God has offered man to trust Him. Why should I trust God and not, for example, doctors…? Jesus said (to the centurion), “Go, your son lives!” (Jn 4:50).

Capernaum was one of those larger cities. At that time, this city, like all the rest of the territory, was under the rule of the Roman Empire. In this city lived a certain centurion, a Roman citizen, who had about one hundred people under his charge. The centurion had a high position in society and was a pagan. He sends the Jewish elders with a request to go to Jesus and intercede for the sick man. Each synagogue had a congregation of elders who managed the community’s affairs. A Gentile was considered unclean, and the centurion did not want Jesus to defile himself by coming to him. This centurion cared very much for his servant. The servant must have been a very good man for the centurion himself to stand up for him.

The elders come to Jesus and intercede, not for the sick man, but the centurion, extolling his virtues. They praise his goodness. He deserves you to do this to him because he loves our nation and built us a synagogue. The centurion loves the people. He notices their needs, so he is popular in the community. Jesus hears their plea and goes to him, but others come to Jesus saying that the centurion doesn’t consider himself fit for Jesus to come to him, and he says that he too has his subordinates, to whom if he says something, they will do it. Here Jesus highlights his great faith.

The centurion is a Gentile and has believed in Jesus. The evangelist points out that those who receive him are not the scribes and Pharisees. Those who should recognize in the person of Jesus the Messiah, but they do not, but Gentiles and sinners believe in him. Miracles are signs of the coming of the kingdom of God. God is almighty. Just one word, and you are healed.

St. John Mary Vianney said: “God is almighty, he can always work miracles and do them even now, but people lack faith.”

It must be as strong as that of today’s centurion. The centurion believed, believed very much, and did not doubt. That’s why Jesus praised his faith. Even the Israelites did not have the confidence that this Gentile had. Do you think miracles don’t happen now? They do happen; you have to have faith. God knows very well what will befall us. Physical suffering is not the worst thing that can occur to a man. In suffering, one feels more the nearness of God, faith is more alive, while those who suffer nothing forget the good Lord God.

