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God did not create man just for work… But do we know that we also concern the soul besides the body? Have we given any of our spare time to the soul recently?

Jesus says to the disciples: “Come ye yourselves into seclusion … and get some rest,” but he also acts. Mark writes that he “began to teach many things” (Mk. 6:30, 34). Jesus knew what it meant to rest. He often retires alone into silence. There he takes time to speak with the Father. Work is a consequence of original sin. Knowing to rest with God is time rightly used for the soul, for eternity. Jesus knows that those who work need to recharge their strength. Excessive activity, an unhealthy attitude toward the rights of body and soul, a gamble with health, will sooner later echo[ and one will suffer from sickness, and even hasten one’s death. God expects man to conquer the world by the peacock. Man is to take due care of the needs of both soul and body. Many today possess much and yet do not enjoy what they have accumulated. Who is to blame. God? Are there no reproaches: “God, why are you punishing me? Why did you die so young?

The world until the end of time needs leaders, teachers… shepherds, because the world, its misery, Jesus presented with the image that it is like “sheep without a shepherd.” (Mk 6:34) Jesus not only speaks the truth about the world but explains the need for rest for the shepherd, which the Evangelist St. Mark makes clear: “And he began to teach them many things” (Mk 6:34). Sheep without a shepherd is a picture of tragedy.

Jesus warns us not to be bad leaders, shepherds. Jesus, the “good shepherd,” desires that we walk toward holiness. This time is a time of grace. God said: “To everything, there is a season and a time to every endeavor under heaven… What profit hath he that is continually active, of all that he hath labored for?” God appointed the seventh day for rest. We read, “And on the seventh day he rested from all the works that he had done.” (Gen. 1:2). And shortly before that, we read, “And God created man in his image.” (Gen. 1:27).

We have time to ourselves. The less of it we have, the more we need to indulge ourselves. It is commendable that time of rest can be used for spiritual cleansing. Just as during leisure, we can paint, put things in order, and order in the soul, in thoughts, opinions, attitudes, towards ourselves, others, duties, hobbies, things, places, has to be done. With God, the proper use of vacation time holidays… can enrich and change life beyond recognition. Life changes by many degrees; life becomes more joyful, more fruitful…

You may have read that world-class company even give their employees funds for vacation time. They know that when they get adequate rest, they can perform better. There will be less sick leave. They will transfer their talents, skills, and intellectual values more and benefit their workplaces.

