Ordinary Time

What a pity that we so rarely, I think, ask ourselves this question today; who is Jesus Christ to me? If we thought about it more often, our lives would look different.

Sometimes a provocation is needed to ask such questions. Jesus did it directly. First, He asked about popular opinions, about the so-called human talk. You can clearly see how superficial and unreliable it is. People are always looking for sensation. If a gossip is fancier and less plausible, the more it listens and spreads more easily. This is probably not a coincidence. In this way, by means of basically absurd slander, we release ourselves from responsibility, or at least from a more serious discussion and our own thoughts. It is an easy and cheap way to justify your thoughtlessness, carelessness, stupidity and sins.

Therefore, a mature and wise man never stops at hurdles and human opinions, but tries to form his own opinion and judgement, at least in the most important life issues. There is enough data for that. The apostles were especially competent to give a credible answer to the question of the identity of Jesus: they stayed with Him constantly, listened not only to the instructions for the crowds, but also to the explanations for the initiates, they saw and knew more than others. And here’s Simon’s correct answer. But it was not just the result of human observation and deduction. Simon’s statement was a confession of faith having its source in God. This fundamental belief was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Simon said this without being fully aware of what he was saying. He uttered the formula without fully understanding of its meaning. In fact, we’ll never fully understand it. We are limited in understanding, but all the more we can and should trust in our faith. Simon, and then Peter, is the embodiment of this faith, he is the rock to which the Church constantly refers, because God Himself gave Peter this function.

But then should we appeal to this confession, since it is not our own, since it can only be regarded as someone else’s opinion? Isn’t the uncritical repetition of Peter’s sentence also the reproduction of gossip and human talk? It’s just that it shouldn’t be. We would refer not only to the repetition of words from 2000 years ago, but that we explore these words, look for their meaning – first original, and then modern, related to our lives. This process of seeking understanding is also inspired by the Holy Spirit. And it is He who guarantees us the credibility of our knowledge, and the Church watches over us so that we do not go astray.

The Apostles, staying in a boat in the middle of the lake certainly didn’t expect to witness an unusual phenomenon. Behold, as it was beginning to down, they saw in the distance the figure of a man who was walking towards them on the water. Terrified, they began to scream, but then they heard the voice of the Master: Do not be afraid!

In our lives, such a situation may never happen, but it often happens that we too have a problem with recognizing God who comes to us. Without looking far, we can ask ourselves: Do I see God’s presence in the Sacred Scripture and in the Eucharist? Do I see Him in my problems and difficulties, as well as in other people? It is a presence so discreet that we may not even notice it. It is said that modern man has lost the sense of the sacred, sanctity. But without God, we won’t get far. There will always be some “water” to be crossed, and then human calculations will be useless. The only strength capable of overcoming even the greatest difficulties is faith and trust in God.

As long as Peter looked into Jesus’ eyes and trusted Him, he walked on the water, but as soon as he looked away from Him and began to analyze his situation, he began to sink.

The Bible teaches that nothing is impossible for God. Perhaps for this reason, He demands difficult and demanding things from us, because contrary to our feelings, He never leaves us alone. He always extends His helping hand to us and rushes to our rescue.

First, let’s look at the revealed truth: God created man to be the family leader, breadwinner, and protector. This is what is said throughout the Holy Scripture. Moreover, the father of the family is an icon of God himself for his family, especially for children. A telling example: one of the authorities of psychology writes in a report: “When I ask my patient – what is your relationship to God, very often I hear that God is with other people, but not with me. When I ask again – how close your father was to you as a child, almost every time the answer is the same – my Father was never close to me!” The same is the truth of scientific research and observation. One of the experts in this matter writes that we should not delude ourselves. No measure of a father’s professional success can compensate for his failure at home. And he advises fathers, “Priorize your lives based on who’s really going to cry at your funeral.” The physical presence of the father at home is absolutely necessary for the proper development of children. Research shows that a father’s influence on children helps them build positive self-esteem, avoid premature sex, alcohol, drugs, and cope better with stress at school. How many stones, enormous in their eyes, often beyond their fragile strength, do your wives and children have! So many worries, frustrations, stresses, fears. They need a father who will help them to remove them, who will put faith in their hearts that they can also gradually remove them by themselves! The authority that a father has in the eyes of his children, and especially in the eyes of his daughters, is unique, and that kind of authority a mother doesn’t have. Many fathers make a cardinal mistake here. They feel that they must try to earn the title of hero in the eyes of their children. Nothing more wrong. The father, by virtue of being a father, is automatically a hero in the eyes of his children, especially girls, and will always remain so, as long as he is faithful to their mother and to them, lives in truth and does nothing to lose this status in the eyes and hearts of his family.

