He learned wisdom under the cross from the crucified Christ. And the knowledge of life; Jesus also wants to teach us today with his word. “Everyone was amazed, and they said to each other: “What kind of word is this…” (Mk 1:27)? Evangelist Luke writes about Jesus, who proves his power, mission, and name that he is The Messiah. His speech is disarmingly and shockingly clear when he teaches in the synagogue at Capernaum. It is a different speech than the multitudes heard from learned men in synagogues. He speaks as one with full power, “Greek – extrusion echo.” Jesus says as the one who knows why he came. He brings the teaching of the gospel, the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. Jesus opens the eyes of souls with his teaching to see what God expects from man. This is also proven by the incident when the unclean spirit cried out: “What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Son of God” (Mk 1:24). We note that only the weaker could speak in this way to the stronger. The unclean spirit speaks the truth about the power of Christ. It presents Jesus as the Holy One of God. The words reveal a hopeless and desperate attempt to neutralize the power of another. The devil knows that his power is incomparable to the power of Jesus. The devil does not have the power to win over Jesus. Jesus proves his power when he says clearly and decisively: “Shut up and come out of him” (Mk 1:25)! It is not just the power of Jesus’ word. How many give orders and orders and regulations, and those to whom they are addressed do not carry them out? The power of Jesus’ talk will be realized immediately. An unclean spirit breaks a person to see in it a particular struggle for a person and, at the same time, the defeat of the devil, who is not silent but must come out of the man with a cry. Screaming didn’t help the devil. It just reveals that Jesus has the power before which the power of evil capitulates. 

The Church received from its founder the role and duty of teacher and prophet, thus continuing and fulfilling the work of the Lord Jesus. The teaching-prophetic mission of the Church has always been necessary to guide thinking, awaken conscience, and watch over human hearts. When we want to implement the words of Jesus, it is right to realize that the priest should never personally take on such work that can be entrusted to laypeople. Let the laity offer their abilities, knowledge, experience, talent, and education where God has them. It is a downright sin when a priest does not allow lay people to realize the gifts they have received from God. 

We have already been deceived by many with their clever speeches, promises, proposals, and false arguments, but their power, although it has lasted for decades, lasts and will last, is final. We are not silent today and do not want to be quiet because we believe in the power of the teaching of the Gospel of Jesus.

What experiences do we have with the testimony of faith? Haven’t you noticed that even “Christians” are ashamed to confess their faith? The man was talking about his co-worker. One day, this co-worker visited me. As I spoke, I asked him, “Have you ever heard the Gospel?” “No,” he answered, “but I have seen it.” I know a man who was the terror of the whole neighborhood. He was an alcoholic and a drug addict; he was as dangerous as a wild beast. But he was utterly changed by the influence of the gospel. Now he is kind and good and has given up alcohol altogether.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus was not accepted by his natives because the words came out of his mouth: “You will remind me of the words: Physician, heal yourself!” We have heard all that happened in Capernaum; do the same here, in your homeland” (Lk 4:23). The Lord Jesus comes to his people, and they know him: Joseph’s son. They recognize him as their countryman, of course – and as such, he is not attractive to them, and they show him no recognition. They know him as their countryman – but not as the Messiah. As such, he wants to introduce himself to them when he reads the Messianic passage from the prophet Isaiah; the prophet points to him, but they do not accept it in mind or heart. When we look at the example of those Nazarenes, we can understand what it means to know Christ. It means to come out of darkness, from the darkness of error, deception, and insincerity. To know Christ means to free oneself from egoism, avarice, pride, sensuality, and comfort; allowing yourself to tell the truth – above all, the truth about yourself; it means accepting the truth – even if it’s unpleasant, complex, or inconvenient. Lord Jesus will not spare us such facts, even though we are his own for him – precisely because we are his own.

When he became man, Christ found his homeland among us; let him be a rare prophet in this country, even if he reveals brutal truths to us; for these truths, for our liberation from darkness, he sacrificed his life. No one is a prophet in his own country. The proverb can be misused. Jesus asks us to bear witness to the truth in this world, in the environment where we live and work. That is, to resist the false currents of the present, showing in one’s life that it is possible to live in a different, more beautiful, and perfect way. This will make many around us question the meaning of life.

Our testimonies with preaching about faith can be different. It is necessary that we first look carefully at our life. We do not want others to do what we do not do. The father says: The son drank, he also hit me… I once shouted at him: “Did they teach you that in religion and church?” He answered me: “Shut up! I never saw you as a Christian.” That day, I entered my conscience and changed my life.” From each other and for each other, I need to live the testimony of faith. 

