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The first thing that helps us work on our character is humble self-knowledge. We must not think that we have already achieved what we desire. Namely, we all desire to be characteristic people, but we are still far from the ideal. We want to be honest, but we are tempted daily to lie, to distort the truth, to avoid the truth. We want to be reliable, trustworthy, principled, but we still tend to be compliant, to compromise.

We must never feel at the finish line again. Indeed, some of our vices do not show does not mean that we have already defeated them. It can only mean that we did not get the opportunity to show. It is easy for a person who lives alone and does not meet anyone to think of himself as non-conflicting. Maybe it’s because of the conflicting nature that she lives alone. I also assume that you have that painful experience: as soon as the temptation to despise others for failing to do something comes, we will fall at the same time in a relatively short time. And this is the best medicine for our pride. The Lord needs to humble us sometimes. That is why it is important to beg – “Hold me, Lord, for if you do not hold me, I will betray you worse than Judas!”. Most people who are convinced that something cannot happen to them are in great danger of falling. On the contrary, people who admit to being vulnerable in an area are careful and stand up.

The second tool to achieve character is the ability to hear and accept the truth about yourself. We do not just proclaim the truth, but we should also have the courage to hear the truth if we are in character. Here we are also proud to think that we have no problem with that. Sometimes I hear a statement: Calm down, let anyone tell me straight out what is interfering with me! We may accept some things, but as soon as the criticism touches on the things we rely on, it hurts us deeply. Of course, we do not have to let this be known, but it will manifest itself in anger, uncertainty, or the fact that a complex of inferiority will grow in us. It is, therefore, necessary to have real friends who can sensitively adjust the mirror for us. Therefore, it is necessary to have a constant confessor whom we trust and are willing to open our insides to God before him to judge the sincerity of my motives. Namely, infidelity, divorce, alcoholism, and all such matters do not begin with the fall itself, but long before that, only because things are denied and ignored. It’s not that serious yet, because it’s just occasionally some extra cup.

Another tool to achieve character is to take responsibility for your own life. A character person is aware of his talents and shortcomings. He takes responsibility for the moments when, according to them, he lives, but also for those when he fails. We must take responsibility for our feelings and actions. That’s why it’s not true that you were angry with me, but the truth is that I was angry. The other may have done something to provoke me, but I decide how I will react to it. If I allow myself to be disturbed by his behavior, I become his slave. We live in a time when someone else is responsible for everything bad, and we just complain about how we were wronged. We harm people immensely by making them victims. The pain story can be sold well; it shows how unjust society is and how my group is discriminated against. This causes us, instead of looking to the future and asking how to deal with it, to look to the past, mourn our wounds and ask how to get something out of it. That’s why it happens that a 60-year-old man comes to the rectory to ask for some help and starts his story with this: “You know, I’m from an orphanage …”

Maybe not so extreme, but we each carry some of the injuries that affect us. And that is why we tend to slip into self-justification. If I had an easier childhood, if I had a better boss, if they paid more attention to me, if someone noticed me, if they loved me more at home, if children listened more, if I had fewer robots, if I had as many opportunities as young people today … That may be all true, but one that will help nothing but self-pity. The question is not what if it were, but what I would do with it. Nobody has it ideal in life, but the difference is whether I solve how it is impossible and how it is all wrong or solve what I do with it. To take responsibility for one’s own life is to stop looking for the culprit, to stop drilling in oneself and to analyze oneself, and instead to work on inner healing and the ability to forgive.

Everyone is responsible before God, before himself, and before others to quality his spiritual, emotional, and physical life. Blaming the quality of your life on others cannot be justified. We must take responsibility for our feelings for our actions. Of course, everyone indeed received a different amount of talent. But I will not be accountable to God for what I have done with what I have not received, but for what I have done.

In our time, in addition to money, he also has power. It is not for nothing that it is said that acquaintance – it’s cash. Many would like something similar to apply in the Church, to come to values ​​, especially to eternal life after acquaintance.