In practice, we quite often witness that miracles and mysteries of faith provoke in some believers and practically all non-believers doubts about their actual existence because they contradict the laws of nature, contrary to “common sense,” and often represent a “bare impossibility.” We shall attempt, using several examples, to show that many of them are indeed mysteries, but not in that sense, that they should be rejected a priori, as impossible and nonsensical. We begin at once with the most central mystery -the existence of God. It very often happens that after lectures that tend to support the idea of the existence of God, a debater rises and triumphantly asks: “And who created God?” In the belief that he has thereby refuted all the lecturer’s arguments. The theologian’s answer to such a question is well known -God is the self-caused cause of his existence; therefore, he does not need to be created by another being. Such an answer of a man accustomed to pragmatic causality will not satisfy. Physics, however, can bring to bear the problem, thus posing a situation in which the issue of “self-cause” is practically absent.
The issue of causality always presupposes a temporal succession of events, whereby the preceding event may cause the following one. Therefore, we may argue that the assumption of causation is the passage of time. If time did not pass, there would be no point in looking for causal of existing phenomena; they would live as eternal and unchanging entities. With God, time does not pass; therefore, there is no point in asking to ask about the cause of its origin. This statement may naturally provoke the further question, How can one conceive of a reality? Which time does not pass? It is at this point in the reasoning that it may come to physics can come to the rescue because, for her, it is no problem to “arrange.” for time not to pass. Let us leave aside situations where it makes no sense to talk about the passage of time. These are situations related to the so-called thermodynamically equilibrium state of systems. Everything happens perfectly chaotic and reversible so that there is no evidence that the plan is moving in any significant direction, determining the flow of time. Physics, however, thanks to modern theories, also knows much more attractive and exciting situations in which something happens to time unusual.
It is irrefutably proven that the passage of time near large masses slows down, according to precise relationships found in any severe textbook on theoretical physics. The exciting thing about these relations is that according to them, there are (theoretically) such masses of objects for which every event appears as infinitely long. This implies that to an observer of such an object, every process seems to be infinitely slow, and in this situation, he; thus, time does not pass at all. The surprising fact is that such strange objects are called black holes. To observers on their surface, more precisely in the places defined in the so-called Schwarzschild radius, time does not pass at all.55)
The relativity of the passage of time, to which we have just drawn attention, gives us allows us to understand even better some very enigmatic texts from the Bible, such as the text, “With God, there is one day as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” We know from physics that the time that passes in a moving system, depending on its relative velocity of motion relative to another reference frame, lengthens or slows down; therefore, it would be possible to calculate precisely at what speed a specific system should move relative to the rest frame so that all the time intervals measured in it are close to the intervals measured in the rest frame in such a proportion as a thousand years bears to the one day. Therefore, man is capable of the above “mystery” of the Bible to verify experimentally.
Related to the relativity of the passage of time is another question often more thoughtful listeners ask: what does the soul do between leaving the body and Last Judgment? For only there will it know whether it belongs to the realm of glorification or damnation. This problem has intensely preoccupied theologians and has been the subject of much controversy. From the point of view of physics, this issue is not an issue because, as we have already seen above – there are states in which time does not pass, and in such a state, the soul is also in. The passage of time is unconditionally connected with the matter. And the spirit is immaterial. Therefore, the soul does not differentiate between leaving a particular body and the Last Judgment. Some time has elapsed. It perceives this issue as an issue only of a being that has a material nature.

In nuclear reactors, man-controlled and directed chain reactions Man-controlled and directed chain reactions in nuclear reactors can successfully protect and develop human life. By contrast, if the chain reaction proceeds in an avalanche-like fashion and can neither be controlled nor directed by man, such as in the explosion of an atomic bomb, then it produces only terror, misfortune, and destruction.

In the moral sphere, too, we can speak of a chain reaction. Good begets new well, and evil has more evil. At the root of every human activity that can be qualified as morally good or bad is an idea either by or contrary to the moral law. From the thought arises or is released a statement, an impulse, a movement, which manifests itself at one time indeed, at another in word. Every act has its consequences; every word has its repercussions; if a man can direct the course of his thoughts, if he can control his passions and passions, if he holds his action by reason and rules over it by will, his word can bring joy and happiness to men. Men can benefit much from their acts.

But if a man becomes the plaything of his passions and passions, if the dark forces of the evil veil the vision of his reason with mist and paralyze the power of his will, then the evil of his words may grow pain and sorrow, then the fruit of his deeds may be shame and fear, misery and death.

Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great, who wanted to destroy the little Jesus after his birth in Bethlehem. From his father, he received an inheritance rule over Galilee and Transjordan. He drove his lawful wife away from him when he met Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. He lured her away from him. He entered into a sinful adulterous affair with her. John the Baptist sharply rebukes him, “You shall not live with your brother’s wife” (Mk 6:19). Though he exploded with violent anger against John, Antipas knew how to control himself. The Slovak poet Hviezdoslav is the author of the tragedy Herod and Herodias. Other literary forms and some film works also deal with this theme. Why?

Mark masterfully recorded the events surrounding Jesus Christ when Herod, under the pressure of remorse, said: “This is John risen from the dead, whom I had beheaded.” (Mk. 6:16). The Gospel story is like an episode from a novel. A king celebrates a birthday, a young girl dances before a select company, and she is allowed to make a wish for a reward. The moment has come for the queen, the girl’s mother, to take revenge on an inconvenient critic. Because the king is a weakling, John the Baptist must die. All it takes is a little intrigue at just the right moment for the man of God to be killed.

