Agatha, a virgin and the ,,widow of Catania.

CURRICULUM VITAE

She was born in Sicily into a wealthy family. During the persecution of Christians, the imperial procurator Quintianus wanted to seize her and her property. All his efforts to make her turn away from Christ were in vain. Her heart remained unbroken and her firm mind could not be broken even by the later terrible tortures, during which her body was mutilated in the most cruel way. She died during the tortures.

CV FOR MEDITATION

BETTER TO SUFFER WITH CHRIST THAN TO REJOICE WITHOUT HIM

We have before us a saint who was among the most widely venerated in ancient times. Her name was even included in the liturgical canon of the Holy Mass. The oldest historical data date back to the 5th century, and the interviews in many biographies are just legendary stories. It can be reliably assumed that the entire life of Saint Agatha took place in Sicily, in the city of Catania. She came from a wealthy Christian family and excelled in both mental abilities and physical beauty. She fell in love with her Redeemer and rejected all suitors. She longed for a spiritual life, willing to make any sacrifice for her divine fiancé.

One of the rejected suitors took revenge by reporting her as an extraordinary Christian. At that time, the deputy of Emperor Decius Quintianus was probably staying in Catania, and after hearing a seductive story about Agatha, he wanted to win her for himself. He decided to send the unyielding Agatha to the brothel of the debauched Aphrodisia for re-education. Agatha would rather accept physical suffering, but she had to first pass a test in which she would prove her purity and nobility. When Aphrodisia returned her to Quintianus, she replied something to the effect that she would more easily soften stone and bend iron than overcome her stubbornness. Quintianus became angryto endure all torture bravel and when nothing helped, he had her tortured. They whipped her, stretched her in a vice, pricked her and burned her. The deputy’s sadistic desires were also manifested in the order to remove her breasts. According to legend, she was thrown into a prison cell without any treatment, and there Saint Peter appeared to her and healed her. Then she was subjected to new tortures on broken glass and hot coals, but she remained faithful to Christ and full of love until her last breath.

It is difficult to describe all the dimensions of reality. Legendary biographies help themselves by presenting conversations in which Agatha steadfastly resisted, pointed out the wretchedness of the gods, and indicated the difference between deities similar to Joviš and Christ. More credible is Agatha’s strength arising from prayer. It is precisely this kind of strength that we should be looking for when we are tempted to make some concession to some of the modern deities. It is better to suffer with Christ than to rejoice without him. To love him means everything with him. And “to love” is the main and greatest commandment.

Out of great respect, the Christians buried Agatha in a new tomb, and according to legend, on the first anniversary of her death, Mount Etna erupted, threatening to destroy Catania. The inhabitants, praying to Agatha, carried a sheet from her tomb against the lava, and it stopped.

RESOLUTION, PRAYER

I will pray the tenth rosary for moral purity.

God, your power is especially manifested when it works in the weak: you strengthened Saint Agatha to bravely endure all torture; help us also, through her intercession, to pass victoriously through all trials to the glory of your kingdom. Through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. 

.God’s kingdom is the seed that germinates » They told the real case. A young person, a mathematics student, claimed to be an atheist, not to accept any religion. In order to find the goal of life, he said, it is enough for him to do good to everyone. And indeed he followed accordingly. He helped where he could. But development went in its own direction. He also helped believers in difficult times, eventually he believed himself and even became a priest. Faith is not ideology, but life. Life is then unclear in the beginning. The principle of „do ok“ was already at the beginning of faith in God the Father, who is the source of all good things. So the individual person grows in faith, the revelation in the Old Testament grew, the church also grows. So God does not impose a greater burden on anyone than he can bear, and He asks of us nothing but to do at every moment what is our duty and to follow that inspiration, which is inspired by conscience. This is also the living voice of God in the heart of man. There he speaks quietly, slowly, harmoniously. So what is a person? It is no longer what was yesterday, it is not fully what is today, it is not yet what will happen tomorrow. But in reality it is all, because God sees at the same time his entire development.He doesn’t even know how » Country people walk around the fields and like to watch the grain grow. Growth in nature can be observed. Can the development of the human soul also be seen? When it comes to the growth of knowledge, we even check it professionally with exams. Even moral development is observable to a certain extent. That’s why we claim someone has improved or deteriorated. However, the core of spiritual life is how we are penetrated by the Holy Spirit. This is a secret that appears only very imperfectly on the outside. Therefore, we cannot judge anyone infallibly, we cannot say that we know his true value before God. But even we ourselves do not know how high we have grown in our spiritual life. It is certainly not an infallible measure to feel that we are blameless. On the contrary, saints usually felt great sinners. Sacraments, especially St. communion, they multiply grace in us, so they give growth to the inner life, and yet it is not usually manifested in feelings. So the principle of St. Paul that the righteous lives by faith (Rome 1,17) hopes for what he does not yet see. As soon as the grain allows, he immediately starts working with an arrow, because there are harvests

