predication.net

In his book On Modern Inventions, Martin Buber writes: A rabbi once said to his audience: “There is nothing in this world that we cannot learn from.” The listener reacted skeptically and wanted to test his teacher, so he asked him: “And what can I learn from the railroad?” “That a man can miss a lot if he misses the right moment!” But the listener was still not satisfied: “And what from the telegraph, for instance?” “That every word is counted and accounted for.” The listener made one last attempt, “And what can be learned from the telephone?” “That one hears there what is said here,” said the rabbi.

We are listeners of Jesus Christ. What can we learn from our Master? Mark writes: “Early in the morning, right at dawn, he got up and went out. And he went out into the morning, and went up early, and went out into the morning, and went to the deserted place, and there he prayed.” (Mk 1:35). The Lord Jesus must have helped many people. We can sense this from the words of the Gospel, though it is not in the state as described by Mark, who contented himself with a mere remark: “And he healed many that were troubled with divers diseases, and cast out many evil spirits…” (Mk 1:34).

We know that the Lord Jesus did not desire or seek recognition from men. On the contrary, he often strictly forbade the healed not to tell anyone about it. He was only interested in the person who needed His help. Jesus, however, cares not only for the body but also for the soul of man. We see that He longs to get into the human soul through the healed body. We know that there are those among us “believers” who will say of themselves, “I am not a bad person. I don’t get angry with anybody; I don’t talk badly, I don’t steal…, so why should I pray, go to Mass, or go to confession?”

Let’s look again at the actions of Jesus. He did good works, healed, raised the dead… He was God, and we read further that He also took the time to glorify His Father, with whom He is equal. He didn’t need it, yet He gives us an example by doing so. Finding time even to glorify God, pray regularly, attend Mass, or approach the sacraments. We want to imitate the life of Christ in all things. So, we are not only to find time to help our neighbor, serve him, and visit him but let us not forget spiritual help. Let us help the sick body, but let us not forget to relieve the suffering soul. Helping the ill body is often rewarded with words of appreciation and other praises, but often hidden prayer is not rewarded by the neighbor. Nor do we long for a reward for spiritual help; on the contrary, let us rejoice that no one knows about it but our Father, and He will reward our efforts. We believe in just reward and punishment, so let us not be tempted by the reward here on earth, which is very small and weak.

We see Jesus leaving Capernaum for the surrounding towns to continue there. He doesn’t want glorification from people; He does everything for the higher things. He finds time for others. Let us help them materially, but let us not forget the spiritual, especially prayer, even if others do not appreciate it, if they consider it a waste of time, or do not believe in it at all. Let us encourage ourselves at this Mass so that we may not lose the joy of this activity, of which Jesus Himself gave us the example.

The Rabbi, with his words, did not only encourage and explain to his audience that in all things, a believer can be encouraged in his faith, but he indeed addressed us as well.

Jesus’ public ministry begins when he is in, John the Baptist baptized him in the Jordan. While the evangelist Matthew dates this event only formally with the words “in those days,” Luke deliberately places it in the grand context of the world’s history, which allows us to establish a reasonably precise date. In truth, a kind of dating is also offered by Matthew by putting Jesus’ own words in the introduction of his gospel
genealogy. This is established as the genealogy of Abraham and David, while Jesus is presented in it as the heir of Abraham’s promise and at the same time the heir of God’s of the securities to David, to whom God – despite all Israel’s sins and all of God’s punishments – promised
eternal kingdom. According to this genealogy, history is divided into three times fourteen generations – fourteen being the numerical value
David’s name: the period from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonian exile, followed by one more period of fourteen generations. Also, in this period, the fact that there are fourteen more generations shows that the hour of the definitive David has come, the restoration of the Davidic kingdom in terms of the provision of God’s domain. Since the addressees of Matthew’s Gospel were Christians of Judaism, this genealogy is compiled by Jewish salvation history and world history to consider indirectly, since the kingdom of the definitive David’s kingdom as the kingdom of God, of course, concerns the world as a whole. The specific dating thus remains vague since even the calculation of generations is not compiled according to the historical structure but according to the three phases of the promise, and it is not intended to provide precise time coordinates. Let us note at once that Luke does not place Jesus’ genealogy at the beginning of the Gospel but connects it to the baptism narrative as its conclusion. He tells us that Jesus was about thirty years old at that time; that is, he had reached an age that would qualify him for public ministry. In contrast to Matthew, Luke proceeds in his genealogy from Jesus towards earlier history. Abraham and David are here appeared without particular emphasis. The genealogy goes back as far as Adam, even back to creation, for Adam Luke adds: who was from God. This establishes Jesus’ Jesus’ universal mission: he is the son of Adam – the son of man. Because of his humanity, we all belong to him, and he belongs to us; in him, society begins anew and comes to its fulfillment.

