predication.net

Lent is a serious time. We meditate on the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus. It is right that we accept Jesus as God the Son. Jesus did a lot for us to believe in his mission, and yet we see that many cannot make up their minds. That is why he said the words to them: “You know me, and you know where I am from.” And I did not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him because I am from him and he sent me” (John 7:28-29).

They heard his sermons and saw the life of Jesus many. Accepting his teachings means radically changing your life. On the other hand, they saw their indifference, and convenience, and did not have the strength to get rid of these weaknesses. They felt fear, so they preferred to settle for a neutral position. Yes, a lot is said and thought about God, faith, and Jesus Christ today. We see both negative and positive attitudes around us. Each side and decision has its reasons. We come to Holy Mass to be strengthened by Jesus’ word and Body in the Eucharist. This reminds us of the death on the cross, that is, our redemption, our liberation from sin. We come to strengthen our relationship with Jesus, which our Church teaches us about. We often realize in our lives that we must not be Christians only in church, or when we pray privately at home. Before the shrine, let’s draw strength and resolve to persevere on the way to Jesus. Yes, we sometimes feel that it is very difficult, and it hurts when we want to follow Jesus whole and whole.

We know from our own lives that even though this decision was painful and difficult, it was still the right and beautiful decision. As a priest, I can say from my own life that I have never regretted my decision to become a priest. After all, Jesus said: “And everyone who leaves houses or brothers and sisters or father and mother or children or fields for my name will receive a hundred times more and will inherit eternal life” (Mt 19:29). Today, after several years of priesthood I know that the profession of a priest is difficult, but I can say that if I had to decide about my profession again, I would not hesitate for a minute. However, I also know from your life’s journeys that more than one of you had and must make difficult decisions in your faith and Many of you have also become convinced that when you put Jesus’ words into practice in your practical life: “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23), that Jesus will not owe anything to his faithful.

If we have once decided on Jesus, we must not think that it only hurts once in our life. We certainly don’t want Jesus’ words from the Gospel to apply to us: “You know me, and you know where I come from. And I did not come of myself, but he who sent me is true…” (John 7:28). We believe that Jesus is our God, eternal Love, who loves us above all. We do not want to be among those about whom John wrote that they wanted to seize him and kill him when Jesus told them who he was and why he had come.

There are three kinds of egoism. The first is personal, which is condemned; the second is familial, which is justified; and the third is national, which is celebrated. Among the apostles, egoism was between the family, (collective and national/. Envy is the daughter of egoism and the mother of superiority.

Love of God and neighbor is the pinnacle of perfection, the foundation of all virtues. It is therefore easy to say that the opposite, love of self, is the source of all evil. So at least the French authors of the 17th and 18th centuries, including Bossuet, were fond of saying. La Rochefoucauld argues that all virtues dissolve in self-love like salt in water. Love is only true if it is selfless. And yet Aristotle already points out that reality never corresponds to the lofty talk of disinterested love. Would that be correct? What’s wrong with having to love ourselves? After all, we wouldn’t live any other way! What use would others benefit if we meant ourselves ill? The great philosopher of antiquity even dared to say that there is no but that we love ourselves. A mother loves her children because she considers them part of her person. We love a friend because he is our “second self.” This doctrine, to be sure, seems a little noble. Life does is not corrected by denying reality for the sake of some ideal motives. Aristotle’s doctrine needs to be supplemented, namely not by preaching and false encouragement, but by pointing out new facts, and new realities. The only way out of egoism, Aristotle, sees in true friendship. With a friend, we share interests, ideas, and a part of life. Those who do not have a friend are ultimately harming themselves. Christianity this fellowship between people has been strengthened in a strange supernatural way. In Christ, we are all one, as limbs of one body (cf. 1 Cor 12:12 .). To love our neighbor. Him, then, means to love oneself. On the contrary, even true love for oneself is for the benefit of others. The Gospel does not say that we are to love our neighbor and not ourselves. We are to love him as ourselves (cf. Mt 19:19).