In the greatest of Dostoevsky’s novels, The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan challenges his brother: “Assume, that you are constructing the edifice of human destiny with the ultimate aim of making people happy, to give them peace and tranquility, but to make all this to do this, it is necessary to allow the suffering of one man of one small child… and to base his work on his tears – can he dare to do so with this condition? “No, I cannot,” replied Alosha. If we cannot dare to do it, for what then, what does God do? After seeing a small child slowly dying of brain fog, a man said he could no longer believe in a God of love. Others have the experience of caring for a spouse or a wife, a child or a parent who has fallen into total depression:
In the realm of suffering, there is perhaps nothing more terrible than to watch a human being in helpless despair. What is our answer? How do we reconcile faith in a loving God, a creative …who says that there is a “good beyond measure.” With the existence of pain, sin, and evil?
I must admit that the answer is not easy, even if it is obvious, but reconciliation is possible. Pain and evil touch us as something irrational. Our suffering, and the suffering of others, is an experience we live, not a theory a theoretical problem that we can push aside by explanation. If it can be explained, it can be explained in other ways than words. Suffering cannot be “justified,” but it can be experienced, accepted, and transformed through this acceptance. X suffering and evil,” says Nikolai Berdyaev, “is resolved in the experience of compassion and love.” But if I am distrustful of any easy explanation of the “problem of evil,” we can look at the description of the human fall as given in the third chapter of Genesis – interpreted literally or symbolically – where we see two vivid indicators that need to be carefully considered.
The account of Genesis begins with the speech of the “serpent” (3:1), that is, the Devil and – the first in the host of those angels who turned away from God and to the hell of their own will. There was a double fall, the first of angels and the second of man. For the Orthodox, there is no fall of angels but spiritual truth. Before the creation of man and the South, there was a separation of paths in the spiritual realm: some angels remained steadfast in obedience to God; others rejected it. This “heavenly war” (Rev. 12:7) is the subject of this question, we have hidden messages in Scripture, no narrative of the details that took place; we know little of God’s plans for a possible reconciliation in the spiritual realm, or of any (if any) the Devil may eventually be redeemed.
Perhaps, as the first chapter of the book of Job depicts, Satan is not
as black as he is usually painted. At this stage of earthly existence, Satan is the enemy, but Satan also has a direct relationship with God, of whom we know nothing, and has no, so there is no point in speculating about him. Three questions may interest those trying to understand the problem of pain. First, beyond the evil we are, we humans are personally responsible for, are present in the universe forces of immense power whose will is turned to evil. These forces, which are not human, are nevertheless personal. The existence of such demonic powers is not a hypothesis or a legend but – for many of us, perhaps – an object of direct experience. Secondly, the existence of fallen spiritual forces helps us understand why there was disorder, devastation, and brutality in nature before the creation of man. Third, the rebellion of the angels makes it clear that evil has no origin “below” but “above” that it is not of matter. Still, Evil, already been pointed out, is not a “thing,” it does not exist in itself, as a substance, but as a bad attitude towards that which is good in the thing itself. The source of evil lies in the free will of spiritual existences, endowed with moral responsibility, which has this power so much for our first indicator of direction, the mention of the “serpent.” But (and this may serve as a second indicator) the reports and Genesis clearly show that although man comes into existence in a world already corrupted by the fall of the angels, at the same time, nothing compels him to sin. Eve was tempted by the serpent but was free to refuse. She and Adam’s “original sin” consisted in a conscious act of disobedience, a deliberate refusal In freely choosing to turn away from God and himself, God’s love. ( G n 3,2, 3, 11).
By stating that man has and uses free will, we want to avoid giving a complete explanation but to show that there is an answer to our problem… Why does God allow angels and man to sin? Why does he allow evil and suffering? We answer: Because he is a God of love! Love and desire to share contain freedom. How about the Trinity of love? God desires to share his life with created persons in his image who can freely resist him. In a relationship of benevolent love. Where there is no freedom, there can be no love. Submission excludes love, he says.
Pavel Evdokimov. God can do absolutely everything except to make us love him. God – because he desires to share his love, he does not create robots but angels and human beings, who have the capacity for free choice. God is aware of the risk that he has also given the possibility of sin with this gift of freedom. But those who refuse to take risks do not love. Because of space, there would be no sin. But without freedom.
The man could not be the image of God. Without freedom, there is no
a man fit to enter into communion with God in a mutual love relationship.

Jesus is the master of parables. He is good at them. He can say so much with ordinary stories from life that one is amazed. His parables are an inexhaustible source of life’s wisdom, even if one has heard them. In his parables, one could accuse Jesus of being very black and white, dividing people only into good and evil, the just and the unjust. But he does this right because there is no such thing as mediocrity lukewarmness in the kingdom of God. Either you belong to God, or you don’t belong to God. Either you give yourself wholly to him or outside him with all you have. God is ninety-nine percent: zero percent unless it is a full hundred percent. This parable is just a confirmation of what I am saying.

One was justified; the other was not. He who humbles himself will be exalted and vice versa. (Cf. Lk. 18:14).
Nothing in between. So, what is Jesus talking about today? A Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisees were those who kept all the commandments and were thus considered righteous and considered themselves to be such. The tax collectors were deemed to be public sinners because they collected money from the Jews for the Romans, and the truth is that they also fraudulently enriched themselves from time to time with that money. But I want to avoid talking today about how proud the Pharisee was and how humiliated the tax collector was. No.
Instead, I would like to point out another fact that dramatically influences our thinking – just as it influenced the review of the Pharisee. That fact is prejudice.

What is prejudice? It is the negative thing that first comes to mind when you hear a specific term. For example, I will immediately say `gypsy.’ We immediately think of everything wrong associated with people who hide under that label. And the worst thing is that we approach those people with coldness, aloofness, perhaps even aggression. And yet you don’t know what that person is like at all. You don’t remember his individuality, his uniqueness – and these are just our mistaken thought processes.

The Pharisee also had a problem with this, who lumped all the tax collectors together but couldn’t see into their hearts. He pigeonholed them all. He may have known two tax collectors who had made a fortune from other people’s money, so he concluded that all tax collectors were like that. And he treated them according to that prejudice. “Thank you that I am not like that toll collector.”

