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Humility is a tribe of joy
To show that big things are born from small ones.
For God, there is no term “little man” or “great man.” The life of Mary
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Subconscious MM16
The subconscious lower subconscious is a place of hidden forces, abilities, mental movements, a source of ideas, a place of origin of inventions, art, mental influences, all of which can be diligently awakened to the upper consciousness. This subconscious, which is found in the gray cortex’s neurons, is a separate activity of the soul. Subconscious activity manifests itself in various ways. In the fourth stage of somnambulant sleep, she works independently without our consciousness and esplan into which nothing from her mental activity is pushed. He also works in conscious activity in important moments of life, in decision-making in danger, in courageous actions in creating works of art. The mystic achieves her deep concentration by immersing his self in the far back of the soul. The mystic feels divine peace and tranquility. He feels a true connection with God, which is that the will of the mystic is connected with the will of God. Although the subconscious’s hidden gifts are already partially known, we are still facing a hard nut to go, why these hidden forces remain limited for us. We do not know. But we know a biblical story that mentions the perfect reason and will of our grandparents. They knew and knew very much. Only after our grandparents’ fall did the osculation of reason and the weakening of the will, and other gifts and graces were taken away from them. In the somnambulant sleep, especially in the fourth degree, many surprising mental activities can be awakened and evoked, which is especially surprising in people of insufficient spiritual education. For example, they speak and understand foreign languages, create admirable drawings, and see into the past. They see spatially veiled objects. They sense and reveal the thoughts of the other. They can see at any distance. Not all subconscious actions can be triggered. At most 10-15 percent. Others remain in a potential state and are waiting to be used in the future. Our grandparents were not unfamiliar with the mental gifts that are hidden from us. These gifts were natural to them. A penalty occurred as a punishment for disobedience. Some brain drains. Although its shape and form did not change, the soul lost the right to its special material system. The discarded place remained separate from the conscious self so that the soul could not realize itself in them. When waking, the subconscious mental self is not without doing the conscious self. The union of the two belongs to God, and if we do it ourselves, the confusion-state of madness occurs after the awakening. By obscuring the mind and weakening the will, there was mental misery and a propensity for evil.
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Encourage believers to make the right visit
I’ve been watching people don’t have time for themselves. As a little boy, I am watching older adults as on Sunday afternoon, when nothing was done, they sat in front of the houses on benches and talking. It was not gossip, but the exchange of experiences and storytelling experiences of the whole week. Today we heard an event that is very familiar to us as Mary, after the proclamation of the angel that she had conceived by the Holy Spirit, she went to visit her relative Elizabeth to be with her enjoyed (cf. Luke 1: 39-45).
It was hard to find anything better than going to a relative, Elizabeth. An angel pointing at her clearly, he warned: “Behold, your relative Elizabeth …” (Luke 1:36). It was not an offer to deal with loneliness a visit? Elizabeth was older, prudent, and especially spiritually mature. The gospel says: it was fair. She has also recently received great grace. Such has often appeared in the history of salvation communion of souls in faith and mission. Where did the Virgin Mary go? The mountainous region set out on a journey, a chain of Jude and mountains, connected to the Samaria massif. We do not know the exact place where the Virgin Mary went. According to an ancient tradition, which can be proven until the sixth century, went to the present-day town of Ain-Karrin, about 7 km west of Jerusalem. On this instead, pilgrims long ago came to the Temple of the Visitation.
What brings someone into the house will be revealed very quickly: whether hostility or peace.
The Holy Spirit greeted Elizabeth after Mary’s greeting. The blessing of the time of salvation begins. Jesus he will later make adjustments to the apostles to bear this blessing into homes: “To any, you enter the house first say: Peace to this house. If there is a son of peace, your peace it will rest on him ”(Luke 10: 5). Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth prophesies and cries out: “Blessed, are you among women!” The Virgin Mary is the first woman in the world and will remain here permanently. Damage, am I lucky that my Lord’s mother came to me? This is a clear confession of faith in the Messiah. God came to Elizabeth in his Son, and she knew him in the Holy Spirit. Since then, it is clear that God comes to man. He meets us. Let’s take a look at our visits to see what the content of these visits is, what it is like motivation, and maybe the basic question. Are we visiting at all? It often happens that we go to see our neighbor just because we need something. You can even say that this meeting is a visit? I wouldn’t even call it that because it’s had enough since an honest visit far away. Another reason to visit is slandering all the people in the village from one end village to another. Such a visit misses the effect because there is very little love in it.