Why, then, is selfishness the source of evil? “Selfishness” we usually refer to a love of self that is disordered, unreasonable, that does not reckon with the fact that neighbors belong to us. According to St. Paul’s simile, this is probably the case, as if the eye said to the hand, “I don’t need that one! Or as if the head said to the feet: I don’t need it. you!” (1 Cor. 12:21).
Egoism, then, harms itself. It thinks it likes itself, and yet it destroys itself. It deprives itself of everything that makes it beautiful, great, and strong: the union of grace with all men and with God. In that sense, of course, he is right St. Maximilian the Confessor, declared that the source of all virtues is the love of God, while the source of all vices is “self-love.” The egoist artificially isolates himself. Hell is then eternal loneliness.

Who belongs to the Church? Those who have been baptized. Many of them have left the Church, but they have no part in the life of the Church, but they belong to it. Children, always remain daughters or sons of their parents, even if they quarrel with them or leave home. However, those who have not been baptized but live according to conscience, doing good, also belong to the Church. Jesus said by their fruits, you will know them. Of course, by lasting fruit.

What does scandal mean? Becoming a stumbling block to someone’s faith, a stumbling block. Someone is following Christ, and we stumble at his feet. Either by bad example or bad counsel. We stop him in his tracks. Something may be a stumbling block to someone that is not a stumbling block to another. How do we find that measure of when something is an offense? When the apostles were asked. Does the master not pay your taxes? Jesus said to Peter. Go catch a fish, take the money out of it, and pay for yourself and for me so that, we are not a stumbling block to them. The principle applies here. Be careful.  Even if something doesn’t offend me, the other person is sensitive so I’d rather not say something, even though there may be nothing wrong with it. But some people want to be offended by everything. They see offense in everything, We are not to blame for such offense.
Who and when can be damned? The state of hell. The Bible has 6 or 7 different degrees. St. Thomas Aquinas takes them up. They are different states and not cauldron, fire devils. Jesus was talking about Gehenna. Gehenna was specifically a place outside the walls of Jerusalem, in the valley of the brook Gijón, where there was a so-called dung gate where garbage was taken out of the city as well as sacrificed animals, and it all burned there. We can imagine what the smell was like. Figuratively, it brings out the state of the soul. This image of fire is used by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 64. Those. who oppose God will be burned with unquenchable fire.

Do we have experience in giving testimony? The principle applies that the more credible a witness is, the more important and necessary his testimony becomes. John the apostle describes the testimony of Christ, which we should know in our faith and should not bypass. Jesus said to the Jews: “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. But there is someone else who testifies about me, and I know that the testimony he gives about me is true” (Jn 5:31-32).

Jesus acts as the Messiah, and according to the laws of the time, rightly so. That is, in Jewish law, it was valid that the sentence could become valid only when the facts of the act were witnessed by two witnesses. The Jews knew this regulation from the book of Moses, which we call Deuteronomy. There it is written: “One witness shall be of no avail in any guilt or crime which any man hath committed; the decision will depend on the testimony of two or three witnesses” (Deuteronomy 19:15). Jesus knows these regulations. He is sent by God, and he is approved by several testimonies: the testimony of John the Baptist, his deeds and miracles, the laws of Moses, or the books of the Holy Scriptures and by God the Father himself, who is his crown witness to him. The deeds that Jesus does are the deeds of God, and the voice of the Father calls to faith in Jesus Christ, as every unbiased person knows. Jesus Christ is the ambassador of God. We realize that whoever rejects such testimony is outside the law, his trial is false and invalid.

Centuries, and now millennia, have not changed anything for some. There are people in our environment who try to include Jesus in some group they have created, just so they don’t have to recognize Jesus Christ as their God and Lord. This is how they say about Christ that he did not exist at all, which is denied by Joseph Flavius ​​- Jewish historian, Pliny, and others, who accurately captured in their works the time when even we believers say that Christ lived among us. Others want to assign Jesus to the philosophers, others to the reformers. Some regard Jesus as a politician and generally as a person similar to us, but with a higher intellect for his time. But we know that Jesus cannot be included anywhere. He is not a social rioter, nor a dreamy thinker. He is God’s messenger, he is the mediator of salvation, therefore his words also apply to us, so that we believe, and we will be saved.