Therefore, it is impossible to live a whole Christian life with prejudice. They rob us of our freedom. A businessman is a man, not a robber of the state. A German is a man, not a fascist. Let’s take people out of these `boxes and drawers’ of ours and start looking at them as equals – as people who God loves, called to holiness, as people who have the same rights. They, too, have extraordinary gifts and can enrich us. Let us not immediately wave our hands over them and write them off. Let us find our way to them and dialogue with them. And we will find that the person may have a big heart, maybe good-hearted, and pleasing to God…

Adela, the prostitute, comes to heaven. She is very confused because she knows how she has lived all her life. But the Lord God looks at her with love and says, “Adela, I know your heart very well.” “My heart? What do you see there? The way I have lived miserably? Lord, you had better let me go.”
Then a little angel bursts into God’s office and says: “Lord, outside the gate, stands the director of the Pious Association of So-and-So, and with her, the head of the Christian Organization of So-and-So, and they are asking you if they might be received speedily.” “Let them wait,” replied the Lord God. But the angel urged: “They said you know them very well.” “That I know them? I must have seen them somewhere, but let them wait.”
And again, the Lord God gazed lovingly into Adela’s heart. “It is so generous, so real, so sincerely humble! There is not a trace of hypocrisy in it. No pretense. I wish my longtime believers had hearts like that.”
One of the ladies waiting outside, however, had an angel summoned and scolded him: “Listen, would you kindly remind the Lord God that we are here waiting for Him? We are tired. He has known us for a long time, we are close friends. And by the way,” continued the lady, “unless my eyes deceive me, we have been overtaken by one Adela, well known to all.” But the angel repeats to them, “The Lord God tells you to wait.” “I don’t understand,” – says the other lady, “he knows us; we come here tired because we have protected his interests on earth all our lives, and he lets us go through such a long purgatory.”

Our God always looks at a man’s heart-not at his outward appearance, nor his nationality, nor the color of his skin. We are made in His image, so we are called to be like Him in this. Therefore, let us learn to look at people with a heart without prejudice. Amen.

The ever-present phenomenon of the “prodigal son” (Luke 15:1, 11-32)
To personally experience your sin before the face of your kind God the Father.

If we were to describe it, our life would make a pretty thick book. And what about its contents? For example, relationships, views, attitudes, opinions… We find it hard to admit that we are wrong. Others harm us, don’t wish us, don’t wish us, envy us… We are indulgent towards ourselves; we talk about being entitled, we say that we belong… But we seem to have different eyes on others, we also speak differently about others, we are no longer so gracious, kind, forgiving… And when we examine our hearts, how much love is there for God and neighbor, and how much for ourselves? We reflect on ourselves! Let us be honest with ourselves, and we will be surprised. Let us do something similar today on this fourth Sunday of Lent.

For the Pharisees and scribes murmured over Jesus’ behavior: “This one receives sinners and eats with them.” (Lk 15:2). “A certain man had two sons.” (Lk 15:11).