Let us be responsible for everything that God has entrusted to us.

Jesus reminds us of this in the parable of the talents: “For to everyone who has, more will be added and he will have more. And from him who has not, even what he has will be taken” (Mt 25:29). Our task in life is to fulfill the will of God and thus gain a share in the kingdom of God. they received. Jesus compared the gifts from God to talents so that the listeners would better understand the magnitude of the facilities. Talent was the most significant financial unit in Asia Minor. To create a correct picture of the value of the talent, let’s remember that the Jewish talent was divided into 30 minas or 3000 shekels. One mina weighed about 436 g of silver, the shekel 8.4 g. It took about 15 years of work to earn one million. A talent was equal to 26 kg of silver, which meant that for the average Jew, wealth was practically unattainable. In today’s situation, one talent would be worth 70 thousand US dollars. This means that whoever receives more will rightly be asked for more; if expectations are not met, a harsher punishment comes. The parable of the talents does not exclude anyone from God’s love. Everyone gets talents. As humans, we were given health, beauty, family, various smartness, skills, talents, and how have we dealt with them so far?

When Edison was asked what he owed to his discoveries and inventions, he answered: “One percent talent and ninety percent hard work.” Louis Pasteur, the inventor of the cure for rabies and the discoverer of pasteurization, spoke similarly. As Christians, we received gifts in the sacraments – baptism,  confirmation, reconciliation, the Eucharist, marriage, and the priesthood. We must not only turn our attention to him regarding rights, but we also have obligations. The world admires Blessed John XXIII, who amazed those around him with his moral, human, and theological principles. Those who read his “Diary Soul” know that he worked on the values ​​he possessed gradually and slowly, from his student years until he died Pope; he worked on himself again and cooperated with graces from God.

Talent is not only a gift but also a task, an obligation. Sv. Augustine realized the principle: “God, who created you without you, will not save you without you, without your cooperation.” Talent does not only require natural, physical work but also spiritual and mental engagement. In the parable, Jesus is concerned with our cooperation. We do not want to be like the servant who buried the talent and returned it as it was received. It is not enough to produce; when God wants more, we are obliged to fulfill the task with which we have been entrusted. The righteous, dishonest servant deserved the statement and the follow-up: “Throw away servant out into the darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 25:30). Man need not fear God the Judge when he lives as God expects him to.

Symbol of oil▪ The lamp does not burn without oil. So, it is a symbol of death. When does death occur? Even doctors distinguish between so-called clinical death and the natural end of life. There are sure signs that life in the body is ending. Is it over? But with death, we don’t even know the beginning. According to a Spanish song, one begins to die at birth. But this is about natural bodily life. We Christians believe in eternal life but also the eternal death of sinners. When do they start? Life here is equated with grace, symbolized by the lamp’s oil. So when does a person die? He loses energy in the truest sense the moment he loses sanctifying dignity. That is why grave sins are also called “mortal sins.” Although the sinner continues to live on earth, it is only like the flickering of the last remaining oil. Bodily death will reveal what was inside. So there is a big difference between people. Wolves are all wolves; sheep are sheep, writes Pseudo-Makarius. They look the same and are the same. However, people only look the same on the outside. There are sheep or wolves inside; they carry life or death.

Arrival in the middle of the night▪ The oil is stored in the lamp but lit when it gets dark. That is why all lamps look the same during the day, whether they have oil or not. When does it get dark? In the complete sense, only at physical death. But already in this life, there are many moments in which it seems to us that it is getting late, that we are in a fog, that we have lost our way. In these moments, one already recognizes that someone has or does not have the light of grace. It is a light that does not burn brightly but still enough so we do not lose the right direction. Even great saints sometimes experience periods of anxiety. It seemed to them that heaven was closed to them. Theresa of Lisieux also had such an impression before her death. But she had one certainty, and all believers have it: the certainty of faith, of trust. We cannot see ahead, but we still feel that our path is the right one and that we cannot leave it. Pseudo-Macarius, who we just quoted, explains these states by using the example of someone walking with a lamp against the wind. The fire blazes in all directions, but it does not go out. That’s why we value it all the more and are sure it will flare up thoroughly when the wind dies down and there is calm.

