English > UOGCC Publications
The Parable of the Two Debtors
Post date: 2025-07-30Autor: BCP
In one of the gospels, Jesus tells a parable of two debtors – one who owed ten thousand talents, the other who owed a hundred denarii. You forgive something small and the Lord forgives you millions in debt. What folly it is to know this and not act on it. We need to put this into practice on a daily basis. By eagerly forgiving others and walking in truth and light, we get healed and free from all sorts of indefinable or definable gloomy emotions or feelings of guilt. These are false emotions. Ask yourself – Where is Jesus in all this? And where are you? Are you in your self or in Christ when you have such thoughts? If you are in Christ, God’s word is your guide as interpreted in the Spirit and in truth, rather than by the evil spirit in the wilderness.
“Lord, let fire come down from heaven!”
Post date: 2025-07-21Autor: BCP
At Elijah’s word: “Lord, let fire come down from heaven”, fire came down and consumed the bull on Mount Carmel, and then it came down twice more and consumed fifty soldiers each time. However, that fire had come down into him first. The Prophet Elijah had experience of the fire of God. This fire had already purified his soul. So this fire should purify us.
Christ helps us carry our daily cross
Post date: 2025-07-17Autor: BCP
Every day we can call on Jesus, when worries and vanities overwhelm us and we lack the strength to do the will of God, when we have an urge either to do nothing or to immerse ourselves in a problem which produces another problem and consequently we lose the essence, when we do anything else but not what we are to do. Then we need to fall to our knees, look into the eyes of Christ on the cross and say: “Jesus, I trust in You. You will give me the strength to carry the cross of this duty which I loathe and try to avoid. Please, give me the strength; I have none.” And Jesus will. Sometimes in an extraordinary way.
My cross is also the specific circumstances and situations
Post date: 2025-07-10Autor: BCP
To carry our cross means first to identify what this cross is concretely. My cross, with regard to my character and my nature, is one thing and my brother’s cross is another thing. However, our cross is not just our character but also the specific circumstances and situations in which we are powerless. Whatever we do, nothing works. One can say: we just sink deeper and deeper. Then we must either suffer a blow through our own fault, or we need someone else to give us a blow so that we can finally be pulled out of the swamp.
Recourse to the Mother of Jesus
Post date: 2024-12-09Autor: BCP
Even an unbelieving person, when suddenly confronted by a difficult situation, subconsciously cries out like a small child: “Mummy!” We can have recourse to Mary as our Mother. Jesus gave her to us as our Mother. Eve is the mother of the human race. Mary became our spiritual Mother. The task of a mother is not only to give birth to or receive children, but to feed and rear them. Mary accompanied Jesus on His Way of the Cross. None of the people knew Him so intimately, none was in so deep unity with Him as His Mother. And Jesus gave His Mother to us, His children. We have the same Mother: you and I and Jesus.
Deny yourself and the power of God will work
Post date: 2024-09-15Autor: BCP
What God wants from us – and this is the essence of holiness – is the obedience of faith, which is usually associated with small outward self-denials, but especially with inward ones. We have a lot of ideas of doing something and we want it this or another way. God gives us these ideas so that we are not completely empty because emptiness can have a negative impact and not everyone can cope with it. That is why God gives us different ideas, but then wants us to sacrifice our Isaac like Abraham.
Let us abide in Christ and His Word out of love for our neighbours too
Post date: 2024-06-13Autor: BCP
The devil often uses sadness to break the relationships in the family or community! Sometimes, without meaning to, we focus our mind on a problem or begin to daydream and we do not realize that our face speaks louder than words (that is why people, when talking together, watch the face in order to sense what the other person means by his or her words). However, our face speaks even when our mouth is silent. Our thought, behind which is a certain spirit, becomes visible on our face – in our eye. That is why we should abide in and be filled with Christ and His Word at least out of love for our neighbours.
We need the full armour of God
Post date: 2024-05-22Autor: BCP
Prayer is of the greatest benefit when we have the full armour of God and we know which Bible verse to use as the sword of the Spirit – the Word of God spoken in the Spirit and at the right time – the word of prophecy – rather than the letter of Scripture or a phrase. The spirits of darkness in the heavenly realm – kosmokratoras – cannot be fought against by firing in the air or by using guns, rockets or atomic weapons. That is child’s play to them. They fight against human souls through occultism, magic, deceit, by leading them into a false faith in pagan pseudo spirituality...Through the obedience of faith in union with Jesus crucified the greatest power – the almighty power of God – works through us. The condition is to be in the will of God, in the presence of God.
In the light of God shall we see light (Psa 36)
Post date: 2024-05-16Autor: BCP
We should discover and come to know certain mysteries hidden in God. The mystery of good and evil, the mystery of the history of humanity and spiritual warfare with demons, the mystery of God’s love, God’s greatness and other mysteries which we will know in the light of God in heaven. Now we see in a mirror (1Cor 13:12), dimly, but then we shall see God and the truth face to face.
Where is our home, our fatherland? (+german version)
Post date: 2024-05-09Autor: BCP
We need to realize that heaven is our home, our fatherland. Jesus has reserved a place for us in heaven. It is our place. It would be best if we could enter this place immediately in the hour of death and not be tormented somewhere in Purgatory because of our indifference, lukewarmness or weak faith. Let the fire of zeal burn in us so that we may be saved from another fire. Let us make an act of perfect contrition every day. Let us also love Jesus, be aware of what He has done for us.
