English > UOGCC Publications
Reflection on Rev 15:2
Post date: 2021-07-29Autor: BCP
The Apostle John was given a vision of the future of the Church. This whole vision, which the Apostle expresses through images of angels and various catastrophes, revealing spiritual battle with the devil and his angels – demons, ultimately ends with the casting of Satan into the lake of fire and the coming of God’s kingdom in glory. In several places of his revelation, he points to a so-called mark which the beast will force on all people. The Apostle warns against this mark of the beast and points out the terrible consequences of the mark. We feel that this testimony applies in an extraordinary way to our present. That is why we need to be very careful and vigilant, because this danger is linked to eternal punishment. On the other hand, he who overcomes shall receive an eternal reward in heaven.
Reflection on Rev 14:11
Post date: 2021-07-29Autor: BCP
These words, too, are extremely topical at this time we are going through, and they are a clear warning. They warn people not to receive the mark of the beast’s name or to worship him and his image. It means not to pay divine honours to the beast because divine honours belong to God alone. As for those who take no heed of the warning, laugh at it or make their own interpretation so as to avoid the least sacrifice, the Scripture says to them: “Their torment ascends forever, and they have no rest day or night” already in this life and unquenchable eternal torment awaits them. The previous verse reads that if anyone receives the mark of the beast, he himself shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels. So it clearly speaks about an extremely great suffering, and also about its length. Then it is emphasized that this suffering will last forever. Why? Because by receiving the mark of the beast a person renounces his own will and is no longer able to make an act of perfect contrition.
Reflection on Rev 13:16
Post date: 2021-06-16Autor: BCP
For two thousand years, believers read these words and they remained shrouded in mystery. But now they have become extremely topical. It is now the second year we have been going through a period that began with an artificial Covid-19 pandemic connected with lockdowns. Thus, the ground was gradually prepared for mass vaccination and associated chipization of humanity. In recent days, a report has been published about the invention of a miniature microchip that can be injected through a needle. We get into a situation when even those who are quite clear about this issue can be trapped. For example, when visiting a dentist, a microchip may be inserted into their body with the dental anaesthetic injection. Of course, the question of voluntariness also plays a role here. Whoever receives the mark of the beast in a chip voluntarily is subject to the punishment mentioned in the Bible. Whoever receives a chip through no fault of his own but rather by fraud becomes an innocent victim and bears no personal guilt.
Reflection on Jn 14:21
Post date: 2021-05-30Autor: BCP
The condition for an interior knowledge of Jesus is to receive His commandments. But this is not enough. We also need to keep them. The keeping of Jesus’ commandments is a sign of our love for Him. Why should we love Jesus? Because He first loved us, took our sins upon Himself, and paid for them by shedding His blood and dying on the cross. He thus obtained for us eternal happiness in heaven. The first stage of love is gratitude at the least. Even a dog can be grateful to someone who has done him good. Or even a predatory animal, as we see in the example of the lion in the life of St Gerasimos. After the saint removed a thorn from the lion’s paw and cleansed the wound, the lion helped him faithfully in return. Finally, full of gratitude to his benefactor, the lion died of grief at the saint’s grave.
Reflection on Ps 112:1
Post date: 2021-02-22Autor: BCP
This psalm shows that blessed is the man who loves God’s commandments. The first of Christ’s Beatitudes reads: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And the last one says: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Mt 5:11-12) Psalm 1, likewise, begins with the words, “Blessed is the man” and continues, “who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path of sinners; but delights in the law of the Lord and reflects on His law day and night” (see Ps 1:1f).
Reflection on Ps 105:4
Post date: 2021-02-06Autor: BCP
The psalms often encourage us to seek the Lord. We should seek His face and His strength, that is, His almighty power. The process of seeking is painful. When you lose something, you feel worried and distressed, especially if it was an important or valuable thing. The most valuable thing for us is eternal life. And this life is given us by God in His Son Jesus Christ. To seek the Lord’s face means to enter into God’s presence, to realize that God sees me, and I open my heart fully to Him, knowing that there is no point in hiding anything from Him because He knows everything. In prayer, I also seek the face of His Son Jesus Christ, my Redeemer. I can imagine it vividly and specifically. The more intimate my relationship to Jesus, the more authentic this inner image. That was also why the saints emphasized interior prayer based on the contemplation of Christ’s suffering, particularly in His final hours on the cross. They focused on three short guiding principles: see, hear, and experience. With their spiritual eyes, they saw Jesus’ pierced hands bleeding, they heard the painful moaning, and they suffered with Him.
