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The forgotten God.
What about those who live as if there were no God, who put all their hopes in human forces, guided by the opinions and principles of this world. We could compare them to those animals that devour the acorns on the ground and cannot lift their eyes to the hand that pours them. We are most different from animals in that they have a body inclined to the ground. Their only horizon is the edges of the ramparts from which they eat; while we have our foreheads raised to heaven, we have a mind to know God, a heart they loved, and tongue to praise him. When an accident strikes, people immediately growl against God, against his providence. But he is convinced that God’s wisdom is watching over him and leading him to a supernatural goal; nothing seems terrible about eternity. Thus arises faith in God’s providence, which has two feelings. Not to be surprised and afraid of anything that ends in this life.
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Success
Success as the primary goal of the efforts’ pursuit of Success can be exaggerated. Even so. that then we don’t care much about the meaningfulness of our efforts, but it is about to be successful at all costs.
Example: Dostoevsky described very aptly “Players.” He wanted to force Success in a risky game. How close this player is today, players at slot machines and not only at them! How many people like that blind passion and craving for Success leads to destruction!
Why is this attitude to Success the goal of all efforts? Dangerous? It carries the fear of failure, the fear of failure, mistakes, and bad luck. It leads to spasmodic tension, pinching, and overvoltage. See to stress, distress, and stress-related illnesses – to the so-called civilizational diseases (e.g., heart and circulatory diseases). One feels issued as a chance to foreign forces – e.g., by chance. Not only that. One when it happens that .. fortunately “or ..wondering” all good falls into his lap, we then discover the emptiness in the soul. Feeling dissatisfied, bored, and nonsense. One then wonders if all this – the effort, efforts, etc. – Was worth it, whether it pays to live just for Success.
A man who longs for success – in any field, he overthinks about himself. He watches too much, and then: the more he wants to succeed, the more it fails. Example: V. E. Frankl, in his logo therapy, clearly shows how a man. Who overthinks during sexual intercourse to be successful eventually fails. He identified this as one of the causes of impotence. It turned out. That there too. where he ultimately succeeds is not a feeling of complete satisfaction, but a feeling of “non-fulfillment.” I don’t have what it could or should it be.
Success as a by-product.
If we have a meaningful activity ahead of us, it is possible to do with interest and enthusiasm for her. A. Längle writes about it: .. It makes sense when something is done for the value of what is going on. Or for the person for whom set is doing. It doesn’t make sense there. Where it is done only for your Success. If we don’t care so much about it. Whether it. What we do will be successful; it brings healthy relaxation. This can dissolve a lot of stress. That will add to the person’s strength. So that he can focus entirely on the goal. Life can then be made more efficient to build. It’s fuller. One does not avoid work, but it is worth it to avoid unnecessary stress. ” Success can be built as an experience of deep joy and true happiness. There and there it is. What makes us happy, secondary product. When we go around it and take pleasure, satisfaction and success as ..gift “, which is added to us, improves our lives.
Example: If climbers manage to reach the top or athletes breaking a record – even your record – it is possible understood as proof of the meaningfulness of the effort. However, if it happens to us success goal, then failure we take as a disaster. To think about: “Failure does not mean the absurdity of our actions.” V. E. Frankl
“The meaning and purpose of an activity are not to strive for success.”Alfred Längle.
Success in itself is nothing. if it is not shared with someone. “Elisabeth Lukasz.
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Twenty-sixth Sunday B in Ordinary Time
In the Slovak film Warn! is a scene where the protagonist slips a leg in a wooden trough, after which the lumberjacks lower the wood into the valley. The leg will squat, and they can’t pull it out. From the hill you hear the call: “Warn the soul in the valley!” The loggers signal that everyone leaves the gutter. Even if the painful shout “no!” I heard from below; the already running wood cannot be stopped. Wood will certainly kill a man. Then a friend jumps in, cuts off his crossed leg with an ax, and pulls out of the trough a man who has fainted just as he flies past the wood at high speed. The man is saved but remains a disabled person.
In today’s Gospel, we hear the call of the Lord Jesus: “If your hand,. with both feet, with both eyes … to hell, where the worm does not die and the fire does not go out” (cf. Mk 9: 43-45).
The fact that these words are figurative speech must not lead to a weakening of their immense seriousness. Jesus does not mean any external mutilation that would not help anything anyway because it would keep the evil heart intact. The images with the hand, foot and eye emphasize the seriousness of the fight, which must be ruthlessly embarked on. Undoubtedly, this is such a serious matter that a war against oneself is required. We are all the more aware of the meaning of Jesus’ words when we know how much He loves sick people. In his words and deeds we see him as a Teacher who does not joke, but teaches clearly and intelligibly about man’s salvation. His words must not be manipulated. That is why we have to uncover the depth of words that are to bring a rich harvest. And all the more so when we feel the meaning of Jesus’ warning, even though the words are difficult for us to hear. As we believe in God’s kingdom, where God has prepared us a place for all eternity, we become all the more aware of the meaning of the warning contained in these words. When we believe in reward and punishment, we realize that we are decisively and freely deciding what will follow our death.