 Previously, the reading of the Gospel in the church began with solemn words: „At that time…“ It was dropped today because it sounds outdated. But we lost something. Everything, that is, what Jesus did or said, happened in a certain, God-ordained time, in the fullness of time. Even in the life of nature, nothing returns. Grain must be harvested from the field at the right time, fruit is torn at maturity.  Even the inner life of a person who develops has its own irreversible rhythm. No really good deed can be put off until tomorrow. We will understand this when we realize that all the good we are capable of is the answer to God’s love. Even among people who like each other, hesitancy in response to the other’s offer disrupts the ratio. If the spiritual life was just a kind of „accumulation of merit“, you could say that one day we will do more and the next day we will take time off. The inspirations of God, on the other hand, do not return, they have their time, that is why the psalm (Ps 95.8) calls us, which we pray at the beginning of the Church Watch: „If you hear his voice today, do not confirm yourself in your heart!“

In today’s Gospel, we heard Jesus’ teaching about happiness. The word “blessed” actually means “happy.” Many people might say that, in Jesus’ teaching on happiness, what Jesus calls happiness seems to be the opposite of what a person would wish. And yet Jesus did not lie and so certainly presents the teaching about true and deep happiness. There are 8 ways to achieve happiness. Just as God gave the law of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, so on another mountain, the Son of God gave the law of the Eight Beatitudes. Both the Ten Commandments and the 8 Beatitudes are intended for all of God’s children – believing Christians. Fulfilling this law of God brings happiness to the soul! And with the appearance of many that something else brings happiness, we can compare the fairy tale Salt over Gold, in which Maruška told her father that she loved him like salt, which was at first unacceptable and offensive to both father and son, but eventually the value of salt over gold was shown.

I recall a statement by a well-known actor that before November 1989 he did not care about human rights, did not sign the Charter, but only wanted to secure a lot of money for his children, and only in November 1989 did he realize that his children did not so much desire material values, but freedom, truth, love, that is, more spiritual values. And he felt very ashamed of his children. This statement of the actor is confirmed by the Lord Jesus himself when he says to adults: “Unless you become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” We know from experience that a child has a humble mind and an uncorrupt, heart, and therefore understands Jesus and his teachings much better and more accurately. This condition also applies to adults, because the more he is, by the grace of God, as a child, the more he will understand Jesus and his teachings, and he will even be a happy person, as it is found in St. Matthew, which is about happiness.

We will truly understand that happy is a humble person, poor in spirit, not proud, but one who does not cling to things, to successes, to beauty, etc. Happy is a gentle, quiet, tolerant, kind person, happy is one who knows how to cry above all over the evil in himself, over the evil of other people, over the evil in the world, happy is a person who strives for justice combined with love that looks at people and not at paragraphs, happy is a person with a pure heart, i.e. one who controls his lower instincts and passions, happy is a peaceful and peace-loving person who always brings God’s peace into his soul and spreads it around him, happy is a merciful person who sees the needs of others and does not think only of himself, but helps others with word and deed, happy is a person who does not always go with the flow and does not change his coat, but faithfully follows Christ always and everywhere, even if he has to suffer for it. Various political parties always announce their programs before elections.

For 2000 years, the program of us Christians has been the teachings of the Lord Jesus and especially the so-called Sermon on the Mount, from which we read part – 8 of the Beatitudes – the teachings about true happiness. We should read this program of the Sermon on the Mount more often as it is written in St. Matthew in chapters 5-7. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, a great scholar, philosopher and theologian, followed this teaching and was therefore very humble and quiet, for example, he was not ashamed to be a simple religious guide around the city and at another time he humbly admitted that he drew the greatest wisdom from the Cross of Jesus.