Let us seek first the kingdom of God
Post date: 2024-04-30Autor: BCP
Seeking is a painful process. If you have lost e.g. your identity papers or money, you seek it anxiously because you need it. And when you have found it, you rejoice. Let us seek first the kingdom of God. We ought to seek it anxiously until we find it...Let us also seek His righteousness. It consists in the fact that Jesus took on Himself the just punishment for my and your sin and shows His mercy on us. God’s mercy is in Him. Jesus died for me and gives me freely, through faith, the kingdom of God, eternal happiness. I should know it and seek it.
THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF THE GOSPEL
Post date: 2024-04-21Autor: BCP
How much we have been deceived by different views of Scripture. We have forgotten to live the Scripture. The Scripture gives us directions for life. So we need to begin to learn slowly and seriously the nuts and bolts: e.g. Jesus says, “If your brother has something against you, go and be reconciled to your brother.” In other words – e.g. your brother vents his anger and rebukes you unjustly and now there is a tense situation. He becomes aware of his guilt afterwards, and is overcome with sorrow. He does not know what to do, how to apologize, and tension increases. An old proverb says ‘Silence is gold’, but in this case silence is hell – the atmosphere grows more and more tense and affects the people around too. Gloomy faces on both sides, and self-pity is working at full speed. The devil and the old self bring thousands of arguments against the brother and present his behaviour as a supreme crime. What to do? Who should make the first step, or rather, who is obliged to? According to the Gospel, he who has been wronged is obliged to make the first step.
“… but you will see Me.”
Post date: 2024-04-20Autor: BCP
Jesus says to the apostles: “… but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live.” (Jn 14:19) Will the apostles see Christ? Yes, they will see Him risen on the third day after His death, and then He will appear to them during forty days. And they will also see Him in the light of glory at the moment of their physical death, when they will see Him as He is. They will see Him! The first of the apostles to see Him in this way was one of the brothers for whom their mother had interceded that they should sit one on the right hand and the other on the left of Christ. Jesus then asked them: “Can you drink the cup I am about to drink?” James and his brother John said to Him: “We can.” Jesus said to them: “You will indeed drink My cup.” And they indeed did. The first to drink the cup of suffering was John, who was the only one of the apostles who experienced union with Christ’s death by being willing to die, and that was why he remained standing faithfully at the foot of the cross. His brother James was the first of the apostles to lay down his life for Christ as a martyr. He was beheaded with a sword. Later, all the others gave their lives for Christ. They saw Christ! We too will see Him, and for all eternity we will see His face. But the condition is to remain faithful to Christ until the end – until death.
The way to a new life is through the death of the old self
Post date: 2024-04-13Autor: BCP
Our cross is truly the greatest gift from God; it is meant to strip us completely of the old self, of the slightest clinging to anything, and to clothe us in thoughts of essential things – death, heaven, hell, and the abandoned, humiliated and crucified Jesus.
The way to a new life is through the death of the old self
Post date: 2024-04-12Autor: BCP
Our cross is truly the greatest gift from God; it is meant to strip us completely of the old self, of the slightest clinging to anything, and to clothe us in thoughts of essential things – death, heaven, hell, and the abandoned, humiliated and crucified Jesus.
My Lord and my God!
Post date: 2024-04-07Autor: BCP
Christ appeared to the apostles on the evening of His resurrection. God willed that the Apostle Thomas should not be with them. The apostles said to him: “We have seen Jesus! We doubted at first, thinking in fear that we were seeing a ghost. But Jesus said to us, ‘Look at My hands and My feet. It is I Myself! Touch Me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’ Then He asked if we had anything to eat, and ate it in our presence, so that we might believe that it was really Him risen from the dead. The bones of the fish that Jesus ate are a testimony to that. Jesus is really alive. All of us, the ten apostles and the two disciples who went to Emmaus, have seen Him with our own eyes.” But Thomas would not accept the testimony of the apostles and did not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Abide in Me
Post date: 2024-04-05Autor: BCP
Jesus says: “Abide in Me, and I in you.” (Jn 15:4) He is in us. He is with us. “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:20) But we are not with Him. That’s the problem! He is in me but, in fact, I am not in Him, and so I do not rely on Him.
Reflection on Heb 13:8
Post date: 2024-04-04Autor: BCP
Before Jesus raised Lazarus, who had been dead four days, Martha said to Jesus: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus said to her: “Your brother will rise again.” She said to Him: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
If we have Christ, in Him we have everything
Post date: 2024-04-02Autor: BCP
The Word of God says: “We were buried with Christ in baptism and also raised with Him.” (Col 2:12) This is not a literary expression or poetry. This is reality! How we were raised with Christ and how we received a new life is a mystery. There is nothing to think about. Scripture says so and therefore it is reality. God’s Word says: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” and “We are a living temple of the Holy Spirit”. If we are in a state of sanctifying grace, all that Jesus obtained for us at Calvary and all that belongs to Him He gives to us, so it is also ours. If we give ourselves to Him and are united to Him, then if we have Christ, we have all things in Him. St Paul says: “In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Skrze víru se máme otevřít realitě Kristovy smrti i Jeho vzkříšení
Post date: 2024-03-30Autor: BCP
Boží slovo také říká, že skrze křest jsme byli ponořeni do Kristovy smrti. Skrze víru se máme otevřít realitě Kristovy smrti, která přemáhá hřích, ďábla. V okamžiku své smrti Ježíš dává svého Ducha do náruče Otcovy. V Kristově smrti je velká moc, která vítězí. Potom přichází vzkříšení, nový život. V různých situacích našeho života máme vcházet do Kristovy smrti. To znamená vážně hledat Boží vůli a dávat v konkrétní situaci na první místo Boha. V té chvíli se zříci svého dobra, své pravdy, své zkušenosti a upřímně přijmout Boží vůli, Boží pravdu. To je spojeno se zapřením sebe. A potom v té situaci může Bůh svojí všemohoucností znovu udělat zázrak vzkříšení.