The reason for visiting is to check others’ house after renovation and often do not even invite us to we came there. Our curiosity is unsustainable, so it is not a visit but a review of this household. Let’s correct these visits’ intent if we respond to any they found that our presence was the blessing of the house we would enter. In one proverb, he says, “Guest to the house, God to the house.” When she came to Elizabeth, Mary brought herself God, his Son, under the heart of Elizabeth’s house. Let us strive to be such distributors of God into the household where we will dwell. We will certainly not be such bearers as Mary was, but if we bring love into our homes, neighbors, surely there will be God. For God is love.
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Fourth Sunday B of Advent Luke 1,26-38
Decision (Luke 1: 26-38)
Let us accept the will of God and renounce our will.
The sacrament of Reconciliation also belongs to the Advent of the believing Christian Catholic. It is not a problem for anyone to approach the sacrament. For another, it is no longer so simple, easy, and not at all pleasant. The human factor prevails in decision-making. He considers who knows where and how to say it. This is also important, but much more important for everyone without distinction is to decide to change their lives, their relationship, their attitude, their lifestyle… Just start living the way I have, as God, my surroundings, and myself rightly expect.
The encouragement for us is the Virgin Mary’s decision: “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).
Mary’s positive answer to the angel at the proclamation is current. The Church, especially in Advent, shows us the behavior of the Virgin Mary as a model. As a Jew, Mary believed in the promised Messiah. When he hears the message of the birth of the Messiah: “Fear not, Mary, you have found grace with God. You will conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the sons of the Highest. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, he will reign over the house of James forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom ”(Lk 1: 30-33); Mary thinks and asks for an explanation. It was difficult for Mary to accept the message and deliver it. Mary was a young woman. She had never experienced anything extraordinary in her life. At that time, she is engaged to Josef and wants to start a family. The message is difficult. What a great faith Mary has when she gives consent after an explanation from an angel! Mary doesn’t know what to expect. We know from the Scriptures about Joseph’s attitude toward her when she told him that the Son of God had begun in her womb. She did not know, and no one told her, did not give instructions, information on what would happen next, how the events would go, knew nothing about Bethlehem’s journey, or how the child would be born. The message does not talk about fleeing to Egypt, the time and circumstances of the return, and that it will be to Nazareth. In the events that Mary and Joseph experienced, they see their trust in God, faith, and love.
The event of the Annunciation thrilled many artists. It appealed to people much more in a specific life. Mary’s behavior, trust in God, and humble consent is challenging to anyone who has believed in God. Mary matured to receive this gift. The last words of the angel have deeply etched in the soul of the Virgin Mary: “Nothing is impossible to God” (Lk 1:37). Mary believed them, and therefore she was able to say with joy: (Luke 1,38)
God also speaks to us. Not directly, but he sends his messengers, as he sent Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. Most often, they are the closest, but especially the Church. In God’s word, the sacraments, various events, and festivities, God rightly asks us for unpleasant, difficult, and sometimes even impossible things. These include the sacrament of reconciliation. What should we do? Follow the Virgin Mary. Let us ask for an explanation; let us try to understand and realize that “nothing is impossible for God” (Lk 1:37). We, too, can say in humility that we want to fulfill what God asks of us. Who among us knows what God has prepared for us? He who does the will of God will give him enough strength, grace, and gifts of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the will of God.
We know that the story of the fairy tale is made up. When we talk about what has happened in the past, we know that it has been at least a little idealized. The life we live is neither a fairy tale nor ideal. The example of the Virgin Mary is reality. It is difficult for a person to say at certain moments: this is the will of God.
It is hard to believe a 20-year-old man who wants to live, to prove something when doctors can no longer help, that it is God’s will. It is difficult for children to believe and trust God when they need their mother the most, they are growing up, and she has died under the wheels of a car driven by a drunk driver. It is hard to believe and trust a woman in God when her husband drinks everything when he beats her when he destroys what she acquires. It is difficult for a person to believe and trust in God when he loses his job. And there are many such different cases.
