him anonymously, while when he refers to the poor man, he names him by mentioning his personal name. And the reason is to emphasize who is the real man and who bears only the title of man, who is a person and who is impersonal, according to the interpretation of the Fathers.

A great gulf existed between the rich man and the poor Lazarus not only after they fell asleep, but even from the present life "between us and you there is a great gulf" (Luke 16:26).

Let us first look at the picture of these two persons when they were alive. The first lived in good times, he had his friends, he was rich in estates and in...