Our century has enriched the world with a new discipline, atomic physics. It has brought the concept of the chain reaction into the consciousness of humanity. It is based on the ability of neutrons released or produced by the disintegration of an atomic nucleus to cause other atomic nuclei to break up. In nuclear reactors, man-controlled and directed chain reactions can successfully protect and develop human life. By contrast, if the chain reaction proceeds in an avalanche-like fashion and can neither be controlled nor directed by man, such as in the explosion of an atomic bomb, then it produces only terror, misfortune, and destruction.

In the moral sphere, too, we can speak of a chain reaction. Good begets new well, and evil has more evil. At the root of every human activity that can be qualified as morally good or bad is an idea either by or contrary to the moral law. From the thought arises or is released a statement, an impulse, a movement, which manifests itself at one time indeed, at another in word. Every act has its consequences; every word has its repercussions; if a man can direct the course of his thoughts, if he can control his passions and passions, if he holds his action by reason and rules over it by will, his word can bring joy and happiness to men. Men can benefit much from their acts.

But if a man becomes the plaything of his passions and passions, if the dark forces of the evil veil the vision of his reason with mist and paralyze the power of his will, then the evil of his words may grow pain and sorrow, then the fruit of his deeds may be shame and fear, misery and death.

Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great, who wanted to destroy the little Jesus after his birth in Bethlehem. He received an inheritance of rule over Galilee and Transborder from his father. He drove his lawful wife away from him when he met Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. He lured her away from him. He entered into a sinful, adulterous affair with her. John the Baptist sharply rebukes him, “You shall not live with your brother’s wife” (Mk 6:19). Though he exploded with violent anger against John, Antipas knew how to control himself. He did not have him killed immediately because he was afraid of John since it was known that he was a righteous and holy man. He had him imprisoned in the dungeon under his castle, Marchers. Herodias was Herod’s niece, for she was the daughter of Aristobulus, who was also the son of Herod the Great and whom his father had murdered. Herodias was the wife of Philip, also a son of Herod the Great. Salome was their daughter. She was about nineteen years old when she demanded the head of John the Baptist as a reward for her dancing.

The Bible does not give the name of Herodias’ daughter Salome. It is known from Jewish Antiquities, written by the Greek historian Josephus Flavius. Herod was a terrible murderer. Herod Antipas and Herodias and his daughter Salome came from his school. John must have reckoned that only severe punishment could await him for such an admonition to Herod and his illicit wife. He was waiting for the opportunity: when, where, and how. Similar things have happened more than once in history. Today, we especially remember that both John and Christ loved the truth and the good above all things. It is Friday. Remembering the death of the Lord Jesus. Judas, not Salome, betrayed Jesus. Her mother induced Salome—Judas by the desire for money.
What does this mean for us? We need to embrace what Jesus and John the Baptist loved: truth and goodness. This is the surest victory. John successfully fulfilled his mission as a prophet, Jesus the Redeemer and Savior of the world. Let us ask the Divine Heart of Jesus for the strength to persevere in good until the end of our lives.

We know from the Old Testament how God showed His power over Pharaoh when He would not release the Jewish people from Egyptian bondage. The last plague was brutal for them. The angel of death killed all the firstborn of both people and animals in the houses whose doors were not marked with the lamb’s blood. In remembrance of the rescue of the firstborn Jews, every firstborn son was considered the property of God. Therefore, on the 40th day after the birth of a baby boy, they carried the child to Jerusalem, placed him in the hands of the priest, and by the passing of the prescribed sacrifice, redeemed the son. This amounted to 5 shekels, the wages of five days’ work. There was also one more church ceremony at that time – the purification of the child’s mother. On that occasion, the mother was obliged to bring the sacrifice of a lamb, and if she did not have this, it was sufficient to get the gift of two turtledoves or pigeons. Mary and Joseph brought a pair of turtledoves, proving inferior. In every parish, some people regularly attend Mass and other liturgical reverences. This was also the case in the Jerusalem temple. Many of the Jews, when they heard the sound of the trumpets, which called like our bells to the temple, left their work and went to pray. It is true that the Jerusalem Temple was large and had specific laws, both liturgical and orderly, as to who could stay where. Women were separated from men. It is in this context that we read of Simeon and Hannah. They were among the faithful to God. In return, by God’s permission, they were granted the grace to see the Redeemer already here on earth. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Simeon made a prophecy to Mary about her co-suffering with her Son. We understand the words that Joseph and Mary returned with the child to Nazareth to mean that Matthew is not recounting events such as the flight into Egypt. When Luke writes, the Gospel of Matthew is already familiar to believers. Therefore, he is not telling what we already know from Matthew, but he immediately writes that after all these events, they returned to Nazareth.