We have seen how weak our human word is many times in our lives. We cry for help, but our voice cannot break through the room’s walls; it dies in the air after a few meters. No one hears us, and our cry is powerless. We fail in our work, get angry, shout, command, and our words are worthless. Nothing moves, not even the leaves on the tree. But it is even more challenging for our terms to penetrate when they are meant to penetrate another person’s heart. How often it happens that you say something good to your child, you beg him, you promise him, you command him – and he does nothing! Our words come back to us like an echo.

But the opposite can also happen. The child’s sincere pleas bounce helplessly off the parents’ stern selfishness. And it is against this background that the power of God’s word shines through.

The Gospel tells of teaching that has power, at which all present were amazed. In the synagogue of Capernaum, Jesus proved his teaching by his deed when he frees a man from an unclean spirit. The main point of this Gospel passage is the concept of power. Jesus’ power was demonstrated in word and deed. The focus is not on the possessed, but on Jesus, to whom the possessor himself points: ‘I know who you are: Son of God”.

This is how the prophet, who is later associated with the figure of the awaited Messiah, was identified in the Old Testament. In Jesus’ case, word and deed form a unity. Paul later writes of this to the Corinthians, “My speech and my preaching consisted not in persuasive and wise words, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and power, so that all faith should not be based on human wisdom but the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:4-5). Therefore, it is not what Jesus taught and did that matters, but who He is.

If our word is so weak, where does our life, the whole human race, indeed the entire world, get its strength and permanence? There must be the mighty Word of God by which all things were made and which governs all things. God reveals Himself to His people as strong in the world, as powerful in history. The greatest manifestation of his power is his love. In love, the power of God’s word is revealed. Such was also one of his disciples’ first experiences of the gospel. The term of Jesus has power over nature, disease, unclean spirits, sin, and death. That is why everyone was amazed at how powerful this new teaching was.

We today do not marvel at the amazement of those present. Today, two millennia later, when we see the entire long chain of those who have accepted the teachings of Jesus and have come to know the power and strength of his words, we are happy to be among those who have received this knowledge of his love. To this numberless line, we indeed belong. The gospel, heard with benefit, is meant to make a difference in practice – in our thoughts, words, and deeds. We know that Jesus cannot save us without us, though he died for us and redeemed us. He needs our cooperation. We have the kind of Teacher who unbelievers sincerely envy—a Teacher who has confirmed the truth and value of His words with His own life. History tells us that those who trust in Jesus’ teachings were not disappointed. Though many died for the teachings of Jesus, they received an eternal reward. Though many were persecuted for Jesus’ sake, they overcame. Why? Because they were taught by the One who has power without beginning and end.

Let us pray, brothers and sisters, that today’s Word of God may penetrate our hearts, brighten what was cold, bring light where there was already darkness, strengthen the hopeless, and so we too may witness the teaching that has power. Amen.

We can understand this more easily in ordinary life in ordinary life, we can understand this more easily, so let us be encouraged by it.

When a father, a mother says something profound to her child, they do it because they love them, they don’t want anything wrong for their children, they only want their happiness, joy, and contentment. They do not prevent them from enjoying; on the contrary, by their solemn word, they want to increase their satisfaction; they want to give them even more. The text of the Gospel goes on to say that after saying these words, Jesus stops by Simon and his brother Andrew and says to them: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” and then we read, “They immediately left their nets and followed him” (Mk 1:17-18). But we know that they die happy. We know this from their lives, from the Gospel, that after graduating from the school of Jesus, which was not easy at all, when they want to crucify Peter on one of the Roman hills, like his Master Jesus, he asks his murderers to crucify him upside down because he does not feel worthy to die like his Master. Jesus also calls John and his brother James the sons of Zebedee, and they leave their father and the hired laborers behind and follow Jesus. John was still a child, yet he understood. He made the most of his time and life in his old age. The other apostles were dead. As an older man, he writes the Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse to give us an example so that we too will take Jesus’ words seriously.