For us, the teaching of Christ is the teaching that shows us the way to eternal bliss. Let us repeat with St. Paul even today: “I know whom I have believed and I am sure” (2 Tim 1:12). Amazing confidence that can bear everything for Christ, that can move mountains, and that is the testimony for us that about itself says Jesus in the Gospel.  The testimony of Christ is unshakable when we have surrendered ourselves completely to Him.

1. If God loves us, why do we as individuals live full of insecurity, fear, and hatred? Why are we discontent, and emotionally unstable, fall into anxiety, grief, and self-limitations, and do not feel his love at all?
2. If God loves us, why are families breaking up at the societal level, children rebelling against parents, generations being pitted against each other, and rivalries and hatred reigning everywhere?
3. If God loves us, why are there wars, hunger, poverty, injustice, discrimination, oppression, and lack of freedom? Why don’t we as a society live a wonderful plan of love, justice, and peace?
4. And deep down, a discontented question gnaws: If God loves us, why don’t we try? Why isn’t our world a paradise where we live in harmony, peace, and justice?
A. The Problem
Before we would like to solve a problem, we must know the problem. If the problem is not formulated, the solution will never, we will never find it. If our car breaks down, we go to the mechanic to tell us what’s wrong. If our watch breaks down, we ask the watchmaker to fix it for us. But if it’s a broken life, who do we go to? If the world doesn’t go in the right direction, we’re supposed to ask the Creator of the world what’s going on. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Rom 3:23). That which does not allow God’s glory to be manifested in the world’s love and the realization of his plan of happiness, peace, and unity, is called sin. Sin is the cause of all the evils that afflict humanity.
God has poured out a flood of love upon us. But we are under an unbreakable glass that allows us to watch the rain of love fall, yet we don’t even get wet in the water of life. It is sin that keeps us from experiencing God’s love. Ever since Satan deceived our grandparents in paradise, who believed that by their strength they could gain happiness and human fulfillment, all the unhappiness in which we live began: Man has drifted away from God, the source of life, separated from his wife and blamed her, and made friends with the creature who rebelled against him. Since then, hatred, hostility, and vindictiveness have reigned. Immediately afterward, the stronger (Cain) killed the weaker (Abel). Wars, injustices, the pursuit of wealth, and all the evil that exists in the world began. Our problem is that we are sinners, and therefore we are distant from God’s love. The worst thing is that we cannot avoid it because sin is not something we can prevent from coming into us, but something that is born out of the nature of our being. Why does the lemon tree always give bitter and sour fruit and not sweet and tasty? The reason is simple: it has the roots of the lemon tree and cannot give any fruit other than lemons. And so we also bear the fruit of sin because our roots, our hearts, are sinful. We need someone to change our hearts…

We are sinners, and that is why we sin. Because our roots are the roots of sin, it stands to reason that they bear the fruit of sin. When King David recognized his sins and confessed them, he said that he was a sinner from conception, that he was born a sinner. Indeed, I was born in iniquity and my mother conceived me sinful. (Ž 51, 7). Sin is like our shadow. It cannot be separated from us. They are only two ways to be free from the shadow: Remain in total darkness – which is even worse, to be light, because light has no shadow – which, however, is for human powers impossible. To want to save one’s life with one’s strength means, falling further into hopelessness and helplessness. When the first space satellites began to be sent to the moon, the fundamental problem that humans faced was that they didn’t have enough energy to get there -they were falling to earth. And the higher they got, the harder the fall and the worse the consequences. The same thing happens to us when we want to achieve happiness through our strength and means and realization of our life: When we seek false paths: materialism, humanism without God, communism, and capitalism…, when we believe in false idols: Satanism, divinity, greed, mind control, transcendental meditation, predicting the future…, when we depend only on ourselves: the fulfillment of one law, our righteousness, our good works…