Jesus did not recall a comma from what he said. He said, “If your hand deceives you in sin, cut it off … if your foot seduces you, cut it off … and if your eye seduces you into sin, pluck it out” (Mark 9: 43,45,47). Although it is difficult to hear and even more challenging to do, one may speak of cruelty and barbarism; we still realize it is a remembrance. For example, someone gets cancer. If doctors want to save a patient’s life, they often amputate a leg, an arm … Then we don’t say no, but we realize that if they want to save a patient, it is necessary to sacrifice an arm or a leg. And this is a temporary life on earth. Will life be extended by a year, ten years? Jesus’ words point to eternal life. Life without end, life without pain, disease, death.
Words about “seduction” or “outrage” may sound harsh for our taste and may evoke the idea of bigotry, and yet when Jesus says so, words need to be heeded. If we have no problem accepting other terms of Jesus that do not apply to us today, it is necessary to realize the impact of words on life. Taking Jesus’s observations of a seductive hand, afoot, and a hot eye as sin must be accepted and acknowledged with all strength and determination. After all, it is a sin. One can hear that someone is objecting in the spirit that we are still human, and sin will always be in our lives and would be strange if it were not so. Yes, we are human, and so we are sick. That’s human. But is that a reason not to notice our diseases, not to treat them, cultivate them? After all, no one who is seriously ill will do such nonsense or promote it. And even a healthy person will not cause the disease because he knows that even a minor illness can cause more severe health problems. And precisely because we can reasonably think about the pain and illness of our body, it is necessary to pay more and more attention to and prevention of the health of our soul. The body is temporary, but the soul forever. Sin is not only something that harms this world.
Yet, we are to pass from this life to eternal life. And outrage, temptation, and sin are precisely what leads us from this path, which more or less leads us elsewhere than to the fullness of life with God. And when we remain in sin, when we succumb to temptation, when we cannot resist seduction, we close the gate of eternal life. Therefore, words about removing the hand, foot, or peeling of the eye are in place. We are more aware of absolute values than false ones. It is necessary to decide on things eternal. To prefer friendship with God to fellowship with sin.
We should realize how our divine surgeon, Jesus, is doing. We bear the difficulties of his consent, and these are for our good—mortality, restraint, self-control. If we do this with the knowledge that God’s will, we receive strengths, graces and grow in love for God. They help us get rid of mistakes, bad habits and increase in resistance to sin. It’s good that we know what we want. If you don’t see what you want, you will quickly end up where you don’t want to.
The tale of the goldfish says that one day it went out into the world. She took her six crowns and went to look for happiness. She didn’t even have to swim too far and met the trout, who asked her, “Where are you headed, fish?” “I’m swimming and looking for happiness,” the goldfish replied. “You’re lucky,” said the trout. “For only four crowns, you can buy this beautiful fin, which will swim twice as fast.” “It’s a great buy,” said the goldfish. She paid, put on her fin, and swam twice as fast as before. After a while, he got to the place where the big Sepia used to be. The goldfish immediately called out, “Goldfish, where do you plan to swim?” “I’m looking for luck,” the goldfish replied. “You just found him, little one,” Sepia said. “Look, there’s a motorbike. You can use it to swim even faster. I’ll sell it to you for less. ” The goldfish bought a motorbike for the remaining money and swam faster. Before long, she met a shark. He called to the fish, “Fish, where are you going?” “I’m looking for luck,” the goldfish replied. “You just found him. Use this shortcut, “said the shark, pointing to his wide-open mouth. “Then you’ll be there much faster.” “Thank you!” Cried the goldfish, swimming into the shark’s jaws.
Jesus warns us against false happiness. God created our eyes, hands, and feet to receive an eternal reward, not eternal punishment. Although we have to resist the temptations of sin often and hard on the road, with Jesus, our goal is specific.
In the movie Warn! The man lost his leg, but his life was saved. In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us about saving eternal life for us.
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Meaning of life
Life is full of meaning. A thousand and one episodes, which create an existence on the show, fit together into a bigger picture than pebbles
into a mosaic. Life does not lie in experiences and feelings unrelated to each other, but it is a story; life is not a state of being but a pilgrimage. Why are we here? Where are we going? We can think here about three interconnected answers.
1. God created us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life so that we may be eternally happy with Him in heaven. Of all the visible creatures on earth, only we can know and love our creator. Know and loving God is what we are supposed to do here; it is the meaning and purpose of our life on earth.
It is easy not to miss and think that loving God is only a day of aspects of life, another category of needs in addition to water skiing, or days at work, or visiting the cinema. This is not true. All our activities fit into the larger scheme of the real meaning of life: to know and love God. This is not employment or training; it is the framework and inner motivation within which we do everything else we do.
