Perseverance in Christ

Encourage to follow Jesus patiently in prayer of the heart A Slovak proverb says that anyone can begin, but only a master I finish. When we are only a few days away from the end of the liturgical year, the texts of the Gospel remind us of the end times. They warn us to remember where our home is. But are we confident that we will persevere even? Jesus lovingly counsels the apostles. “If you persevere, you will keep your life.” (Lk21:19).
Believing people, they do not need to know the day of the Lord’s coming. The important thing is to know their hearts are not burdened with sins and worries about this life, so that as the Lord says: that day shall not surprise them. It is significant that hearts be with the Lord. And in this lies vigilance at all times. Living in conformity with God’s order. To live with God everywhere. To be Christian in all events. And this is where the Lord’s Prayer will help. He often prayed, and he calls us to do the same. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he called the apostles, “Watch and pray.” (Mt 26:41). He himself prayed. The apostles were asleep. A result? The Lord Jesus is taken captive, condemned and tortured, balanced and full of God’s power.
And the apostles? They scatter. Peter denied three times. Here we see very clearly the great power and necessity of prayer. Soon we will begin the beautiful season of Advent, when we look at the world, at our lives, as it were, from a perspective, with our eyes fixed on eternity. Advent calls us to watchfulness and prayer, to quietness and repentance, to purify our hearts. For a life of watchfulness and prayer, that is, a life with a pure heart, makes us happy already here on earth. The fruit of watchfulness and prayer is peace and joy in families, in society and at work. No heart attacks, no stresses, but the peace of God. Who of us, I ask, who of us does not long for this ? Let us therefore make the most of the Advent season ! Let us find more time than ever for prayer and for the sacrament of reconciliation. True believers long for the coming of the Lord. That is why the early Christians cried out: “Maratha – Come, our Lord !” Because in the end times it will be as in the days of Noah. Those who will live their life with God, will find refuge in the Lord, as the righteous in Noah’s day found from the flood in the ark. Jesus offers us a way out of this condition in the words. kingdom will enter only he “who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven.” (Mt 7:21). What it means to do the will of the Father is explained by St. Paul: “For this is the will of God
will, your sanctification” (1 Sol 4:3). Personal sanctification, and the resulting works, can be a reason for us to have a joyful hope of meeting the Lord in the kingdom of heaven. And how do we sanctify ourselves? By making everything we do, we will do for the greater glory of God. Our prayers and acts of piety we will make them sincere. Let us make them more inward, so that they spring more from our hearts than from our lips. St. Augustine says that we can ask for the gift of perseverance by prayer. God never wants something we can’t handle, but when we allow Evil to deceive us, we think it is beyond our power. Jesus is the way. He walked through a tight gate by himself during the Gethsemane struggle, and God sent an angel to him, to strengthen him. We, too, have strength. Not only angels, but Jesus himself comes and gives himself to us in the Eucharist so that we may persevere and preserve life. Life eternal!
It is not important who, when he embarked on this journey, but that all of us together and reach the destination. Let us not, as Pope Gregory the Great said, be seduced by the beauty by the splendour of the surroundings, by the splendour of the meadows of life, that we should forget the goal. Let us run to the Kingdom of God with joy and perseverance. Let us not be discouraged by the falls. He who has called us also strengthens us to go through the tight gate and also help others along the way.