This pericope is one of the most famous parts of the Gospels—several biblical scholars, e.g., A. Julicher or scholars, have called this text “the gospel within the gospel.” The parable of the prodigal son has always been a focus of attention, not only in the spiritual, spiritual, mystical realm, but also in the artistic, sculptural, and so on. What is so brilliant about this parable? It can also be expressed like this: The Lord Jesus compared our God to a “good father.” That is why many call the parable the parable of the “best father.” The fact that two sons are featured in the text is an age-old problem of all time. That is why the parable continues to have our attention today. The fates and characters of the two sons serve only to bring out the greatness of the “good father.” Nowhere did the Lord Jesus show us God the Father so clearly and now. Whoever pays just a little attention to the words of Jesus discovers again and again what he has learned and recognizes even his reality of life. In this Gospel, our destinies come alive, and love begins to come alive in us. The parable sums up the whole history of man. Jesus introduces his Father and our Father and tells of the two sons that we humans are.
When the younger son thinks that his father’s thresholds limit him, the principles of family life seem difficult and unpleasant, and life itself not attractive enough, he wants to leave. Interestingly, the father does not restrain the son too much by retreating from moral principles, making promises, making excuses, and plotting something for him. He doesn’t even say goodbye to his son as if they were never to meet again, but as if they would be together tomorrow. And that without anger, cursing and insults. As he leaves his son, the father says My son; if you get sick, if the world makes you sad, if something terrible occurs, you can always count on me. I will be waiting for you even if you compromise yourself, become wholly despised, even if everyone abandons you… even then, you remain my son and I your father. Come! The father senses foresee what will follow and gives him a portion of the property that belongs to the son. The son goes where he does not return quickly and easily. He has gone to a strange environment, among strange people. There is a picture of sin in the son’s distance from the father, as man distances himself from God when he sins. “Home is only home,” says the proverb, but “there” means far from home, where life is hard. Without God, life is hard, even if one has everything: friends, material goods… One remembers “father’s house” when there is nothing left of what one considered valuable, necessary, beautiful in the world. When all the people have left him and his health, his achievements… For many, this is the moment before death. Many call it grace. Man, in his resistance to God, will try anything and everything. He does not want God. The loss of love, and especially pride, prevents man from returning, from acknowledging his mistake, his error, his fall… …and so he gives himself to a new and further service to evil and sin, and finds himself in even greater filth, more filth, more filth, more filth… He does not realize it, but there is total humiliation. The Lord Jesus describes this condition with the son’s image being put into service as a herdsman of swine. But as if that were not enough humiliation, he has nothing to satisfy his hunger. To the Jews, the jerk symbolizes the greatest wickedness, both physical and moral. Here the turning point occurs. What until recently, he understood as happiness brings incredible pain. These words point to the reality of what and where sin brings us. Only now does one begin to realize what he has lost, what he has not valued at home, what he has despised. He realizes his guilt and experiences remorse that he no longer deserves to be called a son because he is reliving what he did to offend his father when he left him. And it is the father’s love that is to be understood as his gift: inside, in the son’s heart, it will evoke the strength to return to the father. Although the son’s reason and compassion say that he has no right to call himself a son, at least he will be close to the father. The proximity to the father’s house will provide what he did not value. Thus, returning to the father is a change of the previous life, of the philosophy of life. This change must touch the bottom of the soul of man. What Jesus goes on subtly pronouncing becomes a light and a warmth, which cannot. keep the boundaries of the world growing up to the Kingdom of God. A father’s behavior outgrows the greatest and boldest expectations. The father waits impatiently for the son’s return. The father does not greet the son with shouting, anger, or reproach. On the contrary, already in the distance, he sees the son. The closer the son is, the more the father’s forgiveness towards him grows, which he does not yet know. The son thinks that he is going to the father, but the father is running, hurrying to greet the sun. The father will do everything he can to make it as easy as possible for the son when they meet. The father embraces the son and kisses him, which is a sign of forgiveness, forgetting, not remembering what was, and all for the father’s love. The son began his prepared confession, “Father, I have sinned… I am no longer worthy of being called your son.” (Luke 15:18-19), but the father did not allow him to finish because he gave the order to the servants, “Quickly bring the best clothes and clothe him! Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet! Bring a fated calf and kill it. Let us eat and feast merrily…” (Luke 15:22-23). The father restores the lost rank and accepts him into the family as a son to the son. The command to feast tells how the father evaluates the son’s return. He does not blame or remind him of anything; on the contrary, an atmosphere of jocularity is created, and he rejoices in the son’s return.

We have all more or less found ourselves in about the prodigal son. By sin, we have distanced ourselves from the father. The father was still waiting for us. Even when we walked away from him, Father did not give up on us. In the same way, he helps us when we return. And we are to remember what awaits us when we return. Isn’t this a timely thing for us in Lent? It is the desire of God that we should forsake sin and return to Him.