The feast tells us about the significant events in the lives of Jesus and Mary. This has given rise to various conjectures about whether today’s feast is the feast of the Virgin Mary or the Lord Jesus. Today’s feast is not commanded. We consider today’s feast to be the feast of the Lord because the Lord Jesus shows us faithfulness to the commands of His Father, who ordered the sacrifice to the nation through Moses. Jesus has become like us in everything except sin, fulfilling the law. The Virgin Mary gave today’s feast a Marian character in that she likewise did the will of God the Father. This feast is one of the oldest in the Church. After the silencing of persecution in the 4th century, the candlelight procession in Rome is mentioned. The content of today’s feast is that the Lord Jesus as a child, is brought into the temple, ending the priesthood of the Old Testament and beginning a new priesthood in him and through him. For a thousand years now, with a procession of lighted candles, the Church has remembered the words of Simeon: “…. light for the enlightenment of the Gentiles” (Lk 2:32).
Today’s symbolism of light draws our attention to the example and following of Jesus, especially when today’s celebration takes place in the evening and solemnly in a procession with lighted candles. Today’s symbolism of light draws our attention to the pattern and following of Jesus, especially as today’s celebration takes place in the evening and solemnly in a procession with lighted candles. Today’s feast is also called the Feast of – Our Lady of the Thunder. This feast is known in many countries of the world. We invoke Our Lady as a protector in times of trouble. In the past, it often happened that fire caused many misfortunes, especially when lit with candles. Our Lady was entrusted with this light. Also, many accidents were caused by lightning. If long ago, the custom was adopted that today the candles lit in disasters were blessed, and by their light, the faithful prayed and asked for protection to Our Lady of Thunder.
Today we shine electric lights, and our dwellings are protected by lightning rods. However, this is no reason to say that what was in the past was superstition; today, this feast is losing its significance. On the contrary, today, we ask Jesus and Mary for help in even worse disasters and storms. The candles we bless today will remind us by their light of the closeness and presence of Jesus and Mary in our prayers. Today marks 40 days since we experienced the feast of peace and love in the family circle. Today, we, especially children, cannot imagine a Christmas tree without colored electric candles. When the family prays together, it is the candle and it’s light that can help us to focus, to enter into the presence of God, and to enhance our conversation with God. In prayer, we recognize, like Simeon and Anna, our God. We are to approach prayer with as much self-evidence and faithfulness to God as Mary and Joseph did their duties to the Law. Today, we realize that a good Christian is not to forget his responsibilities to his soul. We do not encounter the excuse that Herod was reaching out to their child with Mary and Joseph. They fulfill everything faithfully and conscientiously.

We realize that the words of Simeon are already being fulfilled today, “He is appointed for the fall and the rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which they will resist.” (Lk 2:34). The disobedience of the commands, the public rejection of God’s laws, is temporal. Jesus is unrecognized, denied, and mocked. The second prediction of Simeon is fulfilled: “And a sword shall pierce your soul.” (Luke 2:35).