I expect a groom. ▪ Faith is like a leap into the dark. At least, that’s how it seems to the great converts when they finally decide to accept the faith. But why does he finally leap? One of them explained it nicely. We don’t understand anything at that point. The darkness is complete. But we feel that it is not empty. Someone is standing there, and we know that they will catch us, that we will not fall or hit each other. Oil is a symbol of eternal light. But what would be the use of lighting the house if it was empty and no one was waiting for us there? The comparison to the virgins and the bridegroom is appropriate in the biblical tradition. Scripture is the message of the living God. His life is not in time, not in place. However, there is an eternal meeting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons in unity, in an inaccessible light. Nevertheless, we have been given access to this. Therefore, we await the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in blessed hope.

As James Pitre says, to worship something as a god is to bring to it sacrifices. “And Jacob made a vow: ‘If God is with me, if he will protect me on this journey, by which I now walk if he will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, and if I return happily to my father’s house, then Yahweh will be my God, and this stone I have set up as a monument will be God’s house. And, of all things, I will give you tithes” (Gen 28:20-22).
This is the first and primary form of sacrifice. Where is your tithe going? Because that’s where your God is. That is who you worship. “Mortify therefore your earthly members: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil lust, and covetousness, which is idolatry!” (Col 3:5) “Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and shame is the glory of those who the earthly-minded.” (Phil 3:19)
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Faith, hope, and love…
Do you believe that to be like Jesus in Heaven, you must be like Him
like Him on earth because He is the same Jesus and the exact likeness and unity? Do you have the sure hope that in the power of God’s grace, you really can? And especially love – do you want it? Do you like Jesus and desire to be like Him? Not just in His abilities (power, immortality – who wouldn’t desire that?), but also in His qualities such as love, mercy, and goodness, because one without the other does not exist.
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The more we immerse ourselves in Christ, the more our inner man.
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In the Church, you will encounter two kinds of people: the native and the stranger. Strangers attend the Church but do not live or work in it, for it is foreign. Domestics live and work in it, for it is theirs. By this, you will know them from one another.
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There are two ways to approach Scripture. The first is to take Scripture as a foundation and, on that basis, as some detectives, start deducing and looking for the Messiah and all that and everything that goes with it. That’s what the scribes and rabbis did at the turn of the century. But the result was that they had Jesus crucified, and Bar Kochab declared Messiah… The second is that the foundation and starting point is Christ – and in His light, we approach the Scriptures, and they are revealed to us because they are illuminated to Christ. So it was that the Emausite disciples first experienced this when Jesus “opened to them the Scriptures” and “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, expounded to them the things concerning Him in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). Since then, the Church has done just that
and continues to do so to this day. There is no sola scriptura, but only one truth: Jesus Christ. He is the Alpha and Omega, no one else, nothing else. After all, even Scripture testifies that “no one can lay any other foundation, but then that which is already laid is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11).
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Be like a child. To be born again. To be a new creation. Scripture describes the depths to which we must go, leaving behind the ideas and patterns of our thought to accommodate the reality of Christianity, God, and the real world. To see things in a whole new way. Truly. As they are, not twisted by the illusions of the world. Also, one must leave, or rather, legally leave the human family of the world when he chooses to live that way. This, too, the Scriptures call our attention to as the price of the new life, including the hatred of the world, which is terrified of what is taken from it that differs from it, that it does not understand, that it cannot control, and that which transcends it. Sometimes, we call it mysticism and think it is unique
for the few. The opposite is true. What else is Heaven but mysticism?
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To pray is to dwell in God’s world. That is why prayer is so important
(though not only for this reason): to get used to God and the things of God and God’s world can only be done by dwelling on it as much and as intensely as possible. The community in which this world materializes has a similar function, and we also learn to live it and live in it by unlearning each other, by inspiration, and by example.
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Not only the Eucharist as such, but also the liturgy of the Eucharist itself is Heaven at Earth – precisely because it is not anything but liturgy. Whoever loves Heaven loves the Liturgy of the Eucharist because, in it, he experiences it. He who loves the Liturgy of the Eucharist loves Heaven because he already knows what it tastes like.
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When one sees all the barrenness to which many separated brothers
grow up, one understands better why Jesus did not leave us here with the book of Scripture in our hands but chose to stay with us on earth, clothed in the Body of the Church, which He created for this purpose.
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We prefer to flow with reality rather than flow with ideas.
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Rejection of God and His actions – whether atheists or separated brethren – is similar to conspiracy theories. As a friend wrote to me atheist on Lourdes, “The commission was investigating whether a kind of healing was a miracle – I’m not going to discuss that; I don’t believe in miracles; the whole idea is absurd.” You don’t need to know anything. You don’t need to know anything at all to use reason. Just repeat the magic words “demagoguery” over and over again, “absurd,” “I don’t believe,” “bullshit,” “the Church is a criminal organization,” “Religion has caused all the wars,” etc. The problem, then, is that while knowing the facts and drawing logical conclusions require courage, some effort, and even the art of correct thinking,  The latter involves nothing – and yet it is also convenient because we are confirmed in our ideas, which gives us a sense of importance (I’m the one who knows how it is, not those stupid sheep) and comfort (I don’t have to change anything about myself or undergo no effort of thought). Therefore, in the end, attempts to show similar people the reality essentially ring hollow – because their problem is not ignorance; it’s just a consequence of their laziness and their feeling of superiority over the rest of the filthy “plebs.”
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Adulthood is about self-actualization – I know who I am! – and transcendence – I know who I serve! Both are autonomic.