Let us willingly open our inward parts to Jesus and remove all evil from them. Today, Jesus wants us to do this, and we promise to do everything we can to withdraw from the corners of our hearts everything that prevents Jesus from taking possession of the whole of us. We can also be encouraged to do this by the example of our brother who said to me at carol time: “Worthy Sir, my confession last year, which I made years later, has made me so happy that I have not committed a single grave sin this year.” He said this publicly in the circle of his family. Indeed, it was true, for the whole family had experienced it with him. However, he added: “I had a hard time coming to this decision.”

Let us also accept this word of encouragement and do what the Lord Jesus wants us to do: Let us repent and believe the Gospel.

None of us is born with innate knowledge. In the beginning, we only can know. This capacity develops in our encounter with this world through the senses, through sensory expertise from which the mind selects and forms analytical knowledge in terms of judgments. This is also true of the knowledge of God through encounters and in the meeting with this world to which we belong. This does not mean that we know God as we know all the other things of the world. As the immediate object of knowledge. God is neither an object nor a part of this world. We know God against the background of all that exists. In every single act of learning, we are not only capturing a random concrete thing, but we are also capturing the absolute existence of God. Man does not stop in cognition, at any particular thing, but knows it as limited, not fulfilling all our capacity for understanding. We are open to the infinite, to the absolute. God is not the object of our knowledge. He is more. He is not immediately accessible to us. He is a mystery to us. He is near to us and yet far away. The man knows not only the particular objects which science reveals to us, but he also knows the limitlessness of his knowledge, which cannot stop, but aims ever onward and is directed towards the infinite Absolute. Why does a man keep asking, and why does he keep seeking. He who has once asked a question about transcendence cannot leave it unanswered. Everything of the visible world that we grasp in mind is understood by reason and expressed in words. The word then sounds the thing known to us and becomes a means of understanding. We have said that we do not know God immediately like a tree or the stars, yet we conceive God and express it in words, so everyone knows what we are talking about. Even the atheist uses the word God and cannot avoid it. We find the very mention of God in all peoples. We use God to denote the infinite mystery of the world, the secret consciously before which we stand as before the scent mystery of our own life. If the word God, by which we express the ultimate unity of the world, ceased to exist, man would cease to be a man. He would go back and become a wise animal. Man is man precisely because he has not remained standing on one step, neither by the fire nor by the wedge, but has developed, thought, pondered, and questioned the meaning of it all as a whole. Who knows, but perhaps it is conceivable that humanity would die a collective spiritual death. And we are transformed into some unheard of the wise animal. After all, man exists as man only by questioning the meaning of everything. Does modern man ask himself these questions? It’s terrible, but many people don’t. For them, it is essential to have the material necessities of life provided for. If they have these necessities, they are satisfied. If not, they are dissatisfied, and revolutions follow. Chesterton wrote. Trees believe in nothing. Camels have no articles of faith. Ants have no problems with the meaning of life. Don’t these words apply to modern man? Or am I wrong? Answer…

Feast of the Epiphany – Three Kings (G+M+B)
God makes Himself known to us (Mt 2:1-12)
It is not enough that only God makes Himself known to us, but we are also to discover God.

Those who wonder about the content of today’s feast need only to take more notice of its title that Jesus, our Savior, is gradually revealing Himself to people to draw us to Himself. That it is not so easy on our part, the story tells us:

Each is speaking a different language, a group of people argued about what language God was saying. Of course, everyone claimed that it was his language because they had always talked to God only in their language. Then a little boy came up to them and said: “God does not speak, he is silent, his works speak of him…”

St. Jerome said: “He who does not know the Scriptures does not know Christ.”

The wise men from the East asked: “Where is the newborn king? We saw his star in the east and came to worship him.” (Mt. 2:2).