Although it is difficult to understand, in such moments, the Virgin Mary comes to our aid. She, who had to go through similar situations – how to explain to Joseph that she conceived a child, why she should give birth to her child in a stable, why the king reaches for her child’s life, why to live in exile, why her son is hated, must suffer, must die… Mary is a reinforcement to us. Let us run to Maria in the difficulties of our lives. Mary does not ask why. She has given her consent and continues to trust. God knows what He is doing; He knows why He allows it. And just before the feasts of the Nativity of the Lord Jesus, we should put in order the things that devour us somewhere inside, torment us that we have caused by irrationality, unbelief towards God, our neighbors, and ourselves. God has prepared for us the gift of peace and joy. Sin unconfessed, unbridled, silenced will not make us happy. Mary’s pure life invites us to follow her and trust in God.
Today, on the last Sunday before the holidays, it is right that we have penetrated the example of the Virgin Mary and her consent to change our current way of life. Joy and gratitude are just two things God gives us. Also, we realize that God is rightly asking us for something about his justice. When God gives, He rightly asks. Mary is proof of that. It is right that our hearts can not only accept gifts but also give them. Giving abundantly, generously, as the Virgin Mary did. He understood and accepted her example as his own, and so one of the greatest composers of all time, Beethoven, fulfilled his mission. He accepted his deafness. What did it have to mean for the composer ?! He suffers for years; he does not hear. Twelve days before his death, he writes: “It is true that a heavy cross overtook me. But I ask God to serve my life. But I want to carry my cross as His will is. ”
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FOR A GLOSSARY WITH EXPERTS
Abraham Harold Maslow (* April 1, 1908 – † June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist, psychiatrist and philosopher (forerunner of the New Age), the founder of humanistic psychology. He researched the hierarchy of human needs, motivation, self-realization. He invented the familiar Maslow’s pyramid of needs. He argues that human activity’s highest motivator is not money but the satisfaction of human needs. According to him, these are arranged within five degrees from basic – for the satisfaction of which we usually need money, and that after the higher ones – social and self-realization.
MASLOW’S PYRAMID
Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs has the shape of a pyramid and is based on the following principles: people are motivated by the desire to satisfy their needs, from the lowest to the highest level,
the hierarchy of human needs can be arranged in the form of a pyramid, which consists of five levels, satisfies the needs of a lower level motivated to try to meet the needs of a higher level if the need for a lower level is not fully or partially satisfied, the need for a higher level has no incentive effect.
SELFTRANSCENDENCIA
At the top of the pyramid is self-transcendence, sometimes called spiritual needs. Maslow believes that we should explore and develop the ultimate experiences (short and rare moments of inspiration, ecstasy, release of creative energy) to achieve personal growth and fulfillment. Individuals with the greatest preconditions for achieving top experiences are self-updated, mature, healthy, and self-fulfilled. Everyone can have the top experience. Those who do not have them suppressed or prevented them in some way. A detailed description of Maslow’s pyramid: Maslow’s pyramid (needs) is a hierarchy of human needs defined by the American psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow in 1943. According to this theory, man has five basic needs (from the lowest to the highest – together, they form a kind of “pyramid”):
physiological needs
the need for safety, security
the need for love, acceptance, belonging
the need for recognition, respect
the need for self-realization
Maslow identifies the first four categories as scarce needs and the fifth category as needs or growth needs. In general, lower needs are more significant, and there at least partial satisfaction is a condition for the emergence of less urgent and developmentally higher needs. However, this cannot be said unconditionally, and it has been proven that satisfying higher needs (aesthetic, spiritual) can help in extreme situations of human life, where the possibility of satisfying lower needs is limited (e.g., in concentration camps, as reported by Viktor Frankl or Konrad Lorenz). Maslow considers the need for self-realization to be the highest, which marks the human effort to fulfill his abilities and intentions.
Abraham Maslow was based on the belief that the performance of workers can be increased to natural physiological limits if not only material but also social needs are met, i. the need for self-realization, self-actualization, self-realization, social belonging to someone or something, creativity, security, security, status, etc. Saturation (fulfillment, satisfaction) of most needs occurs in the work process. The benefit of this school is that it tries to take the organization as a system, ensuring the integrity of personal interests and the organization’s interests. The paradox is that many do not care about self-realization; they are motivated only by lower physiological needs, peace, and comfort.