A father has a very important role to play with his sons. By his own example, he teaches them how to (or not) treat a woman when they are adults. The way a father respects and loves his wife will fundamentally influence on how his sons view women in their personal lives, how they deal wisely with their sexuality, how they speak respectfully with women, and how they treat them appropriately.

Especially in the eyes of his daughter. If the father humiliates the mother in front of her, then his daughter will begin to regret that she was born a girl and will begin to hate her femininity, which will be negatively reflected when she is a teenager and a woman. A father who abuses his mother verbally or physically will make his daughter believe that as a woman she is a plaything in the hands of a man and that she deserves to be beaten and molested. Fathers need to understand that their daughters need daddy to cuddle them, carry them in his arms, tell them how much he loves them and how proud he is of them, talk to them, listen to them, even if it tires him, because you know how much girls need to talk and how much they need, especially the father, and not just the mother, to have time for them and listen to them carefully. Just like that girl whose daddy was the boss of a big company. Daddy told little girl to write St. Nicholas a list of gifts she wants for Christmas. What was his surprise when the girl wrote one sentence in a letter to Santa – “I am asking you, Saint Nicholas, for my Dad to have at least 15 minutes for me every day. I want nothing more!” The role of a father is to be there for his children, to encourage them, to defend them against depression, to help them overcome stress, to help build a positive self-esteem. Be a father – always and in every situation!

Many parents, especially fathers, fall to the trap set by a market-oriented society. Good parents always want their children to be happy. They are bombarded from everywhere with information that true happiness is to have. So they give to their children and they give endlessly. And with giving, children’s psychological problems grow. Scientists are sounding the alarm, saying that never before has the level of frustration, nervous breakdowns, aggression and depression among children been as high as it is today. Fathers, you must awaken from this poisoned mental lethargy. Children will be truly happy only when they look beyond themselves, when they understand that they have a purpose in life and a mission to fulfill by doing good for others. There is more happiness in giving than in receiving! In a politically correct world, it is inconvenient to talk about the critical role of the father in forming his children in the Faith. Scientific research conducted independently by various centers, the results of which are not spoken about because they are inconvenient and destroy the basis of anti-father and anti-family propaganda, prove conclusively that the father has a fundamental influence on the development or killing of faith in his children.

In families where the mother attended church regularly on Sundays, children’s attendance depended on the father’s participation. When the father attended church regularly, the children attended regularly in 33% of the families. When the father did not attend at all, only 2% of families attended church regularly with their mother. And in 60% of the families they did not go to church at all. The children identified with their father’s religious indifference more than with their mother’s piety.

Fathers, take this well to your heart. Only you can remove the stone of your children’s religious indifference by the example of your personal religiosity. Nobody can replace you in this. No priest, no catechist, not even your wives. The religiosity of your children depends to a large extent on your living faith, practiced every day. So it is you who are to lead common prayers at home, read the Holy Bible with children, explain the catechism, liturgy, go to church with children, sit in a pew together with children, show them by your example what it means to pray devoutly, to be generous for the Lord God, to confess, to receive the Holy Communion in front of their eyes. If you don’t do it, the children will be convinced that all this religiousness is not an important thing, it’s a thing for children, because it’s not important for our Dad. And you will roll a stone over the grave of their religiosity, which will be difficult for them to roll back later, and may not succeed at all. Dear Fathers, sursum corda! Don’t desert! Christ is truly risen! Follow His example and your families will follow you.

Believers, and at the same time systematically participating in religious practices, are the part of society that is definitely more active in various fields of social life and more willing to speak out on important matters than the so-called statistical man. Nevertheless, this activity is not at all impressive. According to the data of various research centers, it affects only about 7-10% of believers. So many declares belonging to various organizations, movements and church associations. How many actually work in them, speak publicly, react when something wrong happens? It’s very different with it.

The Gospel read on the Solemnity of Christ the King is kind of remorse for all those who stand aside. It begins with a dramatic sentence that illustrates the tragedy that unfolds on Golgotha precisely in the face of human passivity, and perhaps even indifference. “When Jesus was crucified, the people stood and watched.” The evangelist says little. He records only a few words. Very eloquent though.

As we gaze upon the people who stood and watched, we must ask ourselves about our personal reactions to various events. We are certainly not a society indifferent to human miseries of a material nature. In the face of various tragedies and in the face of needs that arise in many places and on various occasions, we react vigorously and show ourselves to be very generous. It’s even worse when it comes to values. Especially our Christian ones, firmly rooted in faith. In the name of the so-called tolerance, we are ready to keep silent, pretend that there is no topic – after all, you must not offend anyone; everyone must be respected.

The problem is that silence is not necessarily a sign of respect. By remaining silent, you can lose your self-respect. And by shutting your mouth in the face of evil and injustice, take the blame of others on yourself.

