We can carry out mission by prayer too. The key words are: “You in me. Jesus, You in me.” I say in spirit: “You in me…” and I add: “…and in my brother and sister too”. In this mission of prayer, I begin to see Christ in other people by faith. But I must first see Christ in me with the eyes of faith.

Jesus will say on the Day of Judgment: “Whatever you did to one of the least of My brethren, you did it to Me. And whatever you did not do to them, you did not do it to Me.” Jesus speaks about doing and not doing. We should do positive things in relation to our neighbour, but in essence we should do it for the sake of Christ. Our Lord Jesus says Himself: “You did it to Me.” It means that Christ is hidden in the least of His brethren, i.e. is in him. To put it better, He is hidden in him like in prison.

Jesus speaks about 6 things which He will mention at the Last Judgment – I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you took Me in, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, and the last one – “I was in prison and you came to Me”. So it is a series of actions – coming to Christ.

“I was hungry and you gave Me food.” When the devil told Christ in the wilderness to change stone into bread, He answered: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” We should give those who are hungry such food which comes from the mouth of God. Certainly, if you see someone in physical need of food and you do not help him, it is a sin and cynicism. But what is the core of the problem? Charitable work? This is often abused today – Masonic charitable organizations under the guise of Christianity do not provide true aid but rather are a means of manipulation. Should we perhaps go somewhere to India? We need not go there because Hindus and Buddhists are already here – fallen-away Christians. Jesus said to the apostles: “Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” These too are the lost sheep. Their fathers and grandfathers were Christians through generations, throughout 1000 years. But because of our indifference, because we did not give food to the hungry Christ, these souls fell away and received false food, false ideology, and turned into bearers of the devil. The way of Hinduism and Buddhism is a way of egoism, a way of lies, a way of self-redemption – proud rejection of God’s mercy and love.

“Whatever you did to one of the least of My brethren, you did it to Me. And whatever you did not do to them, you did not do it to Me.” These words of God can be explained in social terms but they have above all spiritual dimension. Christ is in us. God’s Word emphasizes it again and again. How many times the Apostle John says in his Epistles that God is in us, that Christ is in us. We know that we were buried through baptism into the death of Christ and received a new life. John the Baptist said: “There stands One among you whom you do not know.” Where two or three are gathered together, there is Christ in the midst of them. What is the Church? It is a living body of Christ. Do we give food to Christ so that the Mystical Body of Christ may grow? Do we give Him spiritual food and spiritual drink? “…whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of water…” If you give it to a prophet because he is a prophet, you will receive a prophet’s reward. It means to give a cup of water to Christ when all spit at Him or are ashamed of Him, when all just philosophize about a cosmic Christ or a New Age Christ… If nowadays anyone witnesses to the living Christ, all consider him as a fool. All stand against him, even at a theological faculty. He is given a rude awakening. He is ridiculed as a fool and fundamentalist because it is not allowed to witness to the living Jesus! And Jesus is dying in the souls, thirsting, and wants us to give Him drink. Jesus is thirsty and almost dying in these little ones who were baptized and still have a drop of faith. And what about us? We do not give Him drink because we are ashamed. We do not want to have problems or we fear being ridiculed. And right this little brother of ours needs our spiritual drink – a living testimony which requires heroism.

“I was in prison and you came to Me. I was sick and you visited Me.” Christ is in us like in prison. Who keeps Him in prison? It is the system of our old self, sin in our soul. The system of deceit and lies, the system of various dependences, various forms of bon ton, pharisaical methods or views of how to understand things or what is right and proper. These worldly standards are a frame of the prison in us, where the living Christ is powerless, has no power there. Who has power there is the structure of human pride which speechifies about Christ but has nothing to do with Him in real life. If people are slaves of their lusts and make them their primary concern, they keep Christ in prison. Teenagers are a perfect example of it – they are enslaved by lusts, impurity and, what is worst, they are ashamed of Christianity and faith.

Jesus says: “I was in prison”. Jesus is imprisoned in me. “Lord, I want to know who is the prison guard in me, who keeps You in prison, who has charge of the keys of the prison?! Is it spiritual bondage, addictions, blindness, laziness or self-will?” We do not even visit Jesus in this prison. That is why we need to launch out into the deep and meet Jesus there.