Jesus often comes into contact with the scribes and Pharisees. We hear that even today, he addresses them: “Woe” (Mt 23 27). The Pharisees demanded the observance of many rules derived from tradition and unreasonably limited personal freedom. By interpreting certain parts of the law, they imposed on the people such obligations that they secretly overlooked and even deliberately avoided. They saw their primary mission as ostentatious piety. Nothing was too holy not to serve this purpose. God told Moses about His commandments. These words have a deep meaning. If a person thinks about God’s word and lives according to it, he is exalted by nature. God’s law’s principles will manifest in just and compassionate action. Man will not succumb to bribes and various other seductive temptations.

Thus, you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who killed the prophets(cf. Mat 23,29-31). The Jews were very eager to decorate the tombs of the prophets to show their respect for them. However, they did not heed their messages and words of warning. In the time of Christ, superstitious attention was paid to the graves of the dead, and their decoration required considerable expense. It was idolatry before God. By their indecent worship of the dead, people showed that they did not love God above all, nor their neighbors as themselves. Much of the same idolatry can be observed today. They widen their prayer straps and enlarge the fringes on their robes. They like to have the leading places at banquets and the first seats in synagogues, greetings in the squares, and even when people call them Master! Jesus says: But do not let yourselves be called Master, for one is your teacher, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth father, for one is your heavenly Father. Do not even be called leaders, because one is your Leader, Christ (cf. Mat 23,5-10). Here, the Savior revealed their selfish ambition, striving for a position of power, and exposed their false humility, under which a heart full of avarice and envy was hidden.

Jesus warns when, on festive occasions, the guests were seated according to rank, and those given the most prominent places were the center of attention and unique favor. The Pharisees still sought this honor. Jesus condemned these customs. He also reprimanded the vain desire to be addressed as rabbi and master. What is it like to be the guest of honor at a lavish banquet? You enter the banquet hall door, and your host gives you a big smile and leads you to the place of honor behind the top table. When is a person proud? How to distinguish pride from pride in the work done, which is only a natural reaction? A person should know his gifts and strengths and be healthy and proud of his accomplishments. There is only a tiny step between healthy pride and pride. It is in the view of others.

Who are you, Salome? Young, beautiful, talented, and somewhat inexperienced. Sometimes, it is more visible, less. Salome had an excellent opportunity to show herself. Perhaps she thought that her potential husband was among the diners. So she wanted to establish herself in her best beauty. And she succeeded. They noticed her. The king, who was her stepfather, tried to repay her. After all, she became his stepdaughter, so he saw an opportunity to gift her. And he was truly generous. Half a kingdom is not enough. Someone will say that he has gone crazy – for one dance. Herodias was worse off. She wasted a great deal. She also impoverished her somewhat naive daughter with her egoistic act. And it was great, after all. Beautiful “tinsel” for unwrapped and showed emptiness.

It would be easy to judge us… Salome is in each of us. We are young (80 years to eternity), beautiful, talented, and inexperienced. Sometimes more, sometimes less. We like to show off because profit is helpful for us. And we can enjoy generosity. And there are always kings who jump on our “honey.” They want to get us. And so they promise us something. They are successful in this – they call us drunk with dry bread. Then, we will also waste more significant offers than “half the kingdom.” The problem is not only in the menu but also in the fact that we are willing to sacrifice anything for the “dry roll.” We are so glad that we even offer the heads of our neighbors. This is the emptiness that convicts us. It would be easy to judge us… but God does not judge us… He wants to forgive us… Do we want His mercy?

Come to the deep: How do I react to the various offers of the world? How long will I be here on Earth, and how long in eternity? Am I paying adequate attention to this fact? Am I thinking about God’s offers?

Tip for you:  Let’s try to do something for those worse off than us. But let’s not do it because they are miserable, but because they are people like us. We are equal.