We feel the significance of the parable even in what cannot be put into words: Have you sinned? Sin no more! Yes, we have betrayed, so we want to be faithful no longer. We have left God, but we want to stay with him permanently. We realize the greatness of God’s love that the Father will wait for us until the last moment to return. He reminds us with a parable that we will not escape his love.
In the same way, we realize that we must not behave like the second son who is offended by the father’s goodness. Though he has not fled bodily from his father, his heart is not like his father’s heart. We need to be careful of our behavior so that we do not condemn anyone whom the father forgives. On the contrary, we want to follow the father in love. We must not forget that we do not know when the last minute of our life will be. We must not presume to rely on the mercy of our Father. It is fitting that as a former prodigal son, I want to rejoice again in the symbols we have received: the ring, which symbolizes that we are sons again the shoes symbolize that we are free again, we are no longer enslaved to sin the clothes represent that we are in the right place. The return on our part is to be marked by our conviction that we no longer want to renounce the Father and want to live in His presence permanently. Then the new life brings us more of God’s grace.
A Spanish proverb says: “If your house is on fire, warm yourself by it.” May it mean that having understood today’s parable, we would like to implement it as faithfully as possible in our lives.
We may also be reminded of this in a passage from The Sower Sows Seeds – A Memoir of Thomas Edison, whose laboratory was destroyed by fire in December 1914. Although the damage amounted to more than two million dollars, the building was insured for only $238,000 because it was built of concrete to be fireproof. Most of Edison’s life’s work ended up in a massive fire that December night. In the heat of the flames, in the smoke and debris, Charles, Edison’s twenty-four-year-old son, is searching for his father. His father stood wordlessly watching the whole scene when he finally found him. His face was alight with fire, though, and memory, and his white hair blowing in the wind. “My heart aches for him,” said Charles. “He’s sixty-seven years old-he’s not the youngest any more-and the fire has taken everything from him.” When he saw me, he screamed: “Charles, where’s the mother?” When I told him I had no idea, he ordered me: “Look for her and bring her here! She’ll never see anything like this again in her life.” The following day Edison looked at the ruins and said: “This misfortune is of great value to us. All our mistakes have burned in the fire. Thank God, now we can start anew. Three weeks after the fire, Edison handed in his patent for the first phonograph.
God showed us in a parable that we must take advantage of the new grace of forgiveness. It is a remembrance.

Our lives can be compared to a novel. However, when we meet God the Judge, we must end it that we will belong wholly and entirely to God. To be God’s and God’s alone.

God chose as the human mother of His Son a humble Nazarene girl – the Virgin Mary. Surprised at this announcement, Mary asks the angel: “How does this happen?” The angel explains to her that it will happen by the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Highest, “to whom nothing is impossible.” The Virgin Mary knows from Isaiah’s predictions that the Messiah will be a man of sorrow. And for his sake, she will have to leave her Nazarene home to grieve for him and with him. She knows that this exaltation will be great but very painful at the same time. But when God asks for it, he gives his consent without hesitation. I am the Lord’s servant: “I am the Lord’s servant, let it be done to me according to your word.”

How important are these words of Our Lady! The eternal plan of God’s will was the redemption of humanity from sin. For this purpose, God chose the nation of Israel, from whom the Redeemer was to arise. He sent prophets to awaken in their faith in the coming of the Messiah who was to come “for the enlightenment of the Gentiles and the glory of the people of Israel.” And when the fullness of time had come, God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary to announce to her the Incarnation of the Redeemer of the world. And the Virgin Mary takes the right attitude, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word!” These words of hers, spoken in the quiet house of Nazareth, foreshadowed the fulfillment of God’s will throughout her life! Faithful to her word, she accepts without reservation every manifestation of God’s will and every circumstance that God permits. From the birth of the Savior to the cross of Calvary. The Lord entrusted her with the task and therefore gave her the strength and the abilities she needed. That is why God, through the mouth of the angel, utters the assurance, “Do not be afraid, Mary … The Lord is with you!”

Each of us has our perspectives, our plans, and our dreams. But we also have our annunciations by which God intervenes in our lives from time to time, and He wants us to conform to His plan. He doesn’t use an angel to do that. Often it is our conscience, a book, a friend, an event. He announces and waits. We can decide. We can also refuse. But we can’t make the excuse that God has to choose someone else; as long as it’s us, He’s asking. The Lord God may find another man to fulfill His purpose, but we will not find another God for our salvation … And that is why the Virgin Mary is an excellent example to us in doing God’s will.

