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Reflection on Jn 17:24
Post date: 2015-08-01Autor: BCP
Jesus now speaks to His Father in heaven: “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me...” Who are they? The apostles and all who have believed in Christ and received Him.“...that they may be with Me...” Where? Jesus lets us into a secret: “...where I am...”. And where is Jesus? When He was praying, He was physically present in Jerusalem, in the upper room, but through prayer He was in union with His Father. Now Jesus is in glory but at the same time He is mysteriously present in all who received Him. We can live this unity in prayer, realizing the deep truth of unity with Christ, which He speaks about and emphasizes in many places. The most important thing in our life is to be with Christ!
I am strong with Jesus. He gives me the strength
Post date: 2015-07-27Autor: BCP
Evil is in us and around us. The devil exploits our weakness so that we love to hear lies and hate to hear the truth. He works through our egoism, i.e. the enemy in us who drags us to hell. Therefore we must resist original sin – the old self, and we must know that we need to fight and not make peace with it! There is no peace with sin. We must fight against it and this fight will only end 15 minutes after death. We must not make peace with sin nor accept it as a norm. We must not give up and say: “I am weak, I have no more strength!” Yes, I am weak but not so with Jesus. I am strong with Jesus. He gives me the strength!
Only the cross of Christ is a bridge to God
Post date: 2015-07-22Autor: BCP
In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. The Son of God became man to deliver us from our sins: “You shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” (Mt 1:21) “There is born to you this day in the city of David the Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” (Lk 2:11)
Modern heresies
Post date: 2015-07-21Autor: BCP
The two sentences that were preached by all the Apostles: 1) Jesus He died for our sins, 2) Jesus was raised from the dead and we are witnesses of this. Today this all is being denied masterfully! One can hardly believe that such is the state of the organization which still calls itself the Church.
Reflection on Jn 17:21
Post date: 2015-07-19Autor: BCP
In this verse, Jesus prays for the present and future apostles and disciples and for their internal unity. This unity is no legal unity or unity within a structure. The condition of true unity is that every disciple of Christ must first be in unity with the Father through sincere repentance and saving faith. Prayers for a kind of globalization of Christians in the spirit of New Age with the aim of establishing a unified structure is the exact opposite of what Jesus prayed for.
We must learn to fight
Post date: 2015-07-13Autor: BCP
We must learn to fight in the spiritual battle. It is no good opening our hearts to impudent and unscrupulous people. It holds true: “Don’t throw your pearls to pigs!” We need the spirit of prophecy so that we may discern correctly. Spiritual battle is no showing off; it is a tough job. But what shall we fear? Illness, suffering or death – we need not fear it. God is with us always, and if we can suffer for the sake of Christ, we shall have glory in heaven. The goal is to save our souls and the souls of others – and that is the sense of mission.
Be like Abraham
Post date: 2015-07-11Autor: BCP
Be like Abraham, be men who give the first place to God. Because of Abraham, God gave His blessing to the whole generation. In these times, too, we need a community – the Church is a community. Where two or three are gathered together, there is power. If you put the divine truths into practice and embody them in your life, your word is with power.
Reflection on Jn 17:11
Post date: 2015-07-05Autor: BCP
Jn 17:11 in the Greek original reads: “...keep them in Your name, which You have given Me...” It means that the disciples must be kept in the name of the Father, which Jesus bears. Verse 26 specifies the primary meaning of verse 11 which shows that Jesus has made known the Father’s name in His name: “I made known to them Your name, and I will continue to make it known.” So this indicates a process of knowing the depth of the name of God – Yehoshua, which Jesus makes known through the Holy Spirit. This knowledge is connected with the love of the Father towards the Son as well as the love of the Father and the Son towards us. The culmination is the dwelling of Christ in the soul of a disciple which is conditioned by the process of knowing the divine name ever more deeply.
Eternal reward is in store for us (video)
Post date: 2015-06-22Autor: BCP
Eternal reward is in store for us. + Elijah Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
What is true brotherly love? (video)
Post date: 2015-06-21Autor: BCP
What is true brotherly love? + Elijah Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
Reflection on Jn 17:3
Post date: 2015-06-20Autor: BCP
Jesus speaks about eternal life which is connected with the knowing of God the Father, and with the knowing of Jesus Christ. We may know God – Jesus Christ even now in prayer, in reading the Gospel, in suffering and especially when we renounce our own will and make an act of love by accepting the will of God by faith and in self-surrender. Jesus spoke about eternal life even before, when He said: The Father has given the Son authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as He has given Him.
The nature of all commandments (video)
Post date: 2015-06-20Autor: BCP
The nature of all commandments. + Elijah Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
Not only being born of God but abiding in Him (video)
Post date: 2015-06-17Autor: BCP
Not only being born of God but abiding in Him. + Elijah Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
What accord has Christ with Belial?
Post date: 2015-06-16Autor: BCP
What accord has Christ with Belial? We can never say that Christianity and paganism are equal ways to salvation! Salvation is only in Jesus. If pagan ways led to salvation, Christ would not have come to our earth and died for our sins. But, as the Scripture says, He came and endured pain, suffering and humiliation to save us and to deliver us from darkness and from the slavery of the devil.
Sense of the essence
Post date: 2015-06-13Autor: BCP
We need to know the essence so that we may be witnesses in the place where we are. Everyone should ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to be an evangelist, teacher or prophet at a particular place. We must be full of the Holy Spirit, we must be witnesses to Christ, we must have a sense of the essence. We shape our environment above all by the example of our life. There are just a few essential truths to live: to learn to deny yourself in little things, to learn to pray, to find time for prayer and to rely on God.
Resist sin unto blood! (video)
Post date: 2015-06-13Autor: BCP
Resist sin unto blood! + Elijah Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
Because you received the Word of God as the Word of God...
Post date: 2015-06-12Autor: BCP
We must receive the Word of God as the Word of God, the simple truths of the Gospel of God as they are presented to us by Jesus. If we follow Him in earnest and take His Word seriously, if we deny ourselves and take up our cross, God gives us true wisdom and true knowledge, as the Apostle Paul says: “We do not preach the wisdom of the world but the wisdom of God.” Every Christian should have such wisdom.
Who sins not? (video)
Post date: 2015-06-10Autor: BCP
Who sins not? + Elijah Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
Our attitude must be unwavering
Post date: 2015-06-09Autor: BCP
What is it in us!? Conscience, the voice of God, on the one hand and the poison of sin on the other. If people hear lies, they gladly believe in them. On the other hand, they keep questioning the truth. They even question the truths of our salvation – maybe it is true, maybe not… Our attitude must be unwavering: “Jesus said it and it is true! I won’t invent anything! He who believes will be saved; but he who does not believe will go to hell.”
Reflection on Jn 17:1
Post date: 2015-06-06Autor: BCP
“…lifted up His eyes to heaven…” Jesus thus sets an example to us. We must lift up our eyes to heaven too. We often look down or fix our eyes on vanity or even sin. Jesus said: “Father, the hour has come.” What hour? The hour of Jesus, the hour of His physical and mental suffering and of His death in disgrace on the cross. The time will come when we too shall glorify the Heavenly Father by our suffering and death.During the prayer stop, when you will repeat these words, awaken to the reality of the hour of Jesus as well as your hour to come. Stop for a while, lift up your eyes to heaven and make an act of love for God, an act of total self-surrender.