2. A complementary answer to our goal is our morality. Every one of us will die one day, and this is no morbid mouse ladybug. Death is natural and essential, and it is worthy of us they thought about her. Of course, there are many ways to look at this fact. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger would say that we are “Being directed to death.” The Epicureans, who lived roughly in the time of Christ, they adhered to the motto: “Eat, drink and have fun] because you will die tomorrow.” Our view of death will strongly influence our opinion of life and, as a consequence, our idea of what contributes to our ultimate good. If death were the actual end of our existence, our life on earth would be absurd.
Fortunately, death is not the end of existence; it is the gateway to a new life. We were created for the eternal happiness that is in its maximum intensity unattainable in this life, and in comparison with which earthly joy is only its poor reflection. Apart from eternity, life is nothing else; I blink those eyes. From this perspective, we can understand centuries-old the motto that offers us a standard for evaluating every one of things: Quid hoc ad aeternitatem? – How does this relate to eternity? Things that go away with time can’t have the same value as those that last forever.
3. The last characteristic of our human destiny is the reality of judgment. Our death is not the ultimate reality, but neither is life
there are no two unrelated facts on earth and life after death. Our life here on earth affects, and even ends, the state of our existence after death. Sir Isaac Newton assures us that there is no physical on-earth
activity that would not produce an effect. Also, each of our moral activities makes an impact. Every single act has eternal consequences, every good or bad example, every decent one word. We are responsible for our decisions. One day, we will be accountable for them. Jesus speaks of heaven as a reward and hell as a punishment. Thinking of the judgment as something that awaits every one of us after death offers us even more material, based on which we can reconsider our ultimate good. The fut ballast, for example, opts for specific training and drill that they seem little worthwhile in themselves. However, this drill is part of the big picture, and the football player is preparing for the moment of truth, which will occur for him during the next Sunday match. What a footballer is like will be revealed in Sunday’s game. And the quality of his performance will be the result of what he has been doing from the previous Monday to Saturday. Our true-time here and now is what can be considered good from the perspective of eternity.
In addition to looking at the essential characteristics of our human nature and the importance of focusing on the goal, it is helpful to look
also look at the tools we have at our disposal to help them they could achieve their goals, that is, our qualities, talents, and abilities. A good inventory of our inner world will be an essential contribution to our efforts to be men and women of solid values.
So what tools do we have to achieve ours? Goals? Each of us, the unity of the material body and the spiritual soul, has specific abilities. The ability is simply a gift or a gift to perform a particular type of activity.
If we notice a car rising uphill, we can ensure he has an engine under his hood. Every activity requires the ability, the power to perform it. If you or I see it, it means that we must have the ability to see. If we can think or reason, we must necessarily have the power to think. This power is the ability of intelligence. We begin to realize our abilities by observing our deeds and the deeds of others. Not all commands are on the same level of importance. The ability to smell or smell is certainly not as fantastic ability as the ability to think. And because every human being forms a single whole, all our powers work together, and all are important. However, they work together according to a particular order. Although every comparison is distorted, we can compare it to the ship. Each of us is like a ship sailing across the ocean. For a ship to sail safely, it is essential that three things are in play: tools, team, and circumstances. It’s the same with our lives.
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Environment.
However, in addition to genes, it affects us and all other organism sand the environment we come from. Genes are the architectural design of our body and our administration; they are the project of the house to be created. In addition to designing, however, for the construction of a home, you need building materials, money, company, types of bricks, and panels currently in stock. From one project thus, according to the builder’s possibilities, several movables can arise, and artisans must commission them in an emergency for building materials. We would teach scholars about the norm of reaction. Japanese bonsai is an illustrative example of how an organism is affected by the environment you grow. The usual tall would grow in nature tree from the same seed from which the gardener grows bonsai. If we plant some species of plants from rugged mountains to fertile lowlands, we are surprised by their high growth; We also know that we will get a lot more crops for well-fertilized soil. Thus, not only genes but also the environment affect what the organism will look like.
The genes of our hunting and gathering ancestors are explained by our standard inability to lose weight. It is assumed that there was also a moment of surplus foods, alternated by long periods of shortage in the hunting and gathering period. One of the current mortgages from prep poses that we overcame the aunt and the period of hunger and hunger, even in such a way that the body set itself up for what survival regime when carefully considering whether to release the calories obtained. It is possible not that there is a similar phenomenon in people who are starting to lose weight: the body states time to period and hunger and switches and s and to power-saving mode. The more I try to make up my extra pounds, the more I fight for calorie savings. Maybe because our cures part end and infamous – genes didn’t notice that in our euro – of the Czech population is enough to eat. Situations such as those we encounter in cities. After all, ours several million lasting existences just about the last few we have been living in homes for a thousand years, and our genes have almost certainly not yet adapted.