Only the Evangelist St. Matthew describes the event we commemorate today. He wrote his Gospel for Palestinian Christians, for Jews who had embraced Christianity. The Evangelist also addresses the problem that troubled the early Christians, why the Jews did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. He does this with the intention that it was not the early priests or even the nation’s leaders, but the wise men from the East who sought the Child, God, Jesus Christ. We don’t know if there were three. The Gospel says they were wise men, learned especially in astronomy, and, probably, they knew the books of the Jews, for they knew of the predictions that spoke of the birth of the future king. We do not know where their homeland was. We do not know their names; only tradition says Gaspar, Melichar, and Balthasar. The Gospel says that they set out to find the star that would bring them to Jerusalem. They must have been rich. The gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which they carried with them, were not merely symbolic, as some have attributed virtues to them: faith, hope, and love, but were expressions of appropriate royal respect.

What is to be noticed about the wise men from the East? They sought the truth. For the sake of fact, they would leave their homeland and embark on a journey into the unknown. The search for truth has always been arduous and risky. Who can find it in his strength?
The priests in Jerusalem knew about the predictions, they had seen the star, but they were afraid of Herod; they did nothing for the truth. Instead, as Jesus said of himself: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (Jn. 14:6), these seekers say this about Jesus by their behavior.
In the Child, they recognize the One to whom the star has led them. It was not simple and easy. We know that Mary placed Jesus in a manger for the cattle. To find in the cradle in the stable the King of Kings, of whom the writings speak of long ago, and at whose birth there are also natural phenomena, does not make this condition and the place of the appearance of the Child easier, on the contrary, it makes it more difficult. Indeed this encounter gave them expiation for the time spent studying over the books, the extended travels, the search, and other difficulties. God is an excellent mystery that man will never penetrate with his reason. The Child of God, Jesus, is above all speculation.

We are asked to accept this Child as our Lord and God humbly. The event of the appearance of the Lord wants to tell us that our God is the only, living, authentic God to whom nothing and no one can be compared. Our God is only one, and there is no other God besides Him. Our God rightly demands what is due to him: reverence, love, and gratitude because he is the beginning of all things and the end of all things. Our God is the “Alpha and the Omega.” God has manifested Himself as one God in three divine persons. God the Father as Creator, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten and not made, as Redeemer and Savior. And God the Holy Spirit as the love that proceeds from the Father to the Son and from the Son to the Father. We don’t know where the wise men – the kings – from Bethlehem. We know nothing more about their life journeys. But we do know that our life does not end with death. Although we do not know the day or the hour of our death, we have revealed that judgment awaits us. We will be judged by the Son of God, to whom the Father has passed review because of his death and passion, by which he reconciled God to men. And by Jesus the Judge, we will be justly rewarded or punished. It follows, and Jesus has taught us in this, that the human soul, which the human body hides, is immortal. And the Church has been given the task of watching over the teachings of Jesus Christ. As the successor of Peter the Apostle, the Pope has the infallible duty to interpret, teach, and bind his own in matters of faith and morals. In the same way, the Church teaches that “the grace of God is necessary for salvation.”

It is the duty and task of every man to know God, to love God, and to obey God’s commands. To these values, man is to be guided, adopt, and accept them as his own. Jesus, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, told who is entrusted and who is to obey to embrace eternal life. The same rights and duties are given to every man without distinction.
Today we also bring gifts to God. It is our own life. God does not want anything from us in a dictatorial way. He has given us a reason and free will. We recognize and can be convinced that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16). God not only deserves our respect but rightly demands it of us.

The example of the wise men from the East also proves this. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh are equally a gift from God, which we return to Him marked by our love, faithfulness, and devotion. It would be our misfortune to hesitate with our duty, to delay it. The following example speaks to this as well:

A “shuffling” man is making his way to church, and he thinks thus, “I will not hurry. Why? After all, the bell ringing and the introduction have no meaning anyway; it’s not important at all, as the priests say.” – “Clink, clink,” he hears the bell ring, but he shuffles calmly on. A few minutes pass, he enters the church, but to his great surprise – the church is empty. He glances at his watch to see if, by any chance, it’s stopped. “No, but it’s been a good few minutes since it started. Mass should have started a long time ago,” the shuffling little man huffed to himself. He hears a voice, “Yes, Mass did indeed start five minutes ago. Jesus came at the beginning, forgave everyone’s sins at the beginning, and took them all to heaven with him.”

