The seriousness of the confession.

We live in a time of redevelopment. Confessions about everything possible are the order of the day today. It belongs to the so-called good tone of confessing to concord, peace, equality of all people, ensuring material well-being, or enabling education for all. Many modern adherents do not even realize how comically they act with similar and constantly recurring phrases expressed in different places. After all, these phrases do not bind anyone. Others, in turn, are adherents of movie or sports stars, and sometimes they do it entirely primitively.

Only two things do a person make his confession quite soberly, almost restrained. This is when he has to confess to a particular party or political direction – in this, they already have their experience. Who knows how things will turn out in the future? And the second time when it comes to confession to religion. Religion is fundamentally a private matter. After all, we live in a pluralistic society whose supreme law is not to harm others, not to approach anyone, and not to get on anyone’s nerves with their convictions, especially religious ones.

We read something completely different in today’s gospel. Here, public confession to Christ is an absolute prerequisite for eternal life. It stands on the same level as the requirement of love of neighbor and mercy. “I say to you, ‘Whosoever confesses me before men, even the Son of Man shall confess before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God'” (Lk 12:8-9). What a sharpness!

Christ is equally sympathetic and committed to the care of religion in secret. The one who sees in faith above all a matter of the heart. The one who did not want to know anything about the distortion of religion in front of the public tried to expel it into the heart’s chamber. When you pray, go to your room. The one was sharp with the Pharisees because they exhibited their prayers, fasts, almsgiving, and religion. Let people not see that you are fasting! And suddenly, that opposite, a strict command to manifest your faith in front of people. Not to show your dedication and not to confess to it – it is supposed to mean exclusion from society from God. Religion has two sides, which are more internal and private – a decision to believe in God, devotion to God, and a conversation with God. All this does not tolerate publicity because it is supposed to take place in the depths of the soul.

On the other hand, religion has a public character. For God is the Lord of the whole world! He is everything in everything. Therefore, an attitude towards God, and therefore religion, is a public matter. It cannot simply be enclosed in a chamber, church, or sacristy. He has the right to his place in public life, to be recognized and represented. Christ was not ashamed to give his life publicly to the people on the cross. Therefore, one who has received the grace of faith in Christ cannot consider it a private matter and close himself off. Christ must mean more to us than what people think and say. In other words, we often get into situations where we must express our opinions and stand by our Christian convictions. The Lord encourages us to do this by saying, “What can people do to you?” What can you lose? Perhaps only sexual life. But God can give you eternal life.

That’s all nice. But something inside us resists showing our religious beliefs outwardly. In that regard, we all suffer from a particular spiritual shyness and often say: What about whom, what m I, and what do I believe in? Why should I hang on someone’s nose that I go to church, and what prayer book do I use? What would be the point of me breaking up with someone precisely because of religion? It makes no sense! The latter will not understand it anyway, or they will not want to understand it. And how about cheering yourself up in public?

When, in 1936, Jesse Owen – the “black locomotive” blessed himself in front of his run at the Olympic Games in Berlin, the reporter announced it with a microphone, and all the newspapers wrote a fantastic amount about me. Still, when Franco Menichelii blessed himself at the Tokyo Olympics, no one noticed anymore. A private matter.

Are there no voices in the Catholic camp that speak with restraint about the public confession of the procession of the Body of God? After all, Christ spoke words about pearls that are not to be thrown before pigs. Or we are taken aback by the confession of one “Christian” who should prefer to hold his tongue behind his teeth because his private life does not coincide with his admission. Perhaps Christ’s words about confession before men mean something else. Today, it is not required to confess to him out loud before monarchs and viceroys as years ago. It is required neither by the expression of protest nor by dialogue in the form of a debate. But it is needed for the testimony of lived Christianity. The world does not want to hear from Christians only great pathetic words, much less similar gestures, but a life quite different from the one that leads the world.

Christianity must get completely into our blood and be reflected in our way of expressing ourselves, speaking out, and our views and opinion of people and things. It is to be manifested in our modesty and willingness to help. Such a confession of faith and confession to Christ convinces. The world longs for such a confession, even if it does not want to admit it! Just as many chases after all sorts of idols and do not hide them at all, so we must not hide and conceal the direction in which our desire is going.