We feel dizzy when we realize that some genes are in us more than three billion years old and that they are being handed over unchanged
from one generation to the next across all animal species! In humans, the influence of genes and the environment are most often studied on
so-called single-egg twins. Sometimes it happens that after the fusion of sperm and egg, when the new organism is made up of only a tiny ball of cells, there are no entirely clear reasons that the embryo is divided into two. However, both seeds may manage to land on the endometrium, on the uterus lining, and thus start a pregnancy. Thus, twins are born who have same-sex, but they share all genes: of course,
they come from the same foundation. Because single-parent siblings have the same genes, almost all differences between them fall to harming the environment. By the way, they are singular for theologians twins a question mark in research, when exactly does the human soul arise. The human soul is indivisible, so it can no longer be in the zygote. Dignity, however, we already attach the zygote, as it does to everything at the end of evolution; he can become a free being.
But it also works the other way around: researchers, for example, can take an embryo, which was created in the usual way from two white mice, together with embryos from two black and two brown-stained mice.
These three embryos can be mixed and implanted into the mother’s mother’s replacement. A white-black-brown lost mouse is born, which has biologically six parents! Then we talk about so-called chimeric mice. If singular human twins are kept separately (one of the most well-known studies mapped twins divided by the events of World War II), it is possible to observe how genes are signed on us and how the environment in which we are growing up. In some cases, the results were striking on the siblings, which he put together years after years of research. In one Of this case, both men came dressed in the same colored checkered shirts; in another case, both women wore an equal number of rings, one with natural stones and the other with imitations. There is no gene for shirt color or number of calls, though
Thus, genes appear to be a significant undercurrent in our thinking. In a photo published in another biology textbook, several pairs of children, single-twin twins, are sitting side by side. Only after calling it, the photographer noticed astonishing details: all the teams had hands in the same position – either placed on the knees, next to the body, joined, or in pockets. The gene for the work of the hands when sitting does not exist, genetic however, the siblings have somewhat the same basis for this gesture.
As the environment and life influence our behavior, I realized very intensely when I thought my time religion in mouthing for physically handicapped children. I got a class of Twelve children were about ten years old, and only one of them was a believer. All the children were in wheelchairs. Optional religion, however, they visited with joy, but not for my pedagogical performances, but because anything that helped them shorten long afternoons was a welcome diversification of life. The children were mostly obedient and grateful, only one of the boys with a particularly severe handicap (congenital, but without a genetic basis) and with plaster armor around the body was not too popular – he systematically and widely cursed everyone, from students together to educators; he used words that I had never uttered before in my life. However, the two of us got along more or less well. I adapted the teaching a bit to the interests of the participants in the metal: mostly games prevailed. The only thing left of the religion class was prayer at the beginning and end of the class. I will not forget one of them. Usually, we prayed with our words m i, but this time I suggested that we remember all those whom we love, to parents, to educators and to classmates. This boy declared that he would not pray (in unpublishable words). I asked why. The answer whipped through the air like a whip: “She is considered no one. Nobody likes me here. ” At that moment, I understood that one can only really judge a person God. A ten-year-old child needs food for life and the feeling that he is loved. If he doesn’t, he’ll die. I didn’t know his parents and I didn’t I am how they treat him. But if this boy felt he was in the world itself, something substantial was bad anyway. Who I am healthy, I come from a functioning family and I have a lot of very good friends to sue this boy? How would I behave in his condition – and how would he? He behaved if he was in my place and had the same starting conditions like me? Only the Lord God knows the story of my life and the nooks and crannies of my soul.
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God is free.
And does it even have to prove it? We love freedom. We are proud and jealous of her. Freedom could be lacking within God, who is the most perfect. God is accessible in all his vibrations relating to creatures. He could refrain and create nothing. And when he wanted to develop, he was free to choose between several possible worlds. God says St. Irenaeus was not forced in any way. St. Augustine supports the teaching that God is free in the words of Scripture. Be light. And God saw that it was good. These words show us that God created quite freely, without any coercion. He made everything purely from his goodness for the sole reason that it was good. God, as the creator, shows his greatness not only by the creation of great things but also by the creation of small things, in which instead of greatness, one must admire the wisdom with which they are constructed. Elsewhere, St. Augustine proves the freedom of God in the words of Psalm 138: The Lord created everything He wanted in heaven and on earth, in the sea and the abysses. He didn’t have to do what he did, but he did what he wanted. You build a house because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t live. To accomplish this, you need to know. This is not of your own free will. You make a garment because if you did not do it, you would walk naked. Here, too, the need moves you to work. But when God created something, He did not make it because He needed it. Nothing forced him to do that. If we humans want to be free, let us do what God wants us to do. Our freedom is limited on all sides, fenced off by hundreds of obstacles. Each of our passions, each of our prejudices, is a new obstacle. Teach the children your true freedom, and do not misuse this name by giving it an unrestrained extravagance.