After all, acquaintance also applies to God. We also see it in the gospel. When Jesus saw Nathanael coming, he said of him, “This is a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me ?! (Johan 1,47-48). Meeting each other brings people together, their interests, their lives. In the Gospels, John talks about how Philip, whom Andrew had already acquired for Christ, meets Nathanael, and in the enthusiasm he feels in himself after meeting Jesus, he also wants to split up with Nathanael. He tells him about Jesus, who comes from Nazareth, he is the son of Joseph and Mary, and he is the one whom Moses writes in the law. Behavior or reaction to Philip’s words to Nathanael arouses an ironic remark: “Can anything good be of Nazareth ?!” (John 1:46). Philip was certainly clever because he realized that he would not only convince Nathanael with enthusiasm. Therefore, he will use the way Jesus convinced his first two disciples. He says, “Come and see!” (John 1:46) – and it worked. Nathanael will not refuse an invitation to meet Christ, which ends with even greater enthusiasm with Nathanael than it did with Philip when he exclaims, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel” (Johan 1:49).

We may have a question or thought: What caused this radical reversal in Nathanael’s attitude? Nathanael did not yet have the notion of Jesus Christ’s deity as we have it today, but the Lord Jesus’s first words convinced him, and Nathanael believed that he 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 says that our personal paths to faith are different. Most of us grew up in a Catholic family, in an environment where faith was served to us as a matter of course. Often in such cases, one does not have to fight for one’s faith, one’s beliefs, and there are cases where real faith is lost from such an environment and only a tradition arises, which is often lost, even when changing one’s residence or employment status, or also by age. Faith is completely lost. But we know another way to believe. It has come to the forefront in these families in recent years, where faith was not lived, where God was spoken only negatively. People are beginning to seek their faith. As in the case of Nathanael, it is often that they see in the faith only something unhealthy, outdated; perhaps they themselves use ironic remarks against the faith. This is the path of Nathanael.

What can faith give me in today’s modern world? I have everything else, faith? Such and similar issues are often in the beginning. We often realize that we will not convince such brothers and sisters immediately; we will not convince them with their words. They follow our lives, compare, examine, and only then do they be oscillated, addressed, come to bite among us, to the church …. We can say that it is the work of the Holy Spirit if the way to Jesus is often found by those who lived outside of God and also in a negative, anti-Christ environment. In many cases, the first encounter with Christ was so powerful that one feels the desire for a new encounter. Otherwise, one feels like Nathanael that Jesus has known him long ago, and he did not know him. Are there cases where a person feels the love of Jesus so harshly that he asks himself a question – what did he do when he did not receive it before, he did not want to know …? In another case, he searched for the truth and found it because he was searching sincerely? There was no trick in it. Today’s times lead to skepticism, but if he does not submit to it and seeks if he desires to know the truth, he will certainly find it.

Two friends are working in the office. One is a believer and the other just baptized. However, he admires a practicing believer. He often asks himself where he takes strength, self-control, and self-control because he is the opposite. However, a believing Christian does not say anything about Jesus in the workplace. After one difficult test at work, he waits for this practicing believer and asks about the source of his strength, which stems directly from his behavior. A believing Christian knows that his colleague is only a registrar Christian, and yet he tells him, “I go to Mass every day.” What was his surprise in the morning at church when he saw his colleague in it! He began to pray for him even more fervently. He saw him in the church the next day, but also in a week. And this is how the moon passed. Once again, their department found itself in trouble, and this seeking Christian did not regain control. After the shift, he tells his faithful colleague, “I will not come to church tomorrow morning.” That evening, the believer prayed for his friend. In the morning, his surprise was even greater. His colleague was in church and even attended the sacraments. It wasn’t until a week later that they talked about it. A searching colleague said, “I could not sleep that night. In the evening, I was convinced that I would not go to church in the morning. But I did not sleep all night. I thought. And in the morning, I do not even know how I got up and went to church. Church, my eyes stopped at the confessional.