Even St. Francis de Sales followed the teachings on happiness; despite hisincorrupt irritable nature, he was known as a very quiet and gentle person who brought peace to others. St. John Bosco received a dream from Our Lady that he would win the hearts of children with meekness and love, and in this way he also found happiness for himself. Unfortunately, today’s contemporary world provides many small sources of happiness, such as various prizes, profits, telephone and Internet technologies, and other attractions, while also relying on advertising in television and print media. Without much advertising, Jesus offers his true happiness, which is seemingly difficult to obtain, but he promises everyone that he will help them obtain it. Jesus, may we always try to offer you what I know.

January 28 is dedicated in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church to the memory of Saint Thomas Aquinas – a Dominican friar, philosopher, theologian and doctor of the church. He was born in 1225. He came from a noble family. He studied at the Benedictine school in Monte Cassino, ,later in Naples. He decided to become a mendicant friar, but his own family initially prevented him from doing so.

In 1244, Thomas joined the newly founded Dominican order. He studied theology in Paris and Cologne on the Rhine, and his teacher was the outstanding theologian and polymath Saint Albert the Great. Later, Thomas worked at several universities and Dominican schools in Germany, ItalyAristotle’s work ,  and France. He died on his way to the ecumenical council in Lyon in 1274.  

Saint Thomas Aquinas is one of the greatest philosophers and theologians of the Catholic Church, while always remaining pious and modest. He earned the title of doctor angelicus – angelic doctor. Although Thomas’s life was relatively short, he left behind a body of work of admirable scope and content. The work of Aristotle significantly influenced Thomas Aquinas’ thinking.

Thomas’s masterpieces are the Summa contra gentiles (3 vols., 1259 -1264) and the Summa theologiae (22 vols., 1266 – 1273). These works were not always well understood during his lifetime and some of his theses were condemned, but in the following centuries he received well-deserved recognition and honor. In 1567, Pius V declared him a Doctor of the Church.Italy  ,Italy, and France. Aristotle’s work.Italy, Aristotle’sand 

Secularization is mainly referred to as political change. Separation of the throne from the temple, rights from the Ten Commandments, expulsion of religion from the public sphere to the area of personal opinions and hobbies. But this break goes deeper.

The modern world has irreparably split into two parts. One, although it had been on it all public life, became questionable, problematic and a matter of private attitude or philosophical controversy. It was named Supernatural.

The latter has become the seamless reality we all live in. What is material, measurable, clearly describable and uncategorizable is today the basis of our reality, our point of reference, a common and primary experience of reality. The so-called natural world.

Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor in his book And Secular Age (Secular age) writes that the great invention of the West is the „imanent fram“: the idea of the world as a closed system that is composed of matter/energy and its laws and as such works self-sufficiently.

It is difficult to emphasize enough how fundamental this change was. For our ancestors, the transcendent was a clear and necessary reality. It was as much a part of the human world as the laws of nature are for us today.

Today, however, we think that our entire reality can be explained even without reference to something that transcends it. In other words, if there is a deity, from a human perspective it is more like the icing on a real world cake. But we like the cake almost the same regardless of its decorations.

It is a concept that today, thanks to general recognition, has such persuasiveness that, from the point of view of human life, it is no longer just our theory about the universe, but directly our universe. At least that’s how we experience it.

Enchanted world

Before the advent of the secular era, God (chi „supernatural“) was not firmly present only in the public life of society and the private actions of individuals. „Enchanted“ ( As sociologist Max Weber) famously described it, the whole world, including nature.

For example, when the Jews of the first century saw the possessed, they did not see in him a person with a tarnished psyche that could be caused by a) unprocessed trauma, b) psychiatric diagnosis such as epilepsy, c) chemical imbalance in the brain, d) – y) any „natural“ explanations for this style, z) if none of this is confirmed, maybe some kind of spiritual power.

They had before them a person tormented by an unclean spirit, and this demon was a similar part of their experience as the tested man.

Perhaps this statement will shed light on the fact that even today’s people in the most basic sense of the word do not see a chemical imbalance of the brain, epilepsy or trauma when looking at a mentally ill person. Like Christ’s contemporary, he did not see an unclean spirit. And yet these concepts, through their (-presumed) action in that person, are a fixed part of the universes of both: secular man lives in a world of the laws of chemistry, physics and modern psychology, pre-secular in the world of spiritual and moral forces.