Reflection on Ps 77:2
Post date: 2021-01-25Autor: BCP
Each of us faces days of trouble in our life. The solution is not to fall into depression but to look for a way out. We have to seek it mainly from God. If we seek it from people rather than from God, it may be useful sometimes, but we can often get into more trouble. If we seek help from God in the first place, God will enlighten us or put people in our path to give us advice or to help us solve our seemingly unsolvable problem.
Reflection on Ps 69:14
Post date: 2021-01-09Autor: BCP
Regardless of the human author of the psalm, who applied these words to himself, it is God’s word that applies to each of us to some degree. Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink! We are confronted with the image of a man sinking in the mire. We know that the more he moves and tries to get out of it, the deeper he sinks. The only solution for him is to be saved by someone else. In a figurative sense, for each of us, the mire is our sin or addiction that enslaves us so much that we cannot get out of it by our own efforts. What is the solution? Call on the One who can save me. The soul cries to God, it cries for deliverance. “Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink!” It is already on the verge of death, on the verge of spiritual death. “Let me be delivered from those who hate me!” Human malice, behind which is often a demonic spirit, seeks to destroy an innocent soul. Lies and evil, when part of a system, receive a certain power for physical destruction, and even seek to destroy eternal life. How does God save?
Reflection on Psalm 59:2
Post date: 2020-12-27Autor: BCP
David wrote this psalm when Saul guarded the house to kill him. “Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch him and to kill him in the morning. And Michal, David’s wife, told him, saying, ‘If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.’ So Michal let David down through a window. And he went and fled and escaped. And Michal took an idol and laid it in the bed, put a cover of goats’ hair for his head, and covered it with clothes. So when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, ‘He is sick.’ Then Saul sent the messengers back to see David, saying, ‘Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.’ And when the messengers had come in, there was the idol in the bed, with a cover of goats’ hair for his head… So David fled and escaped, and went to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and stayed in Naioth. Now it was told Saul, saying, ‘Take note, David is at Naioth in Ramah!’ Then Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the group of prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied.”
Reflection on Psalm 51:1-2
Post date: 2020-12-12Autor: BCP
“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” This psalm was written by King David in the situation described in 2Sam 12:1f: “Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him, and said to him: ‘There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. And a traveller came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.’ So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.’ Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul...’ So David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.’”
Reflection on Ps 42:1-2
Post date: 2020-12-01Autor: BCP
We live in very hard times. We can say we are already entering the apocalyptic age, when each of us will be put to the test in connection with vaccination and chipping which will carry punishments if rejected. Maybe the martyr’s crown is prepared for some. That is why it is so important that our soul pants for God as the deer pants for the water brooks. That it thirsts for the living God – for the day it shall come and appear before God, not just seeing a poor reflection as in a mirror, as the Apostle says, but seeing Him face to face in eternity. “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” (1Cor 13:12)
Reflection on Ps 39:7
Post date: 2020-11-24Autor: BCP
True wisdom is to think about the end. We will leave everything around us: our belongings, our property, our dearest ones. We will take nothing into eternity. But Scripture says that love never ends. And the Apostle says what love is like. It is patient, it does not envy, it is not proud, it does not behave rudely, it does not seek its own, it keeps no record of wrongs. It does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. So love is intrinsically linked to truth. Pure love, agape, means that we are to give God the first place, that is, to love Him with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength, and we are to experience this above all in interior prayer. Here we first give God our sins and then we give Him all our problems and worries. This is the way out of the futility of life and a taste of a happy eternity into which we shall sooner or later enter.
Reflection on Ps 23:1-3
Post date: 2020-10-08Autor: BCP
The psalm clearly depicts God as the shepherd. In the Gospel, Jesus Himself says that He is the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep. Every bishop and every priest should be such a good shepherd. Similarly, every Christian father should be a good shepherd for his children and all family. They will be good shepherds if they keep faithful to the Lord, feed on the pasture of God’s word and drink the waters of God’s grace which restore the spiritual life. They will walk in the path of righteousness if they enter into God’s name in which is the fullness of our salvation. This name is Jesus – Yehoshua. Many images show Jesus carrying the lost sheep on His shoulders. And we read in the Gospel that He leaves the ninety-nine and goes after the one which is lost. In this way, Jesus manifests His caring love of a shepherd towards each one of us. But we must be aware that this love of the Good Shepherd went through great suffering for our salvation, which had been foretold by God through David in Psalm 22 (21) one thousand years before.