Insufficient needs
Physiological needs
Physiological needs are the needs of the organism and have the highest priority. They consist mainly of the following needs: need to breathe, the need to regulate body temperature
need for water
need for sleep
I need to eat
need for exclusion
need for sexual intercourse
The need for safety, security
Once the physiological needs are met, the needs for certainty begin to increase: job security
security of income and access to resources
physical security – protection against violence and aggression
moral and physiological security
family security
health security
The need for love, acceptance, belonging
After fulfilling physiological and safety needs comes the third layer – social needs. These generally consist of emotional relationships such as friendship
partnership
the need to have a family
The needs of being
The need for self-realization
Self-actualization (a term introduced by Kurt Goldstein, sometimes referred to as self-realization) is an instinctive need to fulfill one’s abilities and strive to be the best one can be. Maslow defined self-realized people as follows:
They accept the circumstances of life (including themselves) instead of rejecting or avoiding them.
They are spontaneous in the creation of thoughts and actions.
They are creative.
They are interested in solving problems, often in solving other people’s problems. Solving these problems often plays a key role in their lives.
They feel the closeness of other people and generally value life.
They have an internal ethic that is independent of external authority.
The judge is without prejudice, in a way that can be considered objective. Self-transcendence
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The only point
Life flows here and now. In Presence, the present moment is the place of life, where God is, a place where we transform ourselves.
Apartheid frees us from the passions and desires that take us away from this presentation to take away. Carefree frees us from fear and anxiety, and worries that also pull us out of this moment. Both are fruits of knowledge and, over time, more and more experience that God is here and not elsewhere that God is the goal we have longed for and which has already reached us in baptism is already here, right here and right now. We are completely safe in God; it cannot happen to us anything that God would not do for our good and salvation. The last thing we need and still want is to enter into this presence fully and to fully immerse ourselves in the God who is already here, to enter the Kingdom, which has already come to us in Him, and which is Himself.
To be a Christian means to live the full presence, to live the full life that in this presence, flows, without fear, without covetousness, in joy, in relaxation. To live fully and more and more, because this is the essence of Christianity: to immerse oneself in life, to clothe one’s own life, and that is God Himself. Being a Christian means to live truly, and to live in Christianity means to learn more and more, live freer and more intensely. So much so that we don’t need anything to do it externally, no seizure, distraction, distraction, or none external affairs. Life itself, God, flows through us, and we in Him and nothing else we don’t need it. For the people of the world, such poverty is a turning point. For the people of God facilitation, free and joyful choice. The same goes for fasting, for silence and solitude and the like.
We’re in no hurry, nowhere. We don’t escape from anything, and nowhere, we don’t run away. We are fully here and now. We live here and now. We are growing here and now. Here and now, we are in Heaven, in the Kingdom, more and more deeply. We take things one by one; we live things one by one, always the one it is, in full, without sorrow for that which was, without impatience for which will come. We value every moment; we live fully every moment and every one the thing into which God’s providence led us, because, in it, he speaks to us, in the trains of us, in him God himself is with us. We really live in it, and we are growing.
“Everything has its time and its moment every effort under the heaven. It has it’s time to be born, her time to die, her time to plant, and her time to have seedlings rip out. … He should spend his time throwing stones; his time should collect stones. He has to hug his time; he has to hold back his hug. … He has his time to tear; he has to sew his time. His time is to be silent; he is to speak his time. ” (Ecclesiastes 3, 1-2.5.7)
In this present moment, the world itself, nature, things, events, become God – filled with God; everything is a source of joy and excitement because God entered into all this and through all this to us
he speaks and acts with us, trains, trains, reveals himself. Everything is different. Everything has changed; the world itself and life have changed with the coming of God – completely just as the gym changes when the master enters it, as it changes the castle hall when the king enters it. They are the same and yet completely different, until then
empty and dead, now alive and full, not by themselves and themselves, but by entering.
