predication.net

At first, he compares himself to the Ten Commandments. And if he is sincere, it convicts him of many sins, whether envy and sinful lust or theft, lying and not keeping promises and word, disrespecting parents, cursing wickedness, and worshiping idols such as money or human praise. On the other hand, it is easy to be blameless regarding the law. If, therefore, a man, after he has believed and been converted, and after he has passed through the catechumen and has learned the Commandments, abandons evil deeds and grave sin, he might feel that he is already in a good place. He is already living righteously, his sins are erased, and he no longer has to look at himself as a sinner. But, the mistake trap!
Jesus says: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I keep my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”(Jn 15:10). What are they? Jesus repeats the N.T. command to love God with all your being, body, soul, passionately, to the uttermost. To love one another as he loves us devotedly, faithfully, irrevocably, unconditionally, and unconditionally, to the uttermost, even unto death, because that is how He loves us. To worship, genuinely love, actively, even strangers, even our enemies, and to be merciful to all, even to them, as our Father, God. Jesus speaks of those who “are counted worthy of that age and resurrection” (Lk 20:35), and these are the criteria of this “worthiness,” i.e., ability and readiness to live in the Kingdom. Outwardly, this readiness manifests itself, for example, in the fact that no effort, no sacrifice, no suffering, nor any persecution can turn us away from this, as he writes, for example, that “so we also glory in you throughout the churches of God: for your perseverance and faith in all persecutions and tribulations which you endure. And this is a sign of the righteous judgment of God, that you will be recognized as worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering” (2Sol 1:4-5)
What happens if we realize this? Perhaps the author described it best of the famous Pilgrim: “Toward the end of the week, I was preparing for confession, and it occurred to me that it should be as detailed as possible. So, I began to go through and look at all.  My sins from my youth to the present day. I did this very thoroughly, and to not forget anything, I wrote down everything I remembered as accurately as possible. I covered a large sheet of paper with it. I heard that in the Kitaev hermitage, about five miles from Kyiv, a priest who lives an ascetic life and is very wise and full of understanding. Anyone who has come to him to receive the sacrament of reconciliation found an atmosphere of tender compassion and left with a salutary lesson and peaceful spirit. I was greatly comforted when I heard about him and immediately to him. We talked for a while, and then I asked for his advice, handing him a paper to look at. He read it and said:
“My dear friend, much of your writing is utterly trifling. […]
You have given all sorts of details but overlooked the principal thing; you must still include the most serious sins. You have not confessed or written that you do not love God, hate your neighbor, do not believe in the word of God, and are full of pride and ambition. In these four sins is all evil and our spiritual destruction. They are the primary roots from which the shoots of all sins sprout, into which we fall.” At first, the author protested: “Forgive me, venerable father, but how is it possible not to love God, our Creator and Protector? What should we believe in, if not in the Word of God, which is all truth and holiness? To all ..to all my neighbors. Why should I hate them? I don’t
nothing to be proud of.” But the confessor instructs him thus: “Pity, my dear, that you have understood so little of what I have told you. Look! I will teach you more quickly if I give you these notes. I always use them when in my confession. Read them, and you will clearly and accurately prove exactly what I told you.”
The pilgrim takes the notes (they are as an appendix at the end of this reflection). After, with their help, he examines his interior, he discovers with horror the truth about himself: ‘At the reading of the confessional mirror which I received from the priest, I was horrified, and I thought to myself: ‘Heavens! What terrible sins are hidden in me, and yet  have not noticed it!” The desire for purification led me to beg this great spiritual father to teach me to know the causes of all this evil and how to cure it.”
At that moment, our Christianity finally “clicks” where it should be: I am a sinner, and though I may be blameless in the eyes of the law, I am still a proud and selfish sinner in my heart. I am utterly helpless against this; in no way can I not overcome or remove this sin in myself. I am a sinner, a wretch, and a wretch. My only hope is that the merciful Lord will look upon me. The efforts, so slight in magnitude, will add a significant quantity of his grace and abundantly supply what is lacking in my insufficient efforts! And so, according to the words of Scripture, “with fear and trembling work out your salvation” (Phil 2:12).