I know how I found myself in it. The chaplain was more worried about me. However, I left her with what moved me the most. After years, I felt an inner peace and special strength. “

Jesus knows us all. He knows about each of us. In many cases, he leads us to himself through incomprehensible paths. He allows us many trials, difficulties, suffering. However, he does not test anyone beyond our strength. If we persevere, we will win. Living with Jesus is difficult, but knowing the fruit also gives us the strength to persevere. Let us, therefore, let ourselves be whole and entirely like Nathanael to Jesus, and the words that Jesus addressed to Nathanael also belong to us: “Do you believe because I said to you: I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this “(John 1,50). This is the most beautiful and surest perspective. The meaning of life and its value: Christ the Victor, Christ the King, and Christ the Leader. This is the most valuable acquaintance – to have Jesus himself known. After all, Jesus said, “Gather treasures in heaven; there neither moth nor rust destroys them, and thieves do not conquer and steal ”(Mathew 6:20). Amen.

FOR A GLOSSARY WITH EXPERTS
Abraham Harold MASLOW
Abraham Harold Maslow (* April 1, 1908 – † June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist, psychiatrist and philosopher (forerunner of the New Age), the founder of humanistic psychology. He researched the hierarchy of human needs, motivation, self-realization. He invented the familiar Maslow’s pyramid of needs. He argues that human activity’s highest motivator is not money but the satisfaction of human needs. According to him, these are arranged within five degrees from basic – for the satisfaction of which we usually need money, and that after the higher ones – social and self-realization.

MASLOW’S PYRAMID
Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs has the shape of a pyramid and is based on the following principles: people are motivated by the desire to satisfy their needs, from the lowest to the highest level, the hierarchy of human needs can be arranged in the form of a pyramid, which consists of five levels, satisfies the needs of a lower level motivated to strive to meet the needs of a higher level, if the need for a lower level is not fully or partially satisfied, the need for a higher level has no incentive effect.
SELFTRANSCENDENCIA
At the top of the pyramid is self-transcendence, sometimes called spiritual needs. Maslow believes that we should explore and develop the ultimate experiences (short and rare moments of inspiration, ecstasy, release of creative energy) to achieve personal growth and fulfillment. Individuals with the greatest preconditions for achieving top experiences are self-updated, mature, healthy, and self-fulfilled. Everyone can have the ultimate experience—those who do not have them suppressed or prevented them somehow.
A detailed description of Maslow’s pyramid:
Maslow’s pyramid (needs) is a hierarchy of human needs defined by the American psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow in 1943. According to this theory, man has five basic needs (from the lowest to the highest – together, they form a kind of “pyramid”):
physiological needs
the need for safety, security
the need for love, acceptance, belonging
the need for recognition, respect
the need for self-realization
Maslow identifies the first four categories as scarce needs and the fifth category as needs or growth needs. In general, lower needs are more significant, and there at least partial satisfaction is a condition for the emergence of less urgent and developmentally higher needs. However, this cannot be said unconditionally, and it has been proven that satisfying higher needs (aesthetic, spiritual) can help in extreme situations of human life, where the possibility of satisfying lower needs is limited (e.g., in the environment of concentration camps, as reported by Viktor Frank or Konrad Lorenz). Maslow considers the need for self-realization to be the highest, which marks the human effort to fulfill his abilities and intentions.