The first degree of freedom is sovereignty and independence. This degree of freedom belongs only to God. We have the second degree. To this degree, we depend only on him. Tertullian speaks. Only this is freedom worthy of man. Reasonable margin, which is maintained at its height without being exalted or reduced. Space that elevates itself as an honor to give way to God. False freedom is to want to do your will. We were born as subjects of God because our liberty cannot consist of complete independence. The desire for independence is the freedom of Satan and his followers, who wanted to rise above God on their own. Far from us, such release has plunged proud spirits into eternal bondage. The children of the world think they are free when they wander the world here and there. They called this wandering freedom. They are like children running out without knowing where. That is the freedom of sinners. You enjoy true freedom. If we serve God, we will enjoy true freedom.
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What is happiness?
The pursuit of happiness
It is not easy to buy a gift for another person – especially when we do not know the person well. That’s why it was so many books had been written about it in the world. It is not good or pleasant not to match the taste of the person we want to give. “Well, what would I give her … I could buy her a fern, for example.
Um … But what if she doesn’t like plants, or what if she’s right allergic to fern …? “” I could buy him a cashmere tie. But no … Who knows if I would blame him … “Or I could buy him a bottle of Scotch whiskey. Um, but what if is an abstinent?” The whole point of buying gifts is buying the person something they don’t have and want. What will make her truly happy for a moment?
It seems that we have managed to solve this problem with congratulatory postcards. “Happy Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy birthday! Good luck to your wedding’s quarter-century! ” Happy this, happy that, no matter what it is. People usually like to listen to and accept their wishes. Because there is something we are sure everyone wants, and it is clear that there is never enough.
But how does this relate to human values? Happiness is the queen of values, a vessel full of gold at the end of the rainbow. Everyone wants me, and then it’s clear that we all appreciate it. Well, luck is for us, excellent? Let us remember again that everyone wants to be happy. This is our destiny – to be satisfied forever. Moreover, all our other deeds are as lucky as their end. Happiness is not a means to an end. It’s not a tool, either, at some stage on the way to something else. No one uses happiness to get more money or more enjoyment. After the funds or, we long for pleasure because we are convinced that they us make you happy.
Is everyone happy?
Why, then, does a person’s efforts to be happy often end fiasco? Not many people seem to be satisfied. An article was published in Time magazine on September 13, 1993, subtitled: “Satisfaction is … everywhere in the world is difficult in our time. find – or so says a group of experts who did an international survey. ” Many people laugh or have fun amid fun or delusion, but they don’t seem to find happiness. When we get closer to them and look at them, it will become apparent that these people are running away on their own in front of me. This is confirmed by such a frequent reluctance to be quiet. So, we fill the world with sounds and music, one activity after another. Rarely do we dare to reflect for a moment about our lives and where we actually go. Happiness has been written in several books — from ancient philosophers to contemporary pop psychologists — and it still doesn’t seem people would become happier. Walk on the sidewalk of Paris, New York or London. Target looks into the eyes of people whose you meet. Do they radiate happiness? This is usually not the case. Ask a neighbor or a colleague at school or work whether he is happy. The answers will be embarrassing. It is a real tragedy that most people are not satisfied. Sometimes we mistakenly think that there are many things that we cannot do without, and therefore we cannot be happy without them. “You can’t be happy if you don’t have a lot of money, power, a wide range of joys, experiences, and so on.” These are the prerequisites for happiness. Presented to us by contemporary culture. The United Nations have even gone so far that its officials have drawn up twelve things without which one cannot be happy. There was a radio between them; there was a bicycle and a set of kitchen appliances.
If we begin to combine happiness with material things or with happiness, we can get into trouble. All these things are outside us, so we can’t even influence them to some extent. More importantly, none of them are permanent or inevitable. If I can’t be sure of owning things necessary to happiness; then, I will never be thrilled. I will still live in anxiety that my happiness is as shaky as a house of carats: it can collapse instantly. Because we know many theories of happiness, it will be paramount for us to think about what happiness is. But let’s say in advance that our answer.
It must have something to do with what we came up with when we have talked about human nature in the previous consideration. Most of us should probably have trouble defining happiness. It is because there are many kinds of joy. Saying “I feel happy” after drinking a glass of good wine is not the same as to say, “Peter is a happy man,” or “Michael and Lucia are. We must be able to distinguish between different types or degrees of happiness.
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About getting to know a person.
Why don’t we know certain things about life enough and incredibly convincingly enough? Perhaps because we do not learn sufficient existentially, vitally, we do not see enough how a religious question and truth intervenes directly in life. We need to take the nap of everyday life to see that knowing God is more important than knowing the latest news from sports. We must learn to distinguish and recognize amid ordinary things what is behind them, what is in-depth, what does not change, and what still lasts. If we are to understand certain things about ourselves, we must not drown in superficialities and details. We need to recognize what is irrelevant and go boldly into the depths of the most important. Who remains only on the surface. He is asleep, laughs, drives a car, and never thinks about life as a whole; he is not disposed to understand the essential truth about life. The fact must be deepened, as the Exupéry says.