An old legend was recorded in the old readings about how God wanted to help a man who only fed himself by hunting and often went hungry. He, thus, showered him with wheat from heaven. But before the man could understand God’s gift, the devil pounced on the grain. He ground the grain furiously among the stones, and what he did not crush, he buried it in the ground and poured water over it so that it would rot. But the man took the wet flour from the grain ground by the devil, laid it on the hot stone, and baked the first bread. The buried and watered wheat sprang up, and the man learned to sow and reap it. And so, the devil, who wanted to destroy God’s gift, helped God’s purpose. The legend expresses what our people today lack and what our ancestors could do: believe in God’s providence. No one destroys or thwarts God’s purposes. Thy will be done! This is the strength, the courage that brings peace into our lives and in our every decision. Even when the intentions of God’s will are not immediately apparent and understandable to us, when we realize that God is always with us and by our side, that He is an invisible but practical helper in every task He calls us to, our decisions can be easy. “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.”

One who embarks on a spiritual journey is constantly evolving, and he becomes aware of two contrasting facts over time: not the ultimate is distant and yet near. First, he experiences more and more that God is a mystery. He is entirely different, holy, invisible, incomprehensible, utterly transcendent, in all words, beyond the possibility of understanding. “A child just born,” writes the Roman Catholic writer Georg e Tyrrel “knows as much about the world and its ways as the most – wisest among us can know of God and the..who rules over heaven and earth, time and eternity.” A Christian living in the Orthodox tradition will be completely comfortable with this agreement. The Greek Fathers pointed out, “The God we can understand is not God.” For the God whom we would dare to comprehend exhaustively through the use of our reason will be nothing more but an idol, a thing of our imagination. Such a God is totally unlike the true and living God of the Bible. Man is made in the image of God, not in the image of God.
And then it is also essential that this God of mystery is still uniquely open to us, filling all thought. And always present in us, around us, and with us. We are not offered only in the atmosphere or by his power, but personally. God, who is infinitely beyond our understanding, is with us. He calls each of us by name, and we between the transcendent God and us is a relationship of love, similar to each of us to those dear to us. We know other people only through our love for them and through their love for us. The latter is also …with God. In the words of Nicholas Kabbalah..: God, our King, is more loving than any friend, more just than any ruler, more loving than a father, more a part of ourselves than our members, and more indispensable to us than our hearts.
These are, then, the two poles of the human experience of the divine. God is more distant and closer to us than anything, and paradoxically, we discover that these two poles are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more we are attracted to one, the more clearly we are aware of another. As we follow this path, we discover that God is becoming more and more intimate, but also more distant, more familiar, and more unfamiliar – familiar to a small child, not understood.
To the most brilliant theologians. God dwells in inaccessible light, and the man stands in his presence with loving confidence and addresses him as a friend. God is both the end of things and their beginning. He is the open arms that welcome us at the end of the pilgrimage and the companion who walks to guide us every step of the way. As Nicholas Kabasila describes, “God is the shelter in which we rest at night and the final destination of our journey.” God is a mystery, yet a person: look at these facts.

Who can count how many lives have been lost by, for example, overestimating the skills of a car driver? Who will calculate how much is added to the cost of underestimating safety regulations? It is often too late after an accident, after a mishap, so we must prevent it.
And this is not only true in the workplace on the roads, but we also have to be aware of this in the spiritual realm when it comes to our salvation, and this is what the Gospel warns us about.

A heavy accusation has been leveled at the Lord Jesus. He is suspected of collaborating with the powers of evil – with the devil.

A superficial glance at today’s Gospel text is not enough. We all feel that the Lord Jesus has a lot at stake in the Gospel, so let us reflect on his actions. It is an indisputable fact that there is a struggle between the power of good and the power of evil. This struggle has its roots in the creation of the first man. The devil triumphed then over the first men, and he desires to triumph over us. Our mission, however, is to overcome evil with the help of the Lord Jesus. So he tells us. He is interested in everyone, whether someone wishes him well or ill, whether someone loves him or hates him, whether someone wants to compromise him or show him respect.