We are blind, unable to find the way. And no one else can help us, because others are – like us – blind. We need power from above, which we do not have. Two drunken men boarded a boat to sail to the other side of the river. It was already dark. They rowed all night without it, to reach the other side. At dawn, after partially sobering up, they discovered that they had not advanced a meter because the boat was tied up. We, too, are bound by the rope of sin, which does not allow us, to try as we may, to attain the salvation that is on the other shore. Neither our good intentions nor our good deeds, nor our righteousness, is not able to secure our salvation. And it matters not at all what the rope is. The little bird cannot fly whether it is tied with a steel chain or a thin thread. Either way, it cannot fly. We need someone to cut the rope of sin… Sin is not believing in God, not trusting in God and trusting more yourself, preferring yourself and negating him, rejecting his will, to arrange our life according to ourselves. This means worshiping an idol.

The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the greatest. Jesus tells the Jews about this secret of authority and love: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do. What the Father does, the Son also does” (John 5:19).

Jesus explains to the Jews his relationship with God – the Father. He emphasizes that God did not cease to be active even after the work of creation, as the Jews thought, but constantly maintains and manages the world. His son is his equal in nature, power and right, and majesty. This relationship is explained in theology in dogmatic by the doctrine of God in three persons – “De Deo Trino”. In the Gospel, John presents a serious idea: God has entrusted everything that he owns to his Son, namely: power, life, and judgment. From the Gospel, we see that Jesus does not make demands for people to believe in him, he does not rely on human authority, but on the authority of God. Jesus heals on the Sabbath, which offends the Jews. What God can do: raise the dead, and judge human deeds, he gave that to Jesus, his Son. From this, Jesus deduces for them that whoever does not honor him does not honor God – the Father either, but whoever believes his words gains eternal life.

Why can the Lord Jesus do what his Father does?
This he explains by saying that whatever his loving Father shows him, he also does. Whoever sees the Lord Jesus sees God. He who can listen to him listens to the Father, but also he who ignores him rejects the Father. Without him, we have no life, no salvation, and no way to God. And yet we accept the words of the Lord Jesus: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). That’s why we look at Jesus as a landmark not only of history but also of humanity.

This means for us that indifference to Christ does not exist. Each of us must make a decision – either to accept Jesus or to reject him. We want to accept it. That is why Jesus is close to us, we see in him our Judge, who in the hour of our death will be a landmark of bliss or damnation. He earned this rank by his love for God the Father and us, his brothers and sisters when out of love he came among us to redeem and save us.

We believe that Jesus is “Truth”. We believe that the judgment upon us will be what we deserve and that it will be just because he will not punish for himself, but for the Father, whom he propitiated. Therefore, it is our effort to be fully lived through life and be respected by is authority. Whoever does not respect authority on earth offends and deserves punishment. Whoever does not respect authority for eternal life despises the love of Christ and therefore prepares himself for eternal damnation. Even when preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we should realize, that this may be the last opportunity to apologize to God for our sins.

The thought of meeting Jesus as a Judge will lead us to a responsible approach to eternal values. Therefore, when questioning the conscience, or during various discussions about the fulfillment of the Ten Commandments and other commandments, let’s not say and convince what my opinion is, how I like it, or how it suits me, but let’s look at Jesus. 

For example, do I expect my salvation and healing from a miraculous medal, scapular or holy water?

Jesus says to a sick man who has been lying at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem for thirty-eight years, near the pond: “Get up, take up your bed and walk!” (Jn 5:8). The Holy Scriptures speak of healing water. Ezekiel writes about the healing power of water in Betsata Pond. This was not the natural power of water. We could compare it to the effects of water in today’s Lourdes, where many inexplicable healings took place – based on the immersion of a sick person in this water. The book Lourdes Lighthouse of the Atomic Age is written about these events not in a superficial sense, because each case is investigated by a committee of doctors and the doctors don’t have to be believers. When the Church gives evidence of unexplained healing, it is issued after a thorough investigation. So nothing, superficial, was invented.