The image of God is lost in a distracting view. It is necessary to go into depth. Honestly and with a certain humility. Since the time of the first man, many people have been hiding from God. Then they say. God is hard to find. The root of things is elsewhere. There are many rooms in us. We have the keys to them, and we open them. But from the innermost depths of our interior, there are two keys. God has one key. We can keep him out and hold our key. But we cannot let anyone else into the deepest depths; God will not give us His key. If we grieve and do not let God in, we remain empty in the deepest depths – no one resides in us.
We have long since discovered a severe feature of knowledge. Cognition is not just pure reason and pure logic. He knows a particular person. Me you. This specific person is subject to many influences and hobbies. Something is apparent to one, the other objects indefinitely. We have different views on the same thing. In knowledge, it is our relationship to the truth. The truth can only be known to us if we are internally willing to pay attention to it if we are interested in it, if we want to know it. If I’m not interested in math, I’ll probably never try to understand it fully. However, my friend devotes a lot of time and attention to her, but he understands her. If we are not interested in knowing what it is like, if I do not have a deep inner willingness, the truth about some things may remain hidden from me forever.
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Twenty-fifth Sunday B in Ordinary Time
Jesus’ words lost nothing of meaning and power. They are still valid today. A person who is fighting for power, position, should not forget them. Being the first, something to have fulfilled and will always fill a person. Olympics, trials, races, competitions in all areas of life are marked by the goal of being the first. There is nothing wrong with being appropriate to the circumstances. Unfortunately, often trying to be the first destroys friendships, relationships with others. We even know from history how the unbridled desire to be the greatest or the first led humanity to concentration camps, prisons … Just remember Hitler or Stalin. Then it happens that a person does not stop at anything, nothing is sacred to him. Therefore, Jesus’ words, “Whoever wants to be first, let him be the last and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35), are a current memento. Many of Jesus’ words evoked resentment from the beginning. Jesus did not admire. Vice versa. He proves his mission with words and life. He tells the disciples in Galilee that “the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him. But the slain shall rise again after three days.” (Mark 9:31) He wants to avoid saying that he is a lover of suffering and will ask his people to love hell as well. Vice versa. He wants to say: Don’t be afraid! No evil and suffering are more vital than God’s love for people. By his passion and death, Jesus is an example of love for people. He, the God in the human body, who is the First, dies for the sins of all. Jesus served all people. He reconciled them to the Father.
Jesus does not write on the way to Jerusalem, but puts a message in the hearts of the disciples: “The Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him. But the slain shall rise again after three days.” (Mark 9:31) These words are part of the good news. It is essential to Jesus before his death that the apostles understand and teach the message correctly. Nevertheless, they “quarreled among themselves which way was greater” (Mark 9:34). They did not yet know like the mother of the sons of Zebedee, James, and John when she begged Jesus to have her sons at his right and left once in his Kingdom. Jesus, following the example of a child who is small and is served by an adult, points to the practice of apostles and once all who believe in Christ: “He who wants to be first, let him be the last, and be the servant of all” (Mk 9, 35) Jesus does not remove ambition from the life of the apostles but directs it in the right direction. He replaced the ambition to rule over others and use others for himself with the aspiration to serve others. He returned the purpose of receiving from others with the ambition of giving. “It is happier to give than to receive” (Acts 20:3We have many positive, encouraging examples.
The history of Sparta tells of Paedators. Elections for the city administration were held in Sparta, and Paedaretos was one of the candidates for the city’s 300-member men’s council. When they announced the election result, his name was not among the chosen ones. A friend told him, “What a pity they didn’t choose you, the people should have known how wise the steward you could be.” he is a legend over whom jealousy did not prevail, and he knew how to give place to others.
Great people will enrich the world. They do not ask: what can I get from society for myself, but think about improving culture. He made a similar statement after the Kennedy oath of office. The Lord Jesus, in the words, “Whoever wants to be first, let him be the last and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35), gives one of the “best” likes in the world.
Knowing these words of Jesus, we do not have to set out on a journey as a man in an old Eastern legend who wanted to find the meaning of his life. For a long time, he could not find a job where he would be happy, satisfied and others would be satisfied and confident with him then. Once on a hot day, he sat down under a tree on the side of the road. He noticed a man working in the heat, under the hot sun. The man could see his satisfaction and confidence. When he asked the man a secret, he replied, “I am happy because I am doing my job, and I am thinking of a God who cares for all people, and I want to serve him.” to find joy and happiness. ”
The apostles would never be happy if they argued, “Which of them is greater” (Mark 9:34). And the answer? “Whoever wants to be first, let him be the last and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35). Man is great only when he serves, when he can renounce his self-love when he does not exploit others when he offers rule over others. In all areas of the human family, this is true, but it is a benefit.