Do we treat Christ and our duties like a shuffling little man or wise men from the East? The true answer can help in many ways in our search for meaning and purpose in life: to discover God, find Him in ourselves, our brothers and sisters, and in signs or material things.

And this is what today’s feast of the Epiphany, or the event of the Adoration of the Magi, leads us to do.

In our time, not only money has power, but also notoriety. It is not for nothing they say that notoriety is ready money. Many would like something similar to the Church to come to values, especially eternal life after acquaintance.

Yet, an acquaintance in one is also accurate with God. We see this in the gospel as well. When Jesus saw Nathanael coming, He said of him, “This is a true Israelite, in whom is no guile.” Nathanael asked him: “How do you know me? (Jn. 1:47-48). Meeting one another brings together people, their interests, and their lives. In the Gospel, John tells how Philip, who had already been won to Christ by Andrew, meets Nathanael, and in the excitement he feels within himself after meeting Jesus, he wants to part with Nathanael. He tells him about Jesus, who comes from Nazareth, is the son of Joseph and Mary, and Moses writes in the law. Nathanael’s demeanor or reaction to these words from Philip elicits the ironic remark, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth!” (Jn 1:46). Philip must have been clever, for he realized that he would not convince Nathanael by mere enthusiasm. Therefore, he would use Jesus’s method to convince his first two disciples. He says: “Come and see!” (Jn. 1:46) – and it worked. Nathanael does not refuse the invitation to meet Christ, which ends with Nathanael being even more enthusiastic than Philip was when he exclaims: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel!” (Jn 1:49).

What caused this radical change in Nathanael’s attitude? Nathanael did not yet have the concept of the deity of Jesus Christ that we have today, but the first words convinced him of the Lord Jesus, and Nathanael believed that Jesus must be a great prophet. We see that in a short time, Nathanael, the despised, becomes a disciple, a follower, an apostle of Jesus of Nazareth. This event tells us that our faith journeys are different. Most of us grew up in a Catholic family, in an environment where faith was handed down to us as something we took for granted. Often, in such cases, one does not have to fight for one’s faith or convictions; there are cases where true faith is lost in such an environment. Only a tradition emerges, typically lost, and even with a change of residence, employment status, or age, faith is lost altogether. But we know another way to faith. Recently, this has come to the fore in those families where religion was not lived, where God was spoken of only negatively. People are beginning to search for their faith. Often, it is, as in the case of Nathanael, that they see faith as something unhealthy and unfashionable; maybe they use ironic remarks against religion. This is the way of Nathanael.

What can faith give me in today’s modern world? I have everything; why else believe? Such and similar questions are in more than one case at the beginning. We often must realize that we do not immediately convince our brothers and sisters of such things; we do not convince them with words. They watch our lives; they compare and examine, and only then do they come to their senses, to address us, to come to try among us, to the church… We can say that it is the work of the Holy Spirit if the way to Jesus is regularly found by those who have lived outside of God and in a hostile, anti-Christ environment. In more than one case, the first encounter with Christ made such a powerful impression that one longs for a new meeting. In another case, one feels, as Nathanael did, that Jesus has known him for a long time, and he has not. There are cases where one feels the love of Jesus so handily that one wonders – what was he doing when he did not accept it before, did not want to know it…? In another case, he sought the truth and found it because he sought it sincerely. There was no fraud in it. Today’s time leads a man to skepticism, but if he does not give in to it and search, he will find it if he desires to know the truth.