Abraham Maslow was based on the belief that the performance of workers can be increased to natural physiological limits if not only material but also social needs are met, i. the need for self-realization, self-actualization, self-realization, social belonging to someone or something, creativity, security, security, status, etc. Saturation (fulfillment, satisfaction) of most needs occurs in the work process. The benefit of this school is that it tries to take the organization as a system, ensuring the integrity of personal interests and the organization’s interests. The paradox is that many do not care about self-realization; they are motivated only by lower physiological needs, peace, and comfort.
Insufficient needs
Physiological needs
Physiological needs are the needs of the organism and have the highest priority. They consist mainly of the following needs:
need to breathe
the need to regulate body temperature
need for water
need for sleep
I need to eat
need for exclusion
need for sexual intercourse
The need for safety, security
Once the physiological needs are met, the needs for certainty begin to increase:
job security
security of income and access to resources
physical security – protection against violence and aggression
moral and physiological security
family security
health security
The need for love, acceptance, belonging
After fulfilling physiological and safety needs comes the third layer – social needs. These generally consist of emotional relationships such as:
friendship
partnership
the need to have a family
The needs of being
The need for self-realization
Self-actualization (a term introduced by Kurt Goldstein, sometimes referred to as self-realization) is an instinctive need to fulfill one’s abilities and strive to be the best one can be.
Maslow defined self-realized people as follows:
They accept the circumstances of life (including themselves) instead of rejecting or avoiding them.
They are spontaneous in the creation of thoughts and actions.
They are creative.
They are interested in solving problems, often in solving other people’s problems. The solution to these problems plays into theirs.

The subconscious activity of the soul.
The subconscious activity of the soul never rests. There is never fatigue in this activity, but it is in constant activity; it does not need rest. On the contrary, the subconscious’s activity is more intense than the body and the rest of the senses. The greater the soul is deprived of the pressure of consciousness. The human personality is not only a set of conscious reactions but also includes processes of the unconscious-subconscious. The subconscious is an important part of the human psyche. The subconscious mind has contents that consciousness does not have at its disposal the qualities and traits that a waking personality has only to a small extent. The conscious self is like a small bright island in the ocean of subconscious life.

The human soul has great unsuspected possibilities in the subconscious. For example, the hypnotist used subject K. In the waking state, he presented him with a foreign language script to the hypnotist, and the subject was completely unknown to him. The subject glances at him. He must not read the font not to argue that he has instilled the content in his memory. Then the subject is asleep to 4 degrees of sleep. The hypnotist evokes his subconscious action, reads the first sentence, and prompts the subject to continue. The subject immediately continues, as if reading the script. And that’s exactly right. Here we have proof that in the subconscious state, he has the ability to understand immediately. That is, quickly and surely in contrast to the conscious state, when it manifests its abilities through the brain and esplan. The conscious and subconscious selves are two different states based on the same essence of the soul. The manifestation of consciousness does not end the manifestation of consciousness because they are separate activities. They try to radiate some gifts from the subconscious into consciousness through effort, fervent desire, and diligent desire. It is tough to understand the ratio of the conscious self’s state to the state of the subconscious self and vice versa. There is a great gap between them, which is sometimes bridged in extraordinary moments. In the conscious self, we know the subconscious self’s state, true if we are instructed about it by research. Our subconscious self does not know the conscious state of our abilities of reason and free will in the subconscious state. The subconscious self is in a constant activity that we do not observe in the conscious state. The subconscious self has great abilities. For example, spatial vision into the past and present, cognition, gifts of art, speech, drawings, transfer of objects without touch, but only if the task was determined by us. It follows that the soul in the subconscious state, connected with the flesh, cannot act freely. Subconscious, I have an unsuspected base of other moisture and abilities, but it does not have the necessary conditions for their manifestation in this life. For some people, death’s danger will spontaneously manifest itself in subconscious activity and will pull the person out of danger. Many have gone through the toughest battles in the world wars, returned home without injury, and tell what a strange coincidence they escaped death. The cause was the subconscious activity of the soul. They were always sensitive people.

Many are among those who said today: It is already after the holidays. This is even though our homes and churches are still adorned with trees and Christmas decorations. We return to our daily duties. So that we do not quickly forget the moments spent in peace, our resolutions, so that we do not quickly put off things for which we have prepared so much, let us stop at the words from today’s gospel.

“From his fullness, we have all attained grace after grace. For if Moses gave the law, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ “(Johannes 1: 16-17).