When spouses live for each other and together for children, they keep the words of Jesus; they find significant enrichment of their love. When Jesus’s words, “Whoever wants to be first, let him be the last and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35), are fulfilled in the workplace and society, all will find enrichment and joy in life. When they serve their children, parents are not masters; on the contrary, when children see their example, love grows. He cannot love those who cannot serve.
On April 28, 1962, Dr. Ginna Beretta Molla died at the fourth birth of her child. As a doctor, she knew that her pregnancy was difficult and would probably end in death. The doctors confirmed to her: either she or the child would live. She told her doctor – colleagues at the time. “It is my duty to fulfill my mother’s mission. I’m ready for anything. My baby has to live.” When the time of childbirth came, she knew she would die. Emmanuela was born. Her mother could still see her, put her on her chest, and – she died. John Paul II declared this woman blessed. In addition to Emmanuela, her three siblings, their father, the Blessed husband, also took part in the beatification of St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican.
Dr. Ginna Bertta Molla fulfilled the message of Jesus in the service of her child’s life. Serving people is not easy. And that is why it is appropriate not only to remember it but also to work on yourself. To learn the doctrine of Jesus: “Whoever wants to be first, let him be the last and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35). He survived alone. We rightly understand the message of the Lord Jesus in words: Do not be afraid! A faithful witness of Jesus’ love is not afraid to be a minister – a servant. I respect and honor everyone, and he sees brothers and sisters in his neighborhood and not subordinates…We are praying: Lord, open our eyes so that we may discover your face in the faces of brothers and sisters. Open our hearts so that we can show them love, and let us receive their love as our enrichment…
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Who am I?
That we can love someone is so peculiar to us that over the question as possible, we usually do not think. I, therefore, believe that it will be a good start for us if we look at who we are and where our ability to love comes from. In the following chapters, therefore, for a moment, let’s look into the world of biology.
The problem of where things come from was once theoretically solved by Aristoteles bodies. He realized in his undoubted genius that the question about the cause of the existence of things can even be offered four different types of answers: they are professionally called causa materials, causa formalis, the final reason and final reason. For example, the cause of the existence of a chalice is silver (causa material is), its shape (causa formalis), the one that processes silver (causa efficient), and its use in the Holy Mass (causa finals). The chalice would not exist without material, without silver. He wouldn’t be even if a skilled craftsman working with silver did not mold into a goblet. Nor would it exist if there was no need for worship. To the question: Who am I? I can answer from the perspective of physics and biology, for example, as a building block of atoms, a being composed of dust, five billion years old, and of gases from the time of its origin in earth, I am a community of cooperating cells.
Similarly, the question of love is answered by biology by pointing out
the body’s chemistry and the evolutionary past. Although these answers are truly wild, it is still necessary to realize that there is only one naturalist of symposium speakers. Physics and chemistry are, in the Aristotelian vision of things, only responding to the case of materials. In the limbic system of ours the brain is undoubtedly the confidential material basis of our feelings, but it’s not the whole story.
Neurons, cells of the nervous system, can talk to each other, sending impulses. Interestingly, the individual motivation, short electric discharges, are always the same magnitude: either, or they are not; zero or unit. The fact that you can now read this text, our perception of music, touch, the warmth of the human body, the smell of flowers and the taste of them, as well as the experience of anxiety, love, pain, the whole memory, fantasy and the ability to create art are the same nerve impulses of the same size bone. The fact that we perceive them once as toothache and sometimes as Schubert’s Improve depends on which areas of the brain and in which volleys and patterns these electric discharges arrive. Between the two cells, the electrical impulse usually changes to a chemical momentum for a short time. The chemical then either supports or prevents the electrical “ignition” of the next cell. The brain’s nerve cell receives impulses from many other cells at one point, and according to the sum of all, it then sends its impulse to other cells or does not send. This is how the human brain works. Even in the most conscientious anatomical research, we find nothing but cells, an average of five to ten million neurons per cubic centimeter of the brain, interconnected and receive and transmit impulses.
Biochemists have even found that the processes in the brain in a state of love are comparable to the processes in the brain of a drug addict after drug administration. But the claim that love is chemistry and that man is nothing else like a mechanical toy, a device to replicate its genes will hit to the frontier of biology, to the wall that delimits the natural space in ladies who explore nothing but matter and energy. For to understand what a person is, we must look to other universes than just the world of neurophysiologist and molecular biology.
Genes
Behavioral genetics provide us with a significant finding: Genes determine not only the visual material in our body – what color we will have. Eyes, where the organs will be located in the body and what the overall architecture of the body will look like – but they also stand in the background of our behavior, our actions, of our deeds. And as we will see below, genes are also behind our psyche.
The influence of genes on behavior is one of the most mysterious components of biology. When the spider weaves its web, it takes approximately 1,400 movements. And he doesn’t have to learn his art: everything is written in his genes, and so without ever seeing his parents at work, right after for the first time, the network will play accurately and without error. How can movements be recorded in genes?