Two friends are working in the office. One is a believer, and the other is only baptized. The latter, however, admires the practicing believing colleague. He often asks himself where he gets his strength; his self-control lies, for he is the opposite. The believing Christian, however, says nothing about Jesus in the workplace. After one difficult test at work, he waits for this practicing, believing colleague and asks about the source of his strength, which comes directly from his behavior. The believing Christian knows that his colleague is just a matriarchal Christian, yet he tells him: “I go to Mass every day.” What was his surprise when he saw his colleague in it the following day in church? He began to pray even more fervently for him. He saw him in church the next day and the following week. And thus, a month passed. Once again, their ward was in trouble, and this seeking Christian was out of control. After his shift, he says to his believing colleague: “I won’t come to church tomorrow morning.” That night, the believer prayed for his friend. In the morning, his surprise was even more incredible. His colleague was in church and even proceeded to the sacraments. It was not until a week later that they talked on the subject. The seeking colleague spoke: “I couldn’t sleep that night. In the evening, I was convinced I would not go to church in the morning. But I didn’t sleep the whole night. I was thinking. And I don’t know how I got up and went to church in the morning. As I entered the church, my eyes stopped on the confessional.

I don’t even know how I ended up in it. The chaplain was more worried about me. But I walked away from it with what moved me the most. Years later, I felt an inner peace and a particular strength.” Jesus knows us all. He knows about each one of us. He leads us to Himself in ways we cannot understand, in more ways than one. Likewise, he allows trials, hardships, sufferings to come upon us. But he does not test anyone beyond our strength. If we persevere, we will conquer. Living with Jesus is hard, but knowing the fruit also gives us the power to persevere. Therefore, let us be whole and complete like Nathanael to Jesus, and the words that Jesus addressed to Nathanael belong to us too: ‘You believe because I have told you: I saw you under the fig tree? Thou shalt see greater things than these.” (Jn 1:50). This is the most beautiful and confident perspective. The meaning of life and its value: Christ the Victor, Christ the King, and Christ the Leader. This is the most valuable knowledge – to have Jesus Himself known. Jesus said: “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven; there neither moth nor rust destroys them, and where thieves do not break through and steal” (Matt. 6:20).

Invitations can be in different formats and with other content. Not every invitation will cause us joy, and not every invitation will enrich us. A reasonable person must consider the invitation and reflect on it. To decline an invitation is also a grave matter, especially when we are invited by someone important, possibly to a big event. We hesitate at the beginning of many invitations or ask for time to consider our response.

We are still standing at the beginning of the year. Furthermore, we are in the first week of the year. Jesus Christ invites us to follow him in this civil year: “Follow me!” (Jn 1:43). In the Gospel, the Apostle John records his personal experience when Jesus looked at him and Andrew, who were disciples of John the Baptist, and invited them to follow him. John does not write about this encounter as a witness until later, as an elder, when he was bishop of Ephesus. It must have been a severe invitation to John because he remembers the time it took place: “It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.” (Jn 1:39). We see from the text that the Lord Jesus calls His first disciples after Him. It would seem that the word disciple is a distant address for us. But disciple means as much as Christian. It implies an invitation to follow the Lord Jesus in life. Becoming a Christian is a matter not entirely personal. We see this in the Holy Scriptures. John and Andrew become disciples at the instigation of John the Baptist, and that is when he speaks of Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God! (Jn 1:36). These words signify a teacher change from John the Baptist towards Jesus, leading them on. The encounter can also be mediated. We know that Andrew brings his brother Simon-Peter to Christ. Philip brings Nathanael to Jesus. But Jesus can also directly address a person who initially has no idea what is happening to him. Think of the tax collector Levi. He wants to see Jesus out of curiosity. So he climbs a fig tree. As Jesus passes by, he stops under the fig tree and addresses Matthew, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for I must stay in your house today.” (Lk 19:5).

The invitation to become a disciple of Christ, a Christian, is often mysterious for us, yet it is also a great grace to be cherished. It is important to remember that the invitation to come to Jesus is also the definition of a Christian. A Christian comes to Jesus. How we can come to Jesus is various, and yet in Jesus, we find our goal. In prayer, which can be different, in meditation, in the reading of the Holy Scriptures, intercessory prayer…, furthermore, when we hear the words of God and make him present in our lives. When we try to live in our lives in such a way that we do only what we would do even if Jesus were beside us, we know that in God, we live and move and have our being. We try to do only what God would do in our place. Let us try to avoid serious sins. Let us bring others to Jesus by our example. This is what it means to be a Christian and, simultaneously, to give the most beautiful response to Jesus’ invitation, “Come and see!” (Jn 1:39).