“And they called the apostles, and scourged them, and commanded them that they should not speak in Jesus’ name, and released them. And they were leaving the council pleased that they were recognized as worthy of bearing the disgrace of the name. And they didn’t stop the day what to teach in the temple and the house of the day and preach Christ, Jesus. ”(Acts 5: 40-42). We don’t want to be anywhere else. We don’t want to do anything else. We do not desire to experience anything else. Why should we? God is in what is happening, and it is flowing here and now in God’s life, real life, even our own life. What more do we need? What more would, could we want? Here’s everything, that’s all. It’s gorgeous without fear to be led by God, to be carried on His wings. Right here. Right now. Just like that. Nowhere else. Never again. Not different. One moment. One place. One God. One Kingdom. One life. One point. Everything. For the glory of God, for the joy of God, for the salvation of man. Wherever you go, this point will go with you and all fullness with it. God is glorified in a man full of life.” (St. Irenaeus of Lyon)
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Man and prayer
19.12. Advent time Luke 1: 5-25
To arouse more faith in people
God is not a garbage collector; he chooses as his faithful, especially those who went through the fire of mental or physical pain. Here we can see it nicely in the parent’s st. John the Baptist. In the Gospels, we have heard God choose Jesus as the father of Jesus’ predecessor, the pious man Zacharias. The discussion of Zechariah and Elizabeth begins a new period of salvation, the coming to the Messiah. The Lord God develops His work in history by building on what He has done.
The event is taking place in Jerusalem. It announces the birth of John the Baptist, who to prepare the way for the Lord. Despite his desecration, Jerusalem was a saint in the city. In the middle of it lay the temple of Israel’s holiest land on which it met a nation with the most precious, and that was the living God of Israel. Here in this magnificent temple, the Lord God begins to carry out a new work of salvation. Luke’s pericope of the gospel speaks about the events that took place in the temple, how Jesus was brought to the temple after his birth.
Simeon’s prophecy will be heard in the temple, and twelve-year-old Jesus will go to the temple and deliver there the first testimony of his mission. Jesus later taught in the temple. We see that throughout history, the great events of Jesus’ life took place in the temple. Someone may say, but I also go to church. Yes, we go, and it’s very correctly. The question is, “Why do we go to church, and what does it give us?” We believe what God tells us through the priest’s mediator, or shall I say to myself? “But let the priest he tells, and we will do our own thing anyway. ” Our faith is not just about that we will go to church and do nothing, but we don’t even have to Don’t even trust God. After all, today, we see it in Zechariah, who was even a priest and his trust in God was weak when he told him that a son would be born to him, and we know his distrust turned out.
We, too, can say to ourselves that we are people of the temple because we flee to everyday church we worship God and give thanks for the blessings, which our heavenly Father. But we do not often act as Zechariah did. We are many times in a situation where our trust in God is weakened or even non-existent. We pray for some good besides our belief that this goodness from Heavenly Father we get is minimal. Will our prayer be answered in that case? Definitely not.
Then let us not complain that our prayers are not answered. With prayer and supplications, the greatest confidence in hearing prayer must also be united. The Heavenly Father let us come with faith and determination to listen to him and what he will tell us accordingly Act.
The Lord invites us to serve Him, as Zechariah does. So let’s be human prayers and great faith.
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Relationships between different religious concepts and characteristics of the universe
Recently, there have been rare attempts to link religious ideas more closely to reality or directly deduce our world’s basic characteristics from the basic sources of specific religions. In this context, mention may be made in particular activities linked to East Asian schools of thought. The American physicist Fritjov Capra became known for his publication TAO Physics, 59). He tried to prove that such fundamental characteristics of the material world as relativity of space and time, a blur of contours of elementary particles of our world and others, result directly from Taoist religion. However, it must be said openly that the evidence for these allegations is not very convincing. Each of us will admit without serious objection the fact that in the deep meditation that underlies Taoist philosophy, the present merges with the past and seeps into the future, that bodies lose their contours and the world appears more than an unstructured medium than an environment with strictly determined shapes, etc.
Similarly, Chinese physicists Fang Li Zhi and Li Shu Xian in their book Creation of the Universe 60) cite quite a few lessons from ancient religious sources, which relate, for example, to questions of statics or dynamics of the universe, its finiteness or infinity, and so on. Indeed, it can be mentioned that it was or was connected to the earth in the beginning. It separated from it and permanently moved away from it, which, according to the mentioned authors, unmistakably documents the thesis of expanding the universe. The basic symbols of ancient Chinese philosophy, “Yin” and “Yang,” in turn, point to the polar nature of most phenomena observed in the real world.