Today’s gospel is well known to us. It is the introduction to the Gospel of Johannes the Apostle. We have already read this introduction three times in the last days and today for the fourth time. For the first time at Holy Mass during the day on the feast of the Nativity. We also read these words on the feast of the Apostle John. The third time we said goodbye to the old year, we reached for John’s introduction again.
This Sunday, the second in the Christmas period, presents this text to us for thought. Can he still contact us at the moment? What a line and a verse, the depth of words, the richness of thoughts. The deeper we delve into the text, then we find that there is no unnecessary word. John writes about the solemn moment of Christ’s coming into the world. John’s words seem incomprehensible at first hearing. Maybe someone will be filled with the feeling that the words seem to outgrow us. And yet; The Word-Logos fills our soul with peace when we think more carefully. John’s words work in us so that we feel the desire to say directly: That must have been the case from the beginning. Indeed, Jesus is an integral part of God the Father. We also feel the Holy Spirit and his power as we think about the text. His gifts feel directly to the touch. The text talks about life. From the words, you can feel the power, the strength, the challenge to take off. Such a perfect harmony of words, thoughts, as John gives them, could only occur after personal experience and in direct cooperation with the Holy Spirit. Thus, the word God, which hides in himself the beginning of everything and in which is every life that is the Light for man, this God became man, became like us according to the flesh, came among us, his, to show us what we would do have never been completed. As the author of these words, John has known Jesus since John the Baptist said of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God” (Johannes 1:35). Then he departed from John the Baptist. John’s words about Jesus in the Gospels are much deeper and more convincing than in the three other evangelists who wrote about Jesus; why?

It can also be understood from the Gospel of St. Mark, who wrote of John: “And he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, James, and James the brother of John” (Mark 5:37). This was the case with the Transfiguration (cf. Mk 5:37), in preparation for the Last Supper. (cf. Mk 9: 1-3). John himself wrote: “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was quite at the chest of Jesus” (Johannes 13:23). These memories of John are so powerful and so vivid that, as an older man, he writes the gospel around the year 100, which is an expression of a significant address. And this is exactly what we feel today at the end of his introduction – the prologue, when he wants to ignite us directly to follow Jesus: “From his fullness, we have all received grace after grace. For if Moses gave the law, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ “(Johannes 1: 16-17).

We think it is the last day of the civil year, but we look forward to it being New Year’s Eve. We used to have fun. But here in the church, there is an opportunity to think seriously. About what? – How do we live? Above the priorities of life. Over how we use the time we have received a gift from God.

The old sundial reads, “God has given man time, but he has said nothing about a rush.” ​​Let ourselves and those around us ask: Why the rush? Time, your salvation, and your happiness on earth, and just the last day of the year is the time to realize something.

On this last day of the year, John the Apostle reminds us that out of Jesus’ love, “we have all received grace after grace” (Johan 1:16). Many associates the word “grace” only with the reduction of punishment associated with amnesty. The word grace in the realm of faith means a gift—a gift we received without claiming it. God the Father sent us his Son, as St. John the Apostle in the opening hymn, the prologue, to become a light for us. The history of the world, of man after the first sin, is figuratively speaking, immersed in darkness. We would never know what God has prepared for man if, in his love, God himself had not told us through the prophets, the saints. Especially through our Son, Jesus Christ, we have learned the truth of what sin means, eternal life, what is the meaning of life. And this is the gift, the grace that the Gospels have reminded us of for two thousand years, the Church announces, and what we are to remember on the last day of the year. God gives us His gifts, “graces,” so that we may have hope for eternal life.

An old proverb says, “A good road to hell is a good plan!” Yes, we do not want to spoil the mood of this day. In Commitments, words are not enough.

On New Year’s Eve, a young man regularly throws out a lighter and a cigarette with the words. “I’m definitely quitting now.” What do you think? How long does it take not to smoke? To the Three Kings. A week. Maybe a saying about commitment, the road to hell is hard. It’s not just alcoholics, overeating at bedtime, black rides, or deceiving parents. Let’s remember our spiritual life. Regular prayer is meant to be a reinforcement for life. We have made it material for confession, and Friday’s fast is meant to help us practice self-control, numbness, work on ourselves, and turn it into jokes, teasing. Slander, underestimation, God has commanded us to honor his name, and what if we have nothing to honor? 