However, we benefit even more than we are obliged to do so. We know everything we do for God does not add to his greatness, holiness, and glory. He has all these in sovereign measure. All this goes to our benefit, to our profit. And may this encourage us to fulfill our duties as believing Christians even more fully and responsibly. It is sad when we respond to the invitation of a person who means well, wants to help us, shows us attention and love, with indifference, or does not accept his invitation to a good cause or a helpful meeting; how it hurts that person! Let us realize that when we do not accept the invitation of Jesus, we postpone it; we replace it with something less valuable; what an insult to God! What a sin! Can we call ourselves Christians when we do not accept Christ? Let us use the time of the first week of the new year to contact Christ. John the Baptist seems to say to us: Behold the Lamb of God. Behold your Redeemer and Savior. I have shown you the way to him.

The image of the clown and the unsuspecting villagers – how we have shown – is insufficient. We wanted to illustrate the relationship between belief and disbelief. But faith remains in the neighed world. In our introduction to Christianity, we ask the fundamental question: what does it mean when a person says: “I believe”? It is an entirely temporal question. Given the history that has become part of our consciousness and knowledge of man’s consciousness, we ask ourselves: what does the Christian confession want to express by the word “I believe” today, bearing in mind our existence and attitude towards reality? We thus arrive at an analysis of the text, forming a guide to our reflections: the Apostles’ Creed, the introduction to Christianity, and a summary of its fundamental truths. It begins clearly with the words “I believe”… We will not yet explain this word based on its content; we will not ask why the word ” I believe” appears in a certain form, with certain content, and in connection with worship. The service text and a certain content indeed mark the meaning of the word “Credo,” but the word “Credo” also carries and determines all the following and the framework of the service. We will leave both out for the moment and instead think carefully about its attitude when a Christian confesses his Credo and thus the core of Christianity, namely his faith. We often assume without thinking that “religion” and “faith” are the same thing, and that every religion is also a “faith.” But this is only true partially. The Old Testament was not referred to by the word “faith,” but the word “law.” It was a particular order of life in which the act of faith had yet to have its meaning. In the Roman religion.

The word religion meant the observance of certain ceremonial customs; belief in the supernatural may have been absent, but one was not without religion. Religion is a system of ceremonies in which careful observance is decisive. Such is the whole history of religion. This outline only indicates how little we understand when a Christian utters this basic word “Credo” when he calls his attitude to reality an attitude of faith. We are interested in the meaning the word “Credo” has. What position is meant by this word? How is it possible that the involvement of our self, the merging of our self with this “I believe,” is so difficult? How is it that our present self is so difficult to identify with the “I” of previous generations of believers? Let’s have no illusions. The creed, to transform the schematic “I” of the principle into a personal “I” with soul and body, has always been an exciting and almost impossible thing. Instead of reviving the schema with soul and body, we have become mere schematics. Perhaps the faithful will ever lament: in the Middle Ages, our countries were, after all, religious. This is not entirely true. If we look behind the scenes of history, we find that many people allowed themselves to be dragged by the environment. The number of people internally involved in the vortex was relatively small. History shows that faith was just a given system of life for many, and the real meaning of the word “believe” was as distant to them as it was to many people today. Why? Because between God and man, man can only see with his eyes what God is not, and therefore, God – an invisible being – remains and will always remain outside the field of vision of man. We cannot see Him. Man, however, moves in the space of seeing, of touching – he cognizes with his senses. But in this space of the reasons, God never appears; even if that space were expanded, I don’t know how far. This vital message about God is already essentially is in the Old Testament: God does not lie outside our field of vision so that we could see him if we walked a little further, farther away. No, God stands substantially outside our field of vision, no matter however far that field extends.

Here we see already the outlines of what the word Credo – I believe. One is not content with what one sees but seeks another approach to reality. He calls faith, and in it, he finds the decisive moment of his view of the world in general. If this is the case, the word “Credo” contains the fundamental relationship to reality. It is not a specification of this, but a fundamental attitude to being, existence, the self, and the whole. If something is invisible, it doesn’t mean it’s unreal, but the opposite, this invisible truly real carries and makes possible all other realities. What makes reality possible gives man human existence and enables his human existence. Let us put it another way: To believe is to decide for this invisible that we encounter at the core of our existence, as a point – and this invisible is at the same time necessary for our existence.