And today, we see a genuine reverence for Mary and the public and open attacks against her mission in the Church. A part of the faithful is available to God. Although not every day, as Church law determined on Sundays and commanded feast days, they participate in Holy Mass or Church events. The other part of the faithful ignores the spiritual life. Judgment is left to Christ. But those who knowingly and willingly deny the light of Christ’s teachings here on earth must reckon with the words of Jesus, who speaks of darkness and pain for those who have despised the invitation to the wedding feast, or have mistaken the wedding garment in their lives for something unimportant and secondary. The lighted candle in our hands is an address to us from Mary and Jesus that the light of grace in our hearts not be extinguished. It is a call to each of us to be a model, an example, and an encouragement in our lives.

In one stadium where a liturgical celebration was taking place, the preacher asked the organizers to turn off all the lights during the sermon. The stadium went dark. The preacher then lit one candle. He asked those present if they could see it. Those on the other side answered yes. They saw a small light. Then the preacher invited all those who had a match, lighter, torch, or different light to light it. The darkness in the stadium disappeared. The more sources they landed, the more light there was. Finally, the preacher remarked, -This is the way it should be in our society. When one shines by a good example, others will see it. If we all strive to do this, the darkness of unbelief and sin in our environment will be transformed into the pleasant light of peace and love.

And something like this is what today’s feast – the Presentation of the Lord – wants to remind us of today. Let us sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of our souls. Let us offer our examples for the encouragement in faith for our neighbors. On today’s feast, Mary and Jesus invite us to follow them with our light of good Christian living. And this is what our young friends need today. They require it more than perhaps we adults think. Our young people will not settle for platitudes, words without deeds, but for the examples of our lives. And they are right.

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Until a few decades ago, we might have had the feeling that the world was a more or less understandable place, and we could lean on the unquestioned certainties of three-dimensional space, solid matter, and fixed time. Twentieth-century physics, however, has led us astray and looking at an open book, the reader is not sure whether he is reading from a science fiction story. At the end of the twentieth century, it was clear that the universe was a far more remarkable place than we could ever have suspected and that things were far more complex than our everyday experience suggested.
With the development of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, it became apparent that only a tiny fraction of dimensions behave reasonably and customarily: the world at distances minimal and very large is very different. It acts very differently from the world we grew up in, the world of our spaces. The certainties have broken down for us: masses are full of empty places, the room has all kinds of strange twists and turns, and the clocks always point differently in different areas. Everything is different! A solid mass and in small distances, all sorts of boils and bubbles resemble a stormy sea of boiling foam. The black holes are somehow encapsulated in space, space can be torn like a sponge for washing, and there are many more dimensions than our usual four. My hands are now writing this text; they are not material but bundles of dancing strings. Man on Earth suddenly seems like a settler who emerges from his comfortable cottage, where he is warm and light and finds a storm raging outside and angels flying and dancing fairies. The world is very different from what we imagined! We live in a kind of quiet bubble of space-time: at high speeds, great masses, and distances large or small, everything is different.
I think contemporary physics has vastly outstripped the imagination of science fiction writers: reality is more interesting than the best science fiction story. The more physicists investigate the Big Bang Theory and the initial parameters of the universe, the more unexpected conclusions they come to if just one of the many constants had a slightly different value than it does; neither galaxies, stars, nor we would ever have come into existence. The probability of the initial parameters being “correctly” set is so tiny as to be almost zero. Except that’s precisely what happened. To somehow avoid the problem, astrophysicists define the so-called anthropic principle. One and its form says that the universe must be so to live in it. Maybe there are many universes somewhere where the constants are set. Differently, no one will ever know because life cannot exist in them (at least in that form, as we know it). Because we are here, the universe must look like this. It’s strange: because of people on a tiny planet, a small galaxy, the universe looks the way it does.
Since the Middle Ages, our cosmic self-consciousness has somehow faded. It was generally assumed that the center of the universe was the Earth, around which everything revolves, figuratively and literally. Galileo Galilei and Nicholas Copernicus made it clear that the center of the universe is the sun. In 1750 Tho  Wright discovered that the Milky Way at the night sky is our view inside the galaxy we are apart from. Today, we know that we and our solar system are stumbling somewhere nearly this galaxy. It was probably the philosopher Immanuel Kant who first 1755 wrote that at least some of the nebulae we see in the sky are circular disks about the same size as our galaxy. Today, we know millions of galaxies like ours in the universe. They form clusters and superclusters of galaxies that are also in the universe very irregularly distributed as if they were imaginary walls of some unimaginably large spatial cell. We know that the universe is not infinite but can hardly imagine its size. To Immanuel Kant, who marveled at the starry sky above him, with whom he recalled one clear night at the opposite end of the planet, in Antar …on the other side of Antarctica. I wish you could experience the feeling of the limitless depth of space when, on a solitary walk, I suddenly had the impression that I was standing upside down and seeing the starry sky below me, looking into the endless depths of a universe that had no bottom.
It is sometimes a valuable warm-up for our healthy humility to try to look at our galaxy from somewhere very far away until it looks like a blurry speck in space: then we can more easily grasp the comicality of all dictators and our lust for power. Carl Capek, in his play; From the Life of Insects, he develops a battle of ants in a poisonous scene: they fly orders and big words about glory as we are used to them from our human wars. Only later does the viewer realize that the whole war is being fought over a piece of forest land, over a single blade of grass. Too bad Capek didn’t live to see the Hubble telescope.