The Pharisees watched the actions of the Lord Jesus. Their conduct was not honorable. Jesus knew this. The Pharisees took pride in keeping peace on the Sabbath. Their many commands and prohibitions concerning the Sabbath did more harm than good to the believing Jews. We can see this from their unhealthy attitude toward the suffering man with a withered and paralyzed hand. The Lord Jesus is very merciful. He has amazing compassion for the suffering. After all, He is the Messiah. That is why He wants to give the Pharisees proof that He is the Messiah. He will heal the hand of the sick man and, in so doing, will also provide them with the lesson that He is Lord of the Sabbath. Shortly before this event, the apostles picked ears of corn and ate the grains on their way across the field. The Pharisees did not like this because it was the Sabbath. They found it very hard to bear that Jesus was breaking their commands and prohibitions, so they were careful in the synagogue to see if the Lord Jesus would heal. So, in their opinion, He was guilty of breaking the Sabbath peace. The Lord Jesus knew the evil mindset of the Pharisees, so He asked them a question: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” (Lk 6:9). This put the Pharisees in a problematic situation. Logically, one should neither do wrong on the Sabbath nor neglect to do good; in this case, it was healing a diseased hand. Jesus acts humanly, but also as God, and commands the sick man, “Hold out your hand!” (Lk 6:10). And the evangelist Luke says that for this defeat, the Pharisees will take revenge on Jesus: “But they, full of folly, took counsel what to do with Jesus” (Lk 6:11).

We see two directions here. The Lord Jesus acts under the influence of love, and the Pharisees under fanaticism. One has his hands open for doing good, and the other closes them. They are like a paralyzed hand; they do not do good. The Lord Jesus wants to heal them from the bonds of the Law. Do we also feel more bound by the prescriptions of the law than by love?

The Gospel wants to lead us not to be enslaved by regulations but always to act in a spirit of love. We know that church regulations will give way to love. For example, the obligation to attend Sunday Mass does not oblige a mother who has a sick child or when a natural disaster strikes someone, and we must help them even at the expense of Mass. Knowing how to spread love and indulge another are valid values for the soul’s salvation. The saints often asked themselves: What will it profit me for my immortal soul? And for this, every human command, decree, or order must give way. Let us, therefore, ask God to preserve such a right attitude even in the difficult circumstances of life. Let human wickedness have no place in our Christian life!

What did we think about yesterday? About fasting! 
Following the question of fasting from yesterday’s Gospel, which was controversial between the Pharisees and Christ’s apostles, today’s question directs us to the question of plucking ears of corn on Saturday. Some Pharisees said: “Why do you do what is not allowed to be done on the Sabbath” (Lk 6:2)? Jesus and the apostles are passing through a cornfield, and the disciples are plucking and crushing the ears of corn. The Pharisees point out that this activity is forbidden on the Sabbath. Jesus refers to an event from the Old Testament (1 Sam 21, 1-7) where David and his company violated the prohibition known from the book of Leviticus and ate from the bread presented to God as a sacrifice, which could only be consumed by the priests. Jesus himself is more like David and stands as Lord over the Sabbath commandment and the Torah. Every law and commandment builds on some solid value and protects it.

However, the meaning of the commandment does not lie in the literal implementation of the letter but in the spirit of the law. Therefore, the commandment is not binding if its fulfillment goes against the meaning of the Law or would prevent achieving a higher goal or values. Rules are necessary in every society but are only meant to help maintain order. A fence cannot be more important than the land it protects. Man is the master of the law because man is not for the law, but the law is for man. That’s why we live according to a particular order or statutes, to serve us or the community and not satisfy the legislator or the law. Thus, we subordinate the lower to the higher in terms of meaning. Whoever looks deeper into the meaning of Jesus’ words will sooner or later realize that God’s law was not given to us to limit us. It is given to us to free people, develop them fully, and help them live a whole life. After all, Christ himself says in Mark’s Gospel (cf. Mk 2:27) that the holiday is for man and not man for the holiday.

A simple example from life will also help us to understand better. When someone falls ill with kidney failure, the insufficient activity of which causes infection and death of the patient, he is immediately ready to sacrifice this organ to save his life. Likewise, every reasonable person submits the lower to the higher, even in everyday little things. But our prioritization of higher values ​​in the spiritual realm is no longer so one hundred percent.

Christ commands us to be as prudent and clever as the sons of the world. If God allowed us the kidney disease, I mentioned, how quickly we could decide to save our lives, and even at the cost of the risk, we would sacrifice a body organ! Let us be like the sons of the world, not only in saving our earthly life but, above all, in saving eternal life. Let’s discover the true meaning of the law, which brings us to God and brings an ordered life here on earth.