Most insect species will not experience their parents and will never see their children: the new generation hatches in the spring, when the parental population is already dead. The whole complicated art of survival of locusts, beetles, and butterflies must be in some way already in the genes; it must be somehow already contained in the zygote, the first cell from which their bodies are formed. It must already in some way have information on what food looks like, what the reproductive partner looks like, and how to avoid enemies.
Swallows are moving south in the autumn to Africa. However, the first to fly is the young, born in that year, the old ones to follow them later.
So parents can’t show their children how they do it for the first time in the day. The entire download route and its direction must be somehow in their genes, and must have been in them when their body was made up only of the first cell’s zygote. It isn’t easy to imagine how they are all properties and body shapes of the swallow inscribed in its genes. In this, the first cell also hides a flight command to the south, and that in addition, it must be timed correctly and leading in the right direction to the right African zigzag; mysteries are still unsolved.
After hatching from eggs, eels must be assembled – so to speak, spa – three long years to travel alone back to the mouths of European rivers. Eels do not know the geography and do not know what the planet looks like. The eels we learn from our rivers lie far in the ocean, up to
the Sargasso Sea off Bermuda, more than 6 000 miles away.
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The fertilized egg must therefore already contain instructions for a long and challenging journey home by the sea, to rivers where the eel has never been before – and also the information that at the end of life, it is necessary to swim back to the Sargasso Sea. The American rodent Diplomas orders’/ 7 (in Czech – as well as in Slovak) – it is called and reminds our mouse, a little) when he hears the purring sound of his the main enemy of the rattlesnake, thanks to its extremely well-developed hind legs, will make a reflexive long jump backward. The jump can be up to two meters long! Jumping at the crackling sound, Diplomas doesn’t have to learn from his parents. It is somehow written in his genes – there is no time to learn in nature; the only mistake is death. So, what the command “jump immediately” in a crackling sound can be written in the genes back! “without this individual ever bitter before the sound was heard, no one knows. Evolutionary biologists believe that there are many types in our species as well, behaviors are written in genes.
Much of our behavior is innate: for example, even a newly born blind child can smile if he wants to show satisfaction and frown when he shows his will. There is no culture in the world in which a smile is a sign of hostility. Thus, the innate ability to smile must be hidden somewhere in our genes. Outside running, chimpanzees can smile as well as they can kiss and touch your hand in greeting, albeit a little differently, how we shake hands. Just like a newborn does not have to
learn to smile, he doesn’t even have to know to look for swaying head movements in mother’s breast, he can do it from birth, and he can also suck – all those abilities are somehow rooted in his genes. But natives can firmly press the offered finger without learning, and even the strongest gripping reaction will be evoked by fur or anything hairy. Our ancestors probably wore cubs hung on for thousands of years, fur, as our closest relatives still do today. Now firmly to hold was therefore once necessary for the young. A similarly swaying movement is probably a sign to the child that everything is fine. Maybe that’s why a stroller walking on uneven paving or cradles has such a calming effect on children – we adults can imagine the most pleasant way to sleep.
This genetic behavior is ancient and originated in an entirely different context, such as our cities and skyscrapers. With our genes, we are probably armed to respond to significantly different ones However, in addition to genes, it affects us and all other organisms and our environment. Genes are the architectural design of our body and our administration; they are the project of the house to be created. In addition to designing, however, for the construction of the place you’re necessarily building materials, money, company, types of bricks and panels that are currently in stock. From one project thus, depending on the builder’s possibilities, several impressions can be created, and if a shortage of building materials, artisans must improvise. We would teach scholars about the norm of reaction. Japanese bonsai is an excellent example of how an organism is affected by the environment you grow. The usual tall would grow in nature tree from the same seed from which the gardener grows bonsai. If we plant some species of plants from rugged mountains to fertile lowlands, we are surprised by their high growth; We also know that we will see a much larger harvest for well-fertilized soil. Thus, not only genes but also the environment affect what the organism will look like. The genes of our hunting-gathering ancestors even explain our shared inability to lose weight. It is assumed that there was a moment of surplus in the hunting and gathering period, foods alternated with long periods of shortage. One of the modern hypotheses thinks that we overcame a period of hunger. The body sets itself up for what survival regime when carefully considering whether to release the calories obtained. A similar phenomenon may occur in people who are starting to lose weight: the body detects the beginning of a period of hunger and switches to a saving mode. The more we try to lose excess pounds, the more we will fight for calorie savings. Maybe because our cures part ends and infamous-genes did not notice enough food in our Euro-American population.
Situations like the ones we encounter in cities. After all, ours several million lasting existences just about the last few we have been living in homes for a thousand years, and our genes have almost certainly not yet adapted. We feel dizzy when we realize that some genes are in us
more than three billion years old, and that they are being handed over unchanged from one generation to the next across all animal species!
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