Doctors often talk about the need for faith and trust of the patient towards the doctor. Practice says that wounds heal sooner in such a case, and recovery is significantly shortened. However, we also know of issues that cannot be explained other than by stating that it cannot be explained, that science cannot prove it, that the disease was and is not. The slide confirmed that, and suddenly, it’s not there. Often an incurable illness is cured… We can read about this in Lourdes, Beacon of the Atomic Age. We, believers, speak of the miraculous, doctors say of incomprehensible cures, and Jesus in this Gospel admonishes, “Do not be afraid, just believe!” (Mk 5:36).

We are made to live, not to die. Two stories from this Gospel bear witness to this. The Lord Jesus consistently leads people to himself. Recently, he calmed a storm at sea with a single word before the eyes of the apostles, and now he does the same when he heals a sick woman and raises the dead girl of the synagogue leader. In all cases, we see that Jesus shows his power not only in word but also indeed, that he is Lord of life and death. This is not made any easier by the doubt that the sick woman and the synagogue ruler acted in a spirit of faith that can be said to move mountains but would not have been sufficient if the Lord Jesus had not accepted it and responded to it with His power. Faith received and confirmed by the Lord Jesus works miracles.

The faith of the sick woman and the synagogue ruler’s daughter should encourage us. We also see the helplessness of the man who did all in his power and did not achieve the desired result. He was left with God and His intervention. All that is needed is to believe and trust Jesus. To live daily in practice the truth that the Book of Wisdom speaks of, “For God created man for incorruptibility, he made him in the image of his likeness; but by the envy of the devil death has come into the world: he will be tried by those who are his prey.” (Wis. 2:23-24).

Let us trust God! Jesus is more powerful than death, for that is what He came into the world to do, to give us God-given life. This was fulfilled by both the woman and the man of the Gospel. To explain to the woman, Jesus said that her healing had much more profound meaning and the cause of that healing went to the bottom of God’s mercy. For it rests on man’s boundless trust in God. Jesus himself confirmed this when he said to the woman, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be healed of your sickness” (Mk 5:34). The Lord Jesus rarely gave people such a testimony.

As we reflect on this woman’s healing, we realize that it was a boon for the woman and our encouragement and edification because it touches each one. Through these events, we gain the assurance that we can ask Jesus for anything if we ask with confidence and with great surrender to his will.

We often wonder why God does not hear us…? Let us ask ourselves: What faith fills us? With what religion do we approach the matter at hand? What else is lacking in our confidence? Is there trust persistent prayer? Are we genuinely convinced that only Jesus and anyone else can help us? Let us nurture in ourselves, spread around us such a witness of faith, and eventually, we will be convinced of the love of Jesus.