More such attempts to explain nature through religious texts can be found, but, surprisingly, we rarely encounter such efforts in the field of Christian teaching. We do not now mean the information that Christian sources give us, for example, about the beginnings of the universe, but there is a lack of reflection on whether the Christian God has left his “seal” in his creation. If we start from the well-known truth that the author usually marks his work with his individuality, then the meaningful question is whether traces or reflections of the Christian God can also be found in the universe. The point of this question is based in particular on the fact that the Christian God (God in the Christian sense) is different from the Gods of other religions, and so – if what we have stated above is true – nature should in a sense bear witness to what Creator he created it.
In the Christian sense, God’s specificity is that he is the Triune, which means that he has one divine essence and contains three Divine persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Catholic Church’s Catechism explicitly emphasizes: “God has certainly left traces of his trinity in his created work.” the correctness of the various religious concepts that concern the world around us and in us. It is not surprising, therefore, that in history, there have been attempts to discover the “Trinity” principle in nature, but they have not been successful. The great astronomer J. Kepler was convinced that the solar system’s arrangement somehow documented this principle, but in the end, he had to give up this idea. Today we know that this attempt could not be successful because Kepler was looking for traces of trinity at the wrong level. In theology, however, much attention has been paid to the idea of the Triune God. However, it seems that a prominent Christian thinker of St. With his thesis “opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt” (the deeds of the Holy Trinity are indivisible to the outside), Augustine influenced thinking in the sense that the individual Divine Persons do not have their own autonomous role. Nevertheless, in the past, we find indications of the search for specific functions of individual Persons of the Divine Trinity in creation. For example, St. Bonaventure is explicitly based on the thesis that “the universe is a book reflecting, representing, and describing its Creator.” Simultaneously, three clear manifestations can be found in it: traces, image, and similarity. Every creature bears traces, the image is visible in the intellectual creature, and the resemblance only to those in a “conformal relationship” with God. St. Bonaventure sees the roles of the individual Persons of the Holy Trinity divided so that the First Divine Person gives creatures being, the second wisdom, and the third love. In this sense, the universe is the “self-reflection” of the Triune God, and this idea is emphasized in contemporary theology.
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Joseph did not want to expose Mary to trouble.
We are in a time when there is slowly more chaos than order. It’s swift, and most people think only of deceiving each other. Men leave their wives, men’s wives, children run away from their parents. We listen every night to reports of a murder or robbery. It seems that the end of the world is approaching, and it should come to God’s justice. But if we want to stand in God’s justice, we must act according to the gospel, the righteousness of God.
In the Gospels, we have heard of the man we hear about only a few times a year: about Joseph, who was Mary’s husband and a righteous man, did not want to expose Mary in trouble. “Therefore, he intended to put her away secretly” (Mathew 1:19).
Imagine the situation then. Joseph a man honorable and just. He will learn that Mary is in a blessed state. He will either release her or publicly declare her status. Then he waits for her, just stoning. But since Joseph is a righteous man, he wants to let her go quietly.
He can’t think of anything more sensible. At that moment, the angel of the Lord will appear to him and explain to him the situation actually happening. Joseph has the opportunity to say yes or no. He accepts the Lord’s mission, and so does he become Jesus’ educator-foster parent. He doesn’t look at what people tell him what you are; they will talk about it behind their backs, but they will fulfill the word of the Lord. It reflects the previous one’s education. What was said in one word that he was a righteous man was acquired for life.
Advent is a time when God addresses each of us. He knows that he is also not always all right in our lives, and we are often scared. Just these days, to us, offers a new opportunity to gain courage in a new life with Christ. He knows about us every day the enemy of God is coming, and therefore he is urging us not to rely only on ourselves, on our forces, to help psychologists or psychiatrists. However, this requires us to reconsider our relationship to this world, the surrounding people, and especially the relationship with God. And we don’t smell it anymore. We have paved sidewalks, established relationships with the things of this world that we rely on, that they will help us. That is why we are reassigning God somewhere outside, to the other track and his offer, and we put the address in the safe, which we will use at the last moment as a machine.
But God also invites us to share in the history of salvation. When Advent is slowly coming to an end and Christmas is approaching, we feel in these moments. Advent characters approached us; at Christmas, he himself will address us. From us, at this moment, he demands what the angel said to Joseph: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to accept Mary, his wife ”(Mathew 1:20). The important word is, “don’t be afraid.” We should not be afraid to be better people; we should not be afraid of personal sanctification; we should not be afraid to abandon our sins. And above all, we should not be afraid to accept Christ in our lives.