A desperate mother complained to a man of God about her son who had gone astray and did not want to hear anything about God. The saint said to her: “If your son does not want to speak with you about God, you should speak with God about your son.” It means – to pray for this person. In such prayer, you can realize that Christ is in the soul of the person you pray for. But first you need to be free yourself and to open the door of your heart to Christ so that He may then open the door in the souls of your neighbours. The same to me – the same to you. Repentance starts from me. I cannot start a mission unless I am converted myself. When I have been converted and start a mission, I start to have trouble. And if I am weak in the faith, the spirit of the world, unbelief, impurity, perversion, alcoholism or pharisaism which enslaves the souls will make short work of me. How many charismatic boys joined the seminary and came to a bad end! They turned into the worst pharisees and traitors. How many converted boys joined the seminary but they were not rooted in Christ. They were eloquent preachers but not rooted. The Apostle says: “Be rooted in Christ.” We must be rooted in Christ and be in union with Him to the last. He must be the object of my greatest love because He died for me at Calvary. He loves me and He is with me. He says: “I am with you always, all the days of your life.” And where am I? I am not with Him. I am with myself, riding on a wave of vanity, and I don’t live with God in earnest. But if I am honest both with myself and others, people may laugh in my face or ridicule me and I will shout: “I know whom I have believed.”

So we need to launch out into the deep, to build an intimate relationship with Christ. We need to get into that prison somehow, we need to know how to open it, how to meet Christ, how to come to Him both in ourselves and in others.

Jesus says: “I was sick…” Christianity is sick today. Why? Because we have been infected with the bacilli of the world and we do not resort to the remedies of repentance and God’s Word. Christ languishes both in my brother and in me. Christianity is dead or paralyzed. And we must work towards revival.

“Whatever you did to one of the least of My brethren…” There are six things which we will give an account of before the judgment seat of God. But we must first do a service to Christ in us because the greatest commandment is to love God and my neighbour as myself. It means that if we are to fulfil the second commandment, we must first love ourselves in the right way, in other words, do our best to be saved. We must be the first to repent, the first to do Jesus these six services which He asks for, and then we will know how to do it in relation to our neighbour too. So we must first use the pilot project on ourselves. And then this model can be imitated by others.

Let us return to the mission of prayer. I carried it out like this: I imagined particular people and tried to see Christ in them. “You, Jesus, in me – and in my brother.” I repeated it to resist the wave of unbelief – I leaned on God’s Word: “It is true!” In prayer, I should come to Jesus, visit Him in my brother. Maybe it is not even possible to visit this brother physically, and he does not even want to hear about Jesus. Every mission presupposes spiritual or prayer mission first; without it all is in vain. There can be no mission without prayer. Where people pray in earnest they also live in earnest and Christ really lives there. We must do our best to allow Jesus to live in us and not to keep Him in prison. Therefore we need to change our way of thinking.

Why do we not come to Jesus? It is not easy to get into that prison in us. There are certain obstacles and we must pass several guards. Prison has the main entrance and then a special cell where the prisoner is kept. Christ is imprisoned in my soul. I can carry out a mission in prayer: “Jesus, You are in me; I have a new life through baptism; You are in me and You are in my brother too.” Repeating these words in prayer, I think of that particular person, in whom I see Christ and I give Him food. I open the entrance gate by a living faith and the Word of God which I receive as the Word of God and I put it into practice. I give Jesus not only spiritual food but also spiritual drink, I clothe the naked Christ shivering with cold, I come to Christ who is like a stranger and repudiated. I thus give Jesus His due. And when He is sick, I give Him medicine by standing firm in the faith and witnessing – “Jesus, You are in me and in my sister or brother”. I see Christ in them and not just these people: “You are there and I believe You, now I am united to You and now I do all six services to You which You want me to do, starting with spiritual bread and ending with a visit to prison.” But first I practise it in me by faith. It is a mission which we will give an account of. It concerns above all the fallen-away baptized Christians whose faith is weak and needs to be strengthened. We should pray for both our friends and enemies.

You must often humiliate yourself before the old self in your neighbour which keeps watch over Jesus like a prison guard and does not allow anyone to give Him food. You must bow down before him and seek ways of getting through the prison gate, deceiving the prison guard to let you in – to let you get behind the bars of various ideologies which hold people in bondage, behind the bars of stereotypes, pharisaical and atheistic thought, systems of psychologies or sociologies – there are several guards. Layers of the world have accumulated in our souls from childhood, and we are unable to see Christ in us. This is the inheritance of corrupt nature from our first parents – unbelief, concentration on appearance and egoism instead of pure love for ourselves. The Church has no greater need than that of every believer caring for his own soul. People need to learn the nuts and bolts of the Gospel, but there is no one to preach that. This is our task! We have plenty of work until death – we have to care for our souls and build a living community so that we may be like the early Christians: of one heart and one soul.

Download: Mission of prayer