The sick person lies in a colonnade by the pond where he came or could be brought to be healed in the water that restores health. However, he had no one to carry him into this water when it swirls, that is, when it acquires healing power for a while. It was something special. After the storm, the water in the pond healed only one, and that was the first person who entered it. This patient is therefore sad. Hope dawns on the sick man when Jesus asks him if he wants to be healthy. However, the sick person sees only a sick body, and Jesus wants to give him his salvation. The sick man thinks that Jesus wants to take him there, but Jesus does not want to become a nurse. He wants to heal with his word. The sick man was not healed with the help of miraculous water, nor with the help of some proven practices, but with the love of Jesus. This should lead him to seek Jesus and salvation. Jesus, who healed his body, can also heal his soul. That’s how we understand Jesus’ words, with which he admonishes him: “Behold, you are healed, sin no more, lest something worse befall you” (Jn 5:14).

Our faith is not based on the power of sacred objects. These objects, such as scapulars, agnostics, medallions, are only visible objects that are intended to awaken and maintain faith in the power and strength of the teachings of Jesus Christ. When we take such objects in our hands, let us not succumb to superstitions, and magical charms, because our devout respect for these objects is only meant to deepen our dependence on God. It is different if someone wears a cross around their neck or a rosary on their finger to call on God for help and protection, than someone who carries these objects with them as a talisman for luck or success. Let these objects remind us of the salvation of our souls. But let them help us grow spiritually and progress in fulfilling God’s and the church orders. Yes, we must not lightly provoke, but we must not passively resign when approaching, for example, the rosary and the like. Let us use these and similar things with discretion for the salvation of our immortal souls. In these matters, let us submit to the discipline of the Church while ensuring that it will only benefit the cause and our salvation. 

With the birth of Jesus Christ, it was like this: His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph. But before they started living together, it turned out that she had conceived from the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to shame, therefore he intended to release her secretly » Mt 1, 18-19.

We continue our reflections on the figure of St. Joseph. Today, I would like to take a deeper look at his designation of “righteous” and “betrothed to Mary”, and thus convey a message to all engaged couples and newlyweds. Many events associated with Joseph are told in the apocryphal gospels, i.e. non-canonical ones, which also influenced art and various places of worship. These writings, which are not in the Bible – they are stories that Christian piety created for themselves at that time – respond to the desire to fill the gaps in the narrative of the canonical gospels, that is, those that are in the Bible and that provide us with everything essential for Christian faith and life .

Evangelist Matthew. This is important: what does the Gospel say about Joseph? Not what these apocryphal gospels say, which are not bad or ugly; they are beautiful, but they are not the word of God. However, the gospels, which are part of the Bible, are the word of God. Among them is the evangelist Matthew, who calls Joseph a “righteous” man. Let’s listen to his story: «The birth of Jesus Christ was like this: His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph. But before they started living together, it turned out that she had conceived from the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to shame, so he intended to release her secretly” (1:18-19). Because the fiancé, if the fiancée was unfaithful or if she became pregnant, was supposed to betray her! And in those days women were stoned to death. But Joseph was righteous. He says, “No, I won’t. I will be silent”.

To understand Joseph’s behavior toward Mary, it is helpful to recall the wedding customs of ancient Israel. Marriage was understood in two precisely defined phases. The first was the official betrothal, which already meant a new situation: especially the woman, although she still lived in her father’s house for a year, was actually considered the “wife” of the betrothed. They weren’t living together yet, but it was like she was his wife. The second act was the transfer of the bride from her father’s house to the groom’s house. This was done in a solemn procession that consummated the marriage. And the bride’s friends escorted her there.

Based on these customs, the fact that “before they started living together, it turned out that she had conceived”, exposed the Virgin Mary to the accusation of adultery. And this guilt was punished by stoning according to the ancient law (cf. Dt 22:20-21). Anyway, in later Jewish practice, a more moderate concept prevailed, which imposed only the act of repudiation with civil-law and criminal-law consequences for the woman, but not stoning.