Advent is a time when God’s offer is so expressive and comprehensible that he must understand and see everyone. Let us not seek false excuses, and let us not be afraid, but let us open ourselves to the acceptance of God into our lives.
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Work
Work Philosophically, God is defined as the fullness of activity (Actus Purus). In the Gospel, Christ speaks of the Father and himself like those still working (cf. Johannes 5:17). When asked what a monk is, one of the Desert Fathers answered, “He works because he is still working.” We do not doubt that the work of Christ on earth can be called work. “When I count all the work, the steps that Jesus did for me …” St. Basil and St. However, Johannes Chrysostomus goes further into the past of the world and calls work and the creation of the world itself. Although God said only a word, the word is an eternal activity; it has become the earth, the sea, plants, animals, people. God’s idea realizes the whole world; it is a living work. We ourselves are the work of the calf, that is, activity. The duty to work belongs to our personality; we are what God has done to us and what we ourselves will do. To live is to work with a working God. As preachers say, we are becoming a link in a chain that is slowly drawing the world to God and a lost paradise. Hard work has become a sin. We work in the sweat of our faces (Gen. 3:19). However, the punishment for sin does not work itself, as St. Johannes Chrysostom, but effort, pain, dislike at work. The Christian, who is freed from sin and its consequences, also frees the work of its curse to become a free, joyful construction of his own perfection, an expression of love for God and neighbor again. In spiritual books, the qualities that are to be manifested in a Christian’s work are calculated. It must be according to God’s will. Otherwise, however, it would have no place in the great “liturgy of the world,” where everything moves exactly according to the plans of the one who rules the universe (Theodore of Cyr). It follows that every job in its place is the most important. We can’t deal with anything better at that moment. The principle that sanctified the simple and simple life of St. John Berchmans was: “Do what you have to do!” They asked him what he would do if he knew he would die right after a lunch break with others. He gave a nice answer in the spirit of his principle: “I should talk to others!” Duty in its place is the best act of piety, and therefore a good preparation for death. It is advisable to do everything as if it were the last act in life, to do it consciously, joyfully, persistently, and with a kind of ease and carelessness about tomorrow and another result. After all, the world is ruled by God. Even apparent failures are precious stones in the mosaic of the universe’s image if we work with it.
God’s Grace and Human Cooperation Modern authors rightly point out that work is an expression of love for people. We cannot give alms all the time. After all, gifts are not a lasting solution to the world’s misery, but rather a momentary relief. But what an act of love a mechanic will do who repairs a car so that nothing happens on the road! What a gift is a timely application to the office! What an act of love is a machine that will not go wrong because it is well done! Often little attention is enough to prevent harm to others. In ancient times they generally hated work, so they had to be served by slaves. This is not entirely correct. Great philosophers like Aristotle, Plotinus, and others know that destruction destroys and that the only path to perfection in action. Man transforms work. But it was from this correct principle that they drew a different conclusion than we are used to today. If we are to grow spirits, we must devote ourselves exclusively to spiritual work, as they have said. The bodily labor enslaves the spirit, attaching it to matter. Therefore, a free man devotes himself to the “free arts,” while the “service work” is left to slaves who still cannot rise to higher perfection. The Jews had a much more positive attitude towards the work of their hands. From the beginning, the Christians were not ashamed of the fact that they were disciples of the “worker,” that they were disciples of fishermen, that the Apostle of the Nations was able to earn a living from the tents so that he would not be burdened by those who proclaimed the word of God. The so-called euchites, who only wanted to pray, rebelled against them and established the principle: “Pray and work!” They meant physical work because spiritual activity was a prayer for them. St. John Chrysostom also opposes the Christian lords to be serviced: “God created your hands and gave them to you; people made slaves!”
Nevertheless, Christians, even Christians, had to think seriously about ancient philosophers’ fundamental objection.
Physical labor is really tiring, taking time, absorbing the spirit, and tying it to material interests. From this «curse,» however, it is not liberated by a noble phrase or the hope of imaginary progress in humanity’s welfare and happiness. The material works towards the material goal. If she is to become spiritual, it needs to have a spiritual goal to manifest in the spiritual world. The authors deal with this problem: they speak of good intentions, transforming material activity into spiritual value.
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