The second miracle of this Gospel concerns the same virtue, although it shows it from a different side. The synagogue ruler’s closest friends undermine his faith. They say: “Your daughter is dead; why do you still kidnap the teacher?” (Mk 5:35). Who knows how the matter would have ended had Jesus not been there to tell him with all authority: “Do not be afraid, just believe!” (Mk 5:36).

Let us consider that in such situations, faith can be destroyed thanks very quickly to others through unwise or unwise actions or words. Jesus at that moment seemed to be saying to Jairus: She died for them, but not for you! I will prove to you that she did not die but is asleep. Believe me! Jesus’ real action is directed toward encouraging Jairus to believe rather than performing the miracle of raising the dead. We see that faith is more important to Jesus than the dead man.

Let us realize that there will be no resurrection if we do not have faith. If faith prevails, life will triumph over death, and that is certain! So it was with Jairus. His faith prevailed.

Mark says: Jesus took the girl by the hand and said: “Talitha Kum!”, which means, “Girl, I say to you, get up!” (Mk 5:41). In these words is the power and might of the Lord Jesus. Jesus does not perform miracles for spectacle or external popularity to notice outward signs. Still, we may have a foothold to the substance of the matter in external things. That is that we may believe that Jesus has brought victory over death into the world. He – Jesus got to a sad, desperate, or hopeless humanity himself as the greatest gift: the gift of life. He and no one else!

How beautiful it is to realize that we have such a great Teacher. And not only that but whoever lives in him has such a significant meaning in life. Life without end.

We witness that many people struggle to live a worthy and profoundly religious life even today. We see that more than in the past, many are taking the time to attend Mass more regularly on weekdays, and they are also taking the Eucharist with them. On the other hand, a growing number of those publicly ridicule everything to do with God and consider themselves clever and wise even though they do not understand it.

They are the ones who would smile even today when listening to the Gospel. The Gospel tells of a man who is healed of an unclean spirit. Surprising are the words of the unclean spirit who says: “My name is Regiment, for we are many.” (Mk 5:9).

The events that follow only confirm these words of the devil. Jesus allowed them to enter the pigs grazing nearby, and they collapsed into the sea. There were about two thousand of them. What this passage is trying to tell us is this: The power of evil is great, but Jesus has an even greater ability to destroy evil because he is the Son of God. We see this in other places when he says to the woman, “Great is your sins, but go and sin no more.” (Jn. 8:11). She was forgiven much because she loved them much. This passage is also meant to alert us to the multitude of sins.

Proverbs says that sin makes sin worse. We are often persuaded that if one is not careful, one sin follows another as if a sack of them had been torn open. It is necessary for us, then, when an offense against God occurs, to get our relationship with Him in order as soon as possible and not to put things off until later or to make light of things.

One’s conscience may become dulled, or one may fall into an undesirable habit, which will not add to one’s joy, quite the contrary. We must take seriously not only the seriousness of sin but also its number, for this is what the doctrine of the Sacrament of Reconciliation also leads us to do, to say at the sacrament not only the sin, especially all grave sins, but also the number of them. We must realize the impact that one grave sin has on our salvation, and all the more so must we recognize the multitude of serious evils.

This is what the gospel is meant to bring to our attention. The man who typifies the condition of every man after sin is possessed by a multitude of devils, tempters. Mark says of this man that he ran opposite Jesus out of the tomb because he was living in these unworthy places, and even the chains did not help him, which means that he has lost all self-control, that he can no longer command himself, he is all in the hands of the tempter. But there will come times when even such an unfortunate man will realize his pitiful condition. We see this in his conversation with Jesus, to whom he says: “I adjure you by God, do not torment me!” (Mk 5:7).

One can encounter Jesus in many ways: whether it is an encounter with a person who lives in sanctifying grace or whether one comes into contact with a religious object and experiences pain, outright agony, at the thought of God. He sees what he has lost and what an unhappy state he has fallen into. But he has no strength to go back.

But we are to prevent this condition:
– by frequent holy confession
– by examining conscience
– by abandoning the near occasion of sin
– but we also must pray for hardened and unrepentant sinners. They can no longer help themselves.