Increasingly, you can hear that our era has lost faith because people go to church less often, confess little, and are increasingly critical of the Church in everyday life.

When, instead of succumbing to stereotypes and superficial judgments, we may take a look around us, see our parish churches and people we know well, it turns out that the reality near us looks completely different.

“Will the Son of Man find faith on earth when He comes?” This kind of question sounds perhaps a little scary. There is a hint of hopelessness in it. However, this is not about scaring and upsetting. They need to be heard as an invitation and encouragement to each of us. The question of Jesus, which concludes the parable, which says that we must always pray and continue without ceasing touches our consciences. This question is not followed by an answer – it is intended to stimulate the thinking of every person, every church community, every generation. Each of us has to find the answer. Christ wants to remind us that the goal of man’s life is to meet God, and in this context He asks if, when He returns, He will find souls ready to receive Him in order to enter the Father’s house with Him”.

When we read today’s Gospel in this very personal way, there will no longer be a note of hopelessness, but of genuine hope. Only, when everyone feels the eyes of Jesus on themselves and hears that this is not an abstract question, but a call addressed to each one of them, it will take on a completely different, new meaning.

“Will He find the faith on earth?” – this is a question about my faith and the sense of responsibility for this gift in every single person. How long we will – with the full responsibility – start from us, instead of looking around and seek this faith in our surroundings, then so long Jesus’ question will not sudden or frighten us, but can help to awaken even greater zeal and strengthen our hope.

Today’s liturgy recalls two essential aspects of Christian life, which are faith and service. Without faith, it is impossible to please God or to be saved. One must constantly pray for the faith. We find an example of such a prayer in today’s Gospel. The apostles asked Christ: Increase our faith. His union with the Father in prayer, they felt that by their own strength they were unable to comprehend God’s mysteries or fulfill the vocation they had been given. Lord, increase our faith – this is one of the simplest, but also the most important prayers of the Church. Meanwhile, many Christians, when asking God for health or for the successful settlement of difficult matters, forget about faith, treating it as something obvious, once gained forever. The gift of faith that we received at the Baptism we must constantly multiply. If we had the faith like a mustard seed, it would move mountains and replant mighty old trees, that is, it would do what seems humanly impossible.

The faith is invisible. It cannot be seen or measured. There is also no spiritual ammeter that would measure its intensity. We recognize the faith by fruits. That is why Jesus combines the doctrine of faith with the encouragement to develop the attitude of a servant who is guided by selfless love. St. Catherine of Siena expressed this truth very well: “Love is like a maid who washes dirty dishes in the kitchen.”

Human life resembles a bridge that leads from the shores of mortality to the shores of eternity. A one-way bridge that cannot be turned back on. Today’s Gospel parable shows us two people who crossed that bridge: the beggar Lazarus and the rich man. The former lacked everything in life, even basic necessities. The second one was so obscenely rich that he was unable, or perhaps did not want to, to see the cause and relationship between his wealth and someone else’s poverty. 

Finally, we can see both of them on the other side of the bridge, on the edge of eternity. And there their fate changed radically. Lazarus “in the bosom of Abraham” experienced an eternal happiness that he did not experience on earth as he patiently waited for “the waste of the rich man’s table” and when “the dogs came and licked his sores.” The rich man suffers in hell among people who fall into two categories. The first group includes those who have made their lives meaningful to do evil. The second group, in which we find the rich man of the Gospel, includes those who have failed to do good. It seems that there can be definitely more people like these.

Each of us is today in a specific place on the bridge leading to eternity. We must remember that the quality of the eternal life depends on the quality of the earthly life. Life on earth and the decisions we make here will be saved on the other side forever.  So, what kind of life is here, such kind of the eternity will be there.

How many people are trying to imitate – in about 100% – the rich man Jesus speaks of in the present time? How many overworked people, out of breath, just to accumulate some money to be rich? To possess as much as possible! More often we hear the tragic words repeated as a motto of life: “Stupid, because poor, poor because stupid.” There is no reason to be surprised. After all, it is not the amount of wealth itself that is important, but the attitude towards it. Christ condemned the rich man not because he had a lot, but because he gathered to eat, drink, rest and use only. And it doesn’t take thousands of dollars for that. You can have several thousand in your pocket, collected over a week only to be spend in one Sunday evening. For this man, the money collected for a week becomes a deity. He thinks about it from morning to evening, he offers everything for it. What is not done on earth just to get some money? In reference to such a man, the Lord Jesus uses this strong word: “fool“. How many baptized people, how many among us would hear this hard word from God: “fool“? The wisdom of the Gospel lies in the fact that it places everything in its right place, knows what is truly worth, what is really a treasure.