The Pharisees of the gospel want to compromise Jesus. They couldn’t stand his popularity, so they were looking for a way to get rid of him. Therefore, they invent that he casts out evil spirits with the help of Beelzebul. This is also the main idea of the Gospel: that Jesus is working with the devil. Jesus supposedly gets his power and strength from him.
How did the Lord Jesus respond to this? First of all, we must realize that the Lord Jesus affirms that the evil spirit exists, and therefore, we cannot underestimate it. Just as it is good, there is also wrong. We see this in various events and forms. In paradise, the devil appears in the form of a serpent to lead man to sin. We do not know in what form the devil tempted the Lord Jesus during the forty-day fast. One thing is sure; he wanted to induce him to pride. We see how the Lord Jesus responded to this. He taught us that we must not discuss with the devil. We must follow him in what Jesus told him: “Depart Satan, for it is written: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (Mt. 4:10).

The devil does not stop acting. St. Peter instructs us in his First Letter: “Be sober and watch! Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8).
Therefore, we cannot treat this lightly and rashly. If he cannot do something himself, he will use his resources and people to do it. He is very consistent and persistent. If we drive him away once, he comes back a thousand times and will undertake everything to take his sacrifice, to achieve his victory.

Nowadays, evil is so often offered under the guise of good. For example, you buy a good quality product and find that you have been deceived. The result? Vigilance!

Some people can even say that what the Church teaches is not valid in our faith. Supposedly, each person can have their morals and does not have to keep the Ten Commandments. Some even claim that whatever is good for us is good. How perverse such thinking is! The devil hides what the Lord Jesus said: “He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me, wasteth away.” (Mt. 12:30). It is impossible to be a friend of Christ and the devil simultaneously. Everyone must choose one or the other. But we must be able to choose Christ in every situation and act as Christ would work in our place.

In His conversation with the Pharisees, the Lord Jesus used logic in practice. First, He showed them that His works were vehicles of good, that He wanted to save people not only from physical death but also from spiritual death. An evil spirit will never enrich us with interest. And therefore, Christ cannot act in his name and therefore by his power. He is, after all, more powerful than the devil. For we also know from the words of St. Mark: “… when the unclean spirits saw him, they fell before him and cried out: Thou art the Son of God!” (Mk 3:11). They saw in Jesus both the Messiah and the Son of God, but unfortunately, the Pharisees did not notice this. And maybe they did notice, but they wanted to avoid acknowledging it. It’s hard sometimes to know the absolute truth when it doesn’t match our thinking.

That was and is the case today. The Pharisees ceased to exist long ago, but even today, their idea lives on, an idea invented by them that leads to erroneous views. This gospel, then, leads us to one and proper knowledge, and therefore we accept it. In the next part of Jesus’ discussion with the Pharisees, Jesus was concerned to make clear to them the error of their reasoning and use an example from life. He told them: “Every kingdom inwardly divided shall descend, and house upon house shall fall” (Luke 11:17). However, they wanted to avoid understanding. Perhaps they did understand, but they did not wish to accept this teaching; they did not dare to take his education.

Therefore, the Lord Jesus was for them a crucible of unrest. They wanted to avoid humbling themselves and avoid confessing their error openly, so they chose a pretense, deceit, falsehood instead. That is why they turned away from Christ. Hardheartedness became for them a hotbed of sins against the Holy Spirit. And this is consistent with the teaching of the Lord Jesus that this sin will not be forgiven either in this life or in the life to come.

Not because the Lord Jesus wants to avoid forgiving, but because those who commit it are so caught up in their hardness that they do not accept God’s mercy, forgiveness.

A priest told of a parishioner of his who was a good, honest man, but he attacked the Church very much, although he had convinced himself many times that he was doing wrong. He often told his wife that he regretted it, said that he would confess, and committed suicide. Several knew that he couldn’t cope with himself and was worrying himself, but he wanted to avoid admitting that he was wrong.

Let us acknowledge the power of the Lord Jesus, bow our knees, and ask for strength for the rest of our lives.

Many people have fallen prey to underestimating the teachings of Christ. Let us not underestimate his teachings, the sacraments, the value of the Holy Mass! Those who mock or publicly attack, and are not truly convinced of their truth, let them beware and let us pray for them.