Let us remember that our prayer is never in vain. Even if the remedy is not immediately visible, let us not be discouraged. In such a case, the words of the Lord Jesus are especially true: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent have taken possession of it.” (Mt 11:12).

Let us, therefore, conquer not only for ourselves but also for our brothers and sisters who need the grace of forgiveness, tears of repentance, and the power of improvement. We will then rejoice like the healed man of today’s Gospel. He wanted to follow Jesus, but Jesus gave him other advice: “Go home to your own and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.” (Mk 5:19).

Every return to Jesus should only make us glad. We should not behave as the owners of the pigs behaved. They saw only their material decline, and so they begged Jesus to depart from them. They fear for their other possessions…, perhaps. Let this story lead us to think that even many sins are a great evil.

Jesus often uses parables to explain something more complex and abstract, which will help the audience understand things better and faster. He most typically uses parables from peasant backgrounds because they were familiar to the listeners from their everyday lives.

In today’s Gospel, using the parable of the grain, he masterfully explained God’s Word. These parables concern the growth of a seed. The first was about a seed that grew on its own. The second concerns the harvest. As the apostles listened to the second parable, they could look into the future with the eyes of faith and see the century-old tree of God’s kingdom – the Church, which, like a bristly tree, will be branched out over the whole world. We know that this mustard seed is the smallest of all.

Christ and His twelve apostles grow through the centuries and gradually become mossy trees. We wonder that that little group in an unknown land, Palestine, without education, will penetrate the whole world, and today the Church is spoken of as a gigantic grouping of believers, of which there are nearly one billion on earth. This is all the more strange when we remember the words of the Lord Jesus, who advises the apostles not to take with them a purse, nor a bag, nor two dresses, nor sandals, nor money in their wallet, but to go and proclaim His words.

The results are modest at first. The seed grows slowly. The church grows quietly, unobtrusively, modestly. But this seed is potent. It cuts through the hard rock of the Pharisees; it is not destroyed by the heat of persecution, hunger, and the thirst for oppression and violence. It grows; it takes root even in environments where it is resisted, where it is not welcome.

Let us remember the first century of persecution up to the Edict of Milan in 313. The emperor’s soldiers, servants, close relatives are believers. The grain is beginning to show itself as a healing force in society. Even though many want to kill it, it is winning to suppress it. One dead seed begets ten more. These parables contradict those who want to see immediate success in the apostolate, the multitude who wish to hold the fruit in their hands. Working with the grain of God’s Word is very arduous, and in addition, time must be taken into account. We know that with God, who is eternal and without beginning or end, there are no concepts of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. When it comes to the kingdom of God, we must take this into account as well. Paul instructs, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” (1 Cor. 3:6).

There have always been, and even today, those who do not like the Church and want it to disappear. But where are those who gave minted money to honor the death of the Church? Where are those who, during the French Revolution, sang songs of praise in honor of the end of the Church? Where are the persecutors of the Church? They are not there. Their names are mentioned only as a deterrent. The Church is here! It is still young, alive, and enjoying its growth. History often tells us that the faith had to live long in the ground. When the sun of liberty shone, it surprised even the greatest enemies.

It does not tell us to be pessimistic. It does not serve us well to be hopeless, despairing, and fearful. For to us, the words of the Lord Jesus are valid: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Jesus lives! He said this of Himself, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies” (Jn 11:25). These words gave strength to the believers when they went to the scaffold for Christ. Many went with a smile; young people, mothers with children, because their faith was firm, and they surrendered themselves to Jesus with devotion and in humility.

This part of the Gospel is full of optimism. We are to remember that the Kingdom of God is built up by good works, by humble self-reflection, because here too we are to remember the words of Jesus that the first shall be last and the last first, but also the words that the Kingdom of God is prepared for the least of these, that is, for the little ones of the Lord Jesus, who have kept their hearts pure. Therefore, let us also learn from nature. Let us take lessons from the works of God the Creator, and we will understand much.