Reflection on Psalm 1:1
Post date: 2020-08-22Autor: BCP
The Book of Psalms begins with these words. It points to a blessed man who has taken an attitude of three “noes” towards unwise and wicked people. 1) ... does not follow the advice of the wicked Wicked or ungodly people respect neither conscience nor justice towards others. They do not submit to God, and therefore their god is their ego and the things that suit them alone. They do not care about seeking and doing God’s will in their lives, and so it will do no good to follow their advice. 2) … does not take the path of sinners A sinner can perhaps have a sort of weak faith, but this faith plays no crucial role in his life. He has become a slave to a particular sin, and sinful dependence takes priority in his way of thinking and way of life.
Reflection on Rom 8:36-37
Post date: 2020-07-25Autor: BCP
The struggle for the salvation of the soul is above all an inner struggle. Those who really fight will understand these words: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” And they will also understand the second part: “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” We will experience the power of God, the power of Christ’s resurrection, which has already been given to us through holy baptism. This power grows in various situations through our surrender to death with Christ. It is not a physical surrender to death but rather a spiritual death to ourselves with Christ. One must completely renounce oneself, one’s fear, and this is spiritual death. Nothing will then separate us from the love of Christ, as we have recited over the past two weeks – neither tribulation nor distress nor persecution nor famine nor nakedness nor peril nor sword. By dying to ourselves every day, the power of God works in us and we store up for ourselves treasures for all eternity, which, as the Lord Jesus says, rust will not destroy and thieves will not steal.
Reflection on Rom 8:35
Post date: 2020-07-11Autor: BCP
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” None of this can separate us from the love of God. Neither evil angels, nor all hell with demons, nor various occult energies, nor deceitful people serving the devil. The only thing that can separate us is our pride and our unbelief which we align ourselves with and obey. If, however, we convict pride with the truth, even these temptations and trials finally strengthen us in Christ and the truth. Then it is true: If we are in Christ through repentance, nothing shall separate us from His love.
Reflection on Rom 8:33-34
Post date: 2020-06-27Autor: BCP
We can see that God’s election is associated with heroism. The assurance of our salvation is based on the fact that we have Jesus, that we are with Him. The Scripture says: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” (Mk 16:16) Some of the saints said: “Those who pray will be saved and those who do not will be damned.” Prayer is a sacrifice. Jesus humbled Himself and offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sake, and we should follow Him. We do so when we follow the order of prayer, fight to overcome laziness or distraction, and sacrifice time. God will then give us the light and strength so that we may be able to guard the treasure of our faith in Jesus until the moment when we cross over the bridge of death to eternity. We must keep the faith because it is the condition of salvation. The Apostle says: “I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of eternal glory.” (cf. 2Tim 4:7f)
Reflection on Rom 8:32
Post date: 2020-06-13Autor: BCP
There is a worldwide quarantine these days, people are watching the mass media, and they are in fear and panic; however, this word of God fills our souls with confidence and peace. It shows the infinite love of God for each of us which He already made manifest when He gave us life, breathing His spirit into us and making us in His likeness. But He loved us more, and after we had sinned He gave His only begotten Son for us to redeem us from our sins. What more could God give us?! And in addition to that, with Jesus He gives us all heaven and makes us partakers of eternal happiness.
Reflection on Rom 8:31
Post date: 2020-05-30Autor: BCP
When is God for us? When we are with Him, turn to Him, and give Him our sins and our weaknesses. He gave His Son for us to redeem us. Therefore, we should not wait until we go to confession or think that we will confess to a priest before death. Let us give even our small sins to God immediately. If we have told a minor lie or committed a minor evil, let us make an act of contrition within a few seconds in spirit as soon as we become aware of it. We can say, “Lord, have mercy!” and look in spirit at the cross of Christ with faith. In the precious blood of Jesus our sins are forgiven and our union with God restored. Then the words which we reflected on for the past two weeks are true about us: “All things work together for good to those who love God.” In this intimate relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, we need not be afraid of illness or persecution, ridicule or death, demonic attacks or attacks by evil people, or apocalyptic times. If we love God, all these things work together for our good, because God is for us, and if He is for us, we have nothing to fear. If God is for us, who can be against us? Our task is to do our utmost to be with Him. He is with us all the days of our life, but we ususally forget God’s presence. We forget to enter into union with Him by admitting even our small sins and bringing them to the cross of Christ.
Reflection on Rom 8:26
Post date: 2020-04-18Autor: BCP
This truth is extremely topical for us. If we have believed in Jesus and received His Spirit, the Spirit of God especially in a simple prayer literally groans in us without words or makes intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered. How often we feel pain or fear and we are unable to explain it or to express it in words. But if we stand before God, aware of His presence, and give Him our pain, fear, instability, suffering, the loss of our loved ones, an uncertain future – both ours and of our close relatives, we do not even know how to pray and what for. And it is said that right then the Spirit of God makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.