In the so-called Reformation, the Devil encourages Christians to hate the Eucharist, the Church, and Mary, the Mother of Jesus. This means that these three things, in turn, are crucially essential for us to be Christians; the devil doesn’t hate them for any reason!
The Eucharist, because it is a drawing into the Trinitarian life of God, the Church because it is God’s family, heaven, the heavenly Jerusalem, and Mary because she is the embodiment and realization of domesticity, the domestic family life, the hearth, the atmosphere of Heaven, the Kingdom of God. Christ is the Head and the Body, Jesus and Mary, Jesus as the Head, Mary as the Body’s representative, the communion of saints. “The Lord my God, and all his saints with him.” (Zech. 14:5) This is God, not without His saints, and they do not without God: one Body, one Christ. Therefore, Mary, as the first of the Body, is the first among the saints of the Lord.
Christ is Lord, Savior, and Redeemer, but He is still Himself.
(like the grain of wheat in His parable), not yet a Family, not yet brought harvest, has not yet become the Kingdom of God. Only when the Body is associated with Him and His saints is Christ complete, Head and Body. Those who reject Mary, reject with her, both practically and theoretically, Heaven itself, that is, this very Body, limit Christ as the Head and ignore His Body, accept Christ as Lord and Redeemer, but no longer as the Head of the Heavenly Family, as the Kingdom of God, which He creates in His Body. No wonder subsequent in this Kingdom do not live in it, do not know it, or enter it. In short, it is impossible to receive Christ without His Body indeed,
which is Mary and His saints in Heaven and the Church here on Earth. Without this, one can only encounter, glimpse, fleetingly, walking beside the multitude. But no more.
Jesus and Mary side by side, He deifies, she is revered, He gives, she
receives, but still side by side. Mary thus points to the dignity of the saved and, at the same time, shows our pride, our place not as servants, enslaved people, but as friends, standing beside Christ on the same plane as Christ, not of ourselves, only by the sheer grace of Christ, but on the same level lifted and exalted to Him, besides Christ, with Christ, in the very Christ, Body with Head, One Christ. Not to receive Mary and the saints is not to accept the Kingdom of God, to remain before its gates. For they already live in that Kingdom, to enter the Kingdom is to live with them. Not to live with them is not to be in the Kingdom. And so the Mother of God – with her all the saints, the already saved people – are their way, the “Gateway to Heaven.” Just as we are redeemed in Christ and Christ alone, we are dedicated only and only in communion with Him in the midst of them. Or, to put it another way, Jesus is God, Mary, and the saints, and all who are already with them here on Earth are His Kingdom, as the Scriptures teach: ‘By his blood, he has set us free.’ from our sins, and hath made us a kingdom.” (Rev. 1:5-6) To reject one or to leave the other always means the same thing: to stay outside, beyond the door of the Kingdom.
Therefore, the Church, which accepts both, lives in the Kingdom of God. Thus, Protestantism rejects the other and does not even think of living in the Kingdom …does not suspect. For the devil, this is quite enough. As Scripture teaches, faith without works is dead. What is the point of believing in Christ if we subsequently reject salvation?
The devil also believes but is not saved… Seeing how the Devil has made many Christians believe that living with Jesus in God’s kingdom is blasphemy and idolatry is admirable.

Little is said about the fact that Christians underestimate the devil’s existence. Only Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus does not reveal the future to anyone. However, Jesus acts decisively when dealing with the devil. The Gospel reminds us that Jesus has the power to cast out evil spirits and thus free a person from their influence. The devil calls out from the possessed: “You are the Son of God.” What do you do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God” (Mk 1:24). It is enough to say to Jesus: “Shut up and come out of him” (Mk 1:25). Jesus does not need a crystal ball, a computer, various pendulums, pyramids, séances, diplomas that we can see in psychotherapy offices. Jesus does not need advertising, supposedly scientific and professional education, awards, or knowledge from para psychological seminars and meetings. It is necessary to know.

What does it mean to be possessed by the devil? This means that the devil controls the human heart, will, reason, and feelings so much that a person does evil without fighting against it. We tend to say it more gently; it is an evil passion. And it can be different. A person can be passionately addicted to alcohol, sex, lying, gossiping, stealing, drugs, or playing slot machines. The doctor will say that it is a sick person. It is a severe situation we cannot escape on our own. We can talk about one more activity of the devil: various movements and sects where opium is subtly presented, which destroys gradually, sometimes very quickly, and a person becomes enslaved.

Let us consider the genesis of how the devil takes possession of the human heart. It is necessary to tell yourself immediately that the devil does not possess a person all at once. The devil is a tactician. First, he recognizes a person’s weaknesses. Like Eve in Paradise, a lousy idea is presented as good initially. You are a free man. You have the right and obligation to try it once. He admits that it is against God’s commandment, but it is an idea where you can experience something pleasant, unusual, strange… At first glance, temptation does not look like something terrible. Anyone who engages in conversation flirts with temptation, admires others, or compares himself with others starts the second stage in himself, which is already a harbinger of something great evil. Man is prone to make light of things. What could go wrong if I do that? At this stage, a person ceases to judge correctly, see things, evaluate the situation, and take a critical attitude. I’m in the right; I have to avenge the insult…? One drink won’t put me down. Then comes the battle stage. All it takes is a thought, a look, one deed, and the devil catches his prey. How hard it is to fight back then. Resignation begins, fear is given up, concessions are made, and the wrong idea has already settled in the mind so much that it no longer wants and does not want to go out.

Temptation. When a person weakens, it becomes more difficult to fight against him, and the attraction returns and grows more robust.

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.