According to the Gospel, the rich man is not the one who has accumulated treasure for himself, but the one who has acquired a great treasure in God’s sight. Christians, as disciples of Christ, should amaze the world with great wisdom of the Gospel, with this constant effort to accumulate true treasures: justice, goodness, mercy, prudence, etc. This is the wealth which decides about a man’s value, and and whoever strives for it is wise. Whoever has understood that true wealth is the wealth of the heart, not the pocket, has discovered the beauty of the Gospel and true Christianity. When faced with wealth, we stand at a crossroads. If we reach for temporal goods to use them, the world will recognize us as wise, but God – as we read in today’s Gospel – as foolish. If we put spiritual goods above money, the world will consider us foolish, but God will consider us wise. We have to choose which wisdom we want to participate in: Divine or Human.

“If any of you, fathers, a son asks for bread, will he give him a stone? Or for a fish, will she give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?”

The Greek word scorpios – scorpion – can be rendered “to be sharp”, “cut,” “to prick.” It expresses well the character of an animal called a scorpion, often found in Palestine, and considered a formidable enemy of man.

Scorpions are great in the dark and mostly feed on various types of insects, spiders and other scorpions. Poisonous scorpion’s bites, even if they usually do not lead to death, are very painful. The Apocalypse of St. John mentions “torments after the scorpion” (Rev 9: 5) – an almost proverbial expression.

The scorpion, next to the serpent, is in the Bible a classic symbol of the cruel world hostile to man. The Lord Jesus refers to this symbolism when He says to His disciples: “Behold, I have given you the power to walk on serpents and scorpions and in all the power of the opponent” (Lk 10:19). The journey from Egypt to the promised land is described in a similar way, “through a great and terrible desert, full of poisonous serpents and scorpions” (Dt 8:15). The Prophet Ezekiel calls his enemies scorpions. The Book of Syracides likens a wicked wife to a scorpion: “whoever takes her for himself, as if he had grabbed a scorpion with a hand.”

Christ explains to the apostles the meaning of prayer with three comparisons. He teaches that being a student is similar to the relationship of a son to a father who is asking for something to eat. While the first two comparisons seem understandable – the bread and the stone, the fish and the water snake – seem at least a bit similar to each other, the egg and the scorpion are rather difficult to confuse. The possibility of giving someone a scorpion instead of an egg is surprising, it is unlikely. What we are dealing with here is a gradation: these comparisons ultimately tend to compile a real thing with unreal, so as to the perfect degree indicate the trust we should have in God.

The attitude of child’s trust does not prevent us from praying to God persistently. Let the conclusion of today’s thoughts be the famous prayer:

“I asked God to give me the power to succeed,
 – He made me weak so that I might learn a humble obedience.
I asked for health to accomplish great deeds,
 – He gave me a disability so that I could do better things.
I asked for wealth so that I could be happy,
 – He gave me poverty so that I could be wise.
I asked for a power so that people would value me
 – He made me feel helpless to need God.
I asked for a companion not to live alone,
 – He gave me a heart so that I could love all my brothers.
I asked for a joy,
– and I received the life so that I could enjoy with everything.
I got nothing that I asked for
 – but I got what I expected.
Almost in spite of myself
 – my prayers not formulated were answered.
I am the most gifted of all people.”

Anonymous text in Rehabilitation Institute in New York

Martha and Mary, mentioned by St. Luke, are most likely sisters of Lazarus of Bethany, about whom St. John the Evangelist wrote, although some believe that they are completely different families. The Aramaic name Martha means “lady”.

Martha is presented by St. Luke as a meticulous housekeeper who “has been troubled by various services.” Jesus rebukes her because, out of concern for hospitality, she neglected to listen to His words. In fact, however, it is not about being opposed to two different ways of behaving. Mary does the right thing not because she does nothing in particular and does not care of the visitor. Rather, her attitude of listening to Christ’s speech shows the model of a disciple who is always looking for what is most important. Martha, on the other hand, is “devoted to things”, she is immersed in what she absorbs, but does not decide about a person’s value. It is not work itself that distances you from God, but the one that makes man lose sight of God in his pursuit of activity.

Jesus tells the woman: “Martha, Martha“. The repetition of the name shows a special feeling, is an expression of an emotional approach toward the other. In this way Jesus also speaks to Simon Peter, this is how He speaks to the inhabitants of the ungrateful city: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill prophets, and you stone those who are sent to you. How many times have I wanted to gather your children like a bird, its chicks under wings, and you did not want to.”

If Martha was the sister of Lazarus, she learned a lot from the lesson she received at the meal. In Bethany, it is she – and not her sister Mary – will demonstrate a luminous faith in Jesus and His messianic mission: “I still believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God who is to come into the world”.