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Knowing God by reason does not mean having faith in the Christian sense of the word. Knowing God is only a prerequisite for faith. Faith is a gift we receive. Faith is an act of the whole personality. The Christian faith presupposes that one asks questions about the meaning of life, where we are from, where we are going. The basis for faith is in the person himself. Religion for man is not something external but something internal. Man is first open to faith, questioning, and searching; only then can he find answers to accept truths and grace. Religion always points to God as the ultimate foundation and meaning of our life. Complete religion, and such is Christianity, lives than with a supernatural faith. Before faith, however, there already exists in us specific knowledge and awareness that God exists. This knowledge that precedes faith is the pre-Christian heritage. Neither Christ nor the apostles wanted blind faith. Christ counseled to search the Scriptures to see if the prophecies are fulfilled therein. John 5:39. St. Paul encouraged believers to examine all things, 1 Thessalonians 5:21 and urged reasonable faith.

We live in a time when new laws are being made almost daily, or yesterday’s laws are being amended. New groups of experts are emerging to explore different sectors. New laws, rules, and regulations are being invented. Everything is acceptable to the extent that it serves the well-being and satisfaction of all of us, not individuals or smaller groups. This is also true of religious activity.

The Lord Jesus says in the Gospel: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them” (Mt 5:17).

According to the Evangelist Matthew, we are to understand the Law as an expression of God’s will. In this sense, the Law cannot be abolished but only realized. The Law and the Prophets mean that God’s commandments rest on the commandment of love for God and neighbor. Therefore, where love is taught, the Law is rightly interpreted, which is why St. Paul says that love is the fulfillment of the Law.

We know from the Gospel that Jesus taught us that all the commands and laws and ordinances in the sphere of religion express only one command: To love God and neighbor. Those commands and regulations that lead to this are good and cannot be abolished, but on the contrary, rules that move away from love or make it more difficult to exercise it must be abandoned.

After the Second Vatican Council, many prescriptions were abolished to put love into better practice in life. Therefore, the traditionalists who reject the post-conciliar changes are not correct; in other words, they want to avoid putting the Law in a new spirit.
Let us remember Archbishop Lefebvre, who consecrated new bishops at Elkon without the permission of Rome, and the Pope, who, like him, are opposed to the fact that everyone can celebrate Mass and the sacraments in his language. He advocated that the Latin language should remain.
Yet we see that celebrating Mass in an intelligible language helps us love the Lord God more. On the other hand, the progressives who want to change everything for false freedom, who would like to abolish the Law, are not right either.
During the Vatican Council, there was also talk of a Church decree that does not allow married priests in our Roman Rite to celebrate Mass and administer the sacraments. That priest should not marry is not God’s law but the Church’s.
Before the Holy Father and the bishops, these progressives, especially in the Netherlands and the West, would consent or make any statement; some priests married in advance. Thus, they abolished the Law of Love because it was instituted by the Church, not for disputes of property, as the enemies of the Church teach and say, but so that neither the priest nor his wife, his own family, should stand in the way of the priest fulfilling his duties as a priest, who is to take care to spread the teachings of Jesus Christ, the teachings of love. Thus, neither the strict traditionalists nor the neopagan-progressives are correct.

In the Church, Jesus Christ, represented by the visible head of the Church, the Pope, is correct. When our ecclesiastical hierarchy, guided by the Holy Spirit, decrees something, we accept it and trust that it will bring the appropriate blessing to us.

Therefore, let us all strive to fulfill God’s and the Church’s commandments so conscientiously and honestly as to spread the love of God within us. Consequently, we must not abrogate even the most minor commandment or bypass it out of the conviction that it is nothing because the Lord Jesus tells us: “Whosoever, therefore, shall abolish one of these commandments, even the least of these, and so teach men, the same shall be least in the kingdom of heaven” (Lk. 5:19). Therefore, we want to keep even the most minor commandment to obtain a higher degree of eternal bliss.

We want, therefore, to follow Jesus even more faithfully in this Lenten season so that we may learn from him, as our Master and Teacher, to truly love God above all things because love will conquer, and he who spreads love will also be rewarded.

Even though we live in a time of constant movement, when new laws are being created, let us always keep in mind that they will serve us for the salvation of our souls.