We cannot imagine our lives, among other things, without testimony. Everyday life leads us to situations where we have to express ourselves about something or someone, make it better, be careful. However, we know that the testimony of everything and everyone is not the same. It has its criteria.

One of the most serious is the life of the testimony. Luke says in the Gospel: “The prophetess Anna, the daughter of Fanuel of the tribe of Asher, also lived at that time. She was old. From her virginity, she lived with her husband for seven years, then as a widow until the age of 84. She did not leave the temple, serving fasting and prayer day and night. At that very moment, she also came and glorified God and spoke of him to all who awaited the redemption of Jerusalem ”(Lk 2: 36-39). Before our eyes are the second witness Anna to testify that Jesus is the expected Redeemer, her testimony is not valued by her old age, the state that she was a widow, on the contrary. Her life is full of values ​​before God and before the nation that knew her from her work in the temple. As we read this carefully, we certainly ask ourselves the question: What were the words of her prophecy? We know the prophetic words of Simeon. Why don’t we know her prophecy? Does that fact lead us to the idea that the Anne report had a different role in this event? Luke certainly wants to point to the pattern of the Christian widow. We know that the chosen nation, for the most part, did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Especially not learned and leaders, Pharisees, and scribes. However, Jesus was accepted by toll booths, sinners, simple people, and especially women. Anna’s position in Israel was not enviable. A woman without a man, a descendant, and yet she gave her life value, a meaning, which we see from the words: “She did not leave the temple, she served God by fasting and prayer day and night” (2,37). He does not pray for himself, but for his nation, for his salvation, for the early coming of the Redeemer.

It has happened to me several times that I have heard the teasing remark that our faith is the faith of women and older adults. This is not entirely true. I see young people in the church; I also see men. Why no more, it’s a matter for another debate. However, it wants to tell us that such a state must not lead us to carelessness, to inferiority. Those who penetrate this issue and understand it correctly will not be surprised by these other words. One day we will know the value of the old and the sick’s prayers, which many despise. We will know what value they had before God, from what they saved us, how many graces and blessings they asked of us. Often the grandmother, the grandfather, whom we underestimated, did not have a kind word for them, a smile that shook hands and for whom we had only a word of irony “go pray, go to church,” begged us for the necessary graces.

Let us not look at old age and disease as a burden on society, the family. On the contrary, many believers often realize it in old age that they must thank God for everything he neglected at a young age when he was healthy or lazy … We often see tears in older adults’ eyes. These are not only tears of body pain but also soul pain. They mourn their sins properly. They realize what sin is, what an insult to God. They committed it so often; maybe they didn’t even regret it, they didn’t apologize … Grandchildren, pay attention to grandparents! They often pray for you too. Yes, they want to give you something valuable and beautiful. However, you do not accept them. You can’t appreciate their love. Old and sick brothers and sisters should read this gospel more to realize that old age is not just a hunt to leave their children and grandchildren as much as possible. Sad is the grandmother’s sight, the grandfather, who throws her wife after the mammon, who still distances their children from God when they cannot appreciate their efforts. Old and sick brothers and sisters, enjoy your old age, peace, and relaxation! Relax, use the time to apologize, thank, and glorify the Lord God! Your time is more fulfilling than young people. You will stand before God, before whom you will bear witness of your life. What will be the testimony when there is no God, when indifference wins, disinterest in God?

To those of you who come to the temple regularly in time and time, who offer such great sacrifices, I would like to thank you for your example, for the strength of your testimony, and your relationship to our faith, to Jesus. I want to wish you many more strengths, graces, and especially what you desire the most, namely a peaceful departure before Jesus Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead.

Yes, the Church cannot imagine her work without the testimony of young people, but also of you – those who were born earlier. Let us realize that the Church needs testimony from you, men, fathers, brothers, dear young friends. This is a serious challenge for us at the end of this year.