The Gospel says that Joseph was “righteous” precisely because he obeyed the law like any pious Israelite. However, his love for Mary and his trust in her suggested to him a way to save the observance of the law and the honor of his bride: he decided to give her the deed of release secretly, without fuss, without exposing her to public humiliation. He chose the path of discretion, without judgment and compensation. How great is the holiness in Joseph! We, as soon as we hear some “colorful” or unflattering news about someone, we immediately go to gossip about it! Josef, on the other hand, is silent.

However, the evangelist Matthew immediately adds: “As he was thinking about this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus; for he will deliver his people from their sins”” (1.20-21). God’s voice intervenes in Joseph’s discernment and through a dream reveals to him a meaning that is greater than his own righteousness.

And how important it is for each of us to cultivate the right life and at the same time feel that we still need God’s help! So that we can broaden our horizons and assess life’s circumstances from a different, broader, point of view. Many times we feel prisoners of what happened to us: “Well, look what happened to me!” – and we remain prisoners of something bad that happened to us; but it is precisely in front of some life circumstances that initially seem dramatic that Providence stands, which takes shape over time and sheds meaningful light on the pain that has struck us. The temptation is to close ourselves in this pain, in thoughts about the unpleasant things that happened to us. And that is not beneficial. It leads to sadness and bitterness. A bitter heart is so grumpy.

I would like us to stop and think about a detail of this Gospel story that we often overlook. Mária and Josef are two betrothed who probably cultivated dreams and expectations about their life and future. God seems to intervene as an unexpected event in their lives, and both, although with initial difficulties, open their hearts wide to the reality before them.

Dear brothers and sisters, our life is often not what we imagine it to be. Especially in relationships of love and feelings, it is difficult for us to move from the logic of falling in love to the logic of mature love. And it is necessary to move from infatuation to mature love. You newlyweds, think carefully about this. The first phase is always marked by a certain fascination that forces us to live immersed in an imaginary world that often does not correspond to reality. But just when falling in love with her expectations seems to end, true love can begin. To really love does not mean expecting the other person or life to conform to our ideas, but above all it means deciding in complete freedom to take responsibility for the life that is offered to us.

That is why Joseph gives us the important lesson that he chooses Mary “with open eyes”. And we can say that with all the risks. Consider that in the Gospel of John there is a rebuke that the scribes address to Jesus: “We are not sons who come from there”, alluding to prostitution. But because they knew how Mary became pregnant, they wanted to defame the mother of Jesus. To me, this is the dirtiest, most demonic passage in the Gospel. And Joseph’s risk gives us this lesson: take life as it comes. Did God intervene there? I take it. And Joseph did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: After all, the Gospel says: «When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took his wife. But he did not know her until she gave birth to a son; and gave him the name Jesus” (Mt 1:24-25).

Christian couples are called to bear witness to the kind of love that has the courage to move from the logic of infatuation to mature love. And that is a difficult choice that, instead of imprisoning life, can strengthen love to withstand the tests of time. The couple’s love continues in life and matures every day. Betrothed love is – let me tell you – a bit romantic. You’ve already lived through it all, but then mature everyday love, work, and the children that will come begin. And sometimes the romance fades a little. Well, is there no more love? Yes, but mature love.

“But you know, father, sometimes we quarrel…” This has been happening since the time of Adam and Eve until today: husbands quarreling is our daily bread. “But shouldn’t there be arguments?” Yes, yes, there can be. “And father, but sometimes we raise our voices” – “It will happen”. “And also sometimes saucers fly” – “It happens”. But how to ensure that it does not damage the life of the marriage? Listen well: never end the day without reconciliation. We argued, I cursed you, my God, I said bad things to you. But now the day is ending: I must reconcile. Do you know why? Because the cold war of the next day is very dangerous. Don’t let the day after start with war. Therefore, reconcile before going to bed. Always remember: never end the day without making peace. And that will help you in your married life. This path from falling in love to mature love is difficult, but we must follow it.

Saint Joseph, you who loved Mary freely and decided to give up your ideas to make way for reality, help each of us to be surprised by God and to accept life not as something unpredictable to be protected from, but as a mystery, which hides the secret of true joy. Ask all Christian spouses for joy and radically, but always keeping in mind that only with mercy and forgiveness is love possible.