We die with Jesus and rise with Him again. In the Letter to the Romans, we find essential truths about us being grafted into Jesus through faith – this union is given us in baptism. “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” (Rom 6:8) Here the emphasis is on the words “we believe”. We need to put into practice our union with Jesus. If we abide in ourselves, troubles arise. If we are in union with Christ, our soul is always filled with peace. We feel peace regardless of whether someone scolds us or we fall ill. You can even be a cripple confined to a wheelchair for some 40 years, or you can even be sentenced to death, and you can be happy because you have Jesus. If you are in union with Jesus, you are filled with peace that the world cannot give. This is a law that works: Whenever a problem comes, you experience inner peace. God gives it to a soul that opens to Him. Anyone can try it.

When the Risen Jesus appeared to the apostles, He said to them three times: “Peace be with you!” In what situation did Jesus say these words? We read in the Gospel: “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” (Jn 20:19) The Gospel continues: “When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace to you!’” (v.20-21) On Sunday a week later, Jesus appeared to them the third time, and Thomas was with them: “And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, ‘Peace to you!’” (v.26)

“Whoever wants to save his soul will lose it, but whoever loses his soul for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it!” This is essential – to lose your soul for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s. An example for us to follow is the Blessed Virgin who said at the moment of the Annunciation: “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”

When the Blessed Virgin said: “I am the bondslave of the Lord!”, the Spirit of God descended on her. How will an impossible thing become possible? The Holy Spirit will do it. Through the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Spirit, Jesus wants to live in us. How? He wants us to surrender our will to Him in all things. He wants us to give Him our all. He wants us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength. The essential thing needed to allow God to live in us, to allow Jesus to be incarnate in us, is the obedience of Mary: “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord!” So we need to give our all to God like the Blessed Virgin. We need to surrender our will to Him: “Although I do not understand, I want to serve You, Lord!”

“As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:4-5)

Unless we abide in Christ, we cannot bear fruit. Jesus says: “Without Me you can do nothing.” We can only do one thing – we can sin. This is programmed in us. But we are unable to do good. Perhaps we can do good outwardly, but this is full of pride and it bears the fruit of death.

If we are to bear fruit which is of worth for eternity, we must be united to Christ and His cross. Jesus says: “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” (Mt 6:20) How? In suffering, let us start to give thanks instead of complaining: “Lord, I do not understand but I thank You.”

It was under Tsarist Russia, about a hundred years ago. In one prison there were two camps of prisoners fighting each other because of a rebellion. Some of the prisoners were already dead, and the soldiers were just watching and waiting to see what would happen next; they were afraid themselves. Then they called a priest. The priest begged the leader of one of the two camps to stop the fighting. He did. Then the priest asked the leader of the other camp to do the same, but he refused. He was a notorious criminal who spent many years in prisons. All prisoners were afraid of him. They called him “The Sakhaliner”. How did he become involved in crime? He studied at a grammar school, then at a university. It was under Tsarist Russia, so he came from a rich family. He was wrongfully sentenced to three months in prison. Fuelled by hatred, he committed ever greater crimes. It was always out of one prison, into another with him. He escaped, killed several people on the run, and was imprisoned again… He had the death of about a hundred people on his conscience, but there was not enough evidence.

Life is short. An old proverb says: “God visits suffering upon those whom He loves.” Let us unite our crosses, our afflictions, e.g. physical suffering or illnesses… with the suffering of Christ. If you are healthy, thank God for that. But then you should perceive all the more the spiritual cross: injustice caused by the system of the world and sin, spiritual misery and blindness reigning in the world, blasphemies against God, Jesus being degraded and not loved! We need to see it and cry out to God in prayer. And if we unite ourselves daily to Jesus crucified, the Lord draws us more and more deeply into the mystery of the cross of Christ. Seeing that Jesus is not loved fills us with spiritual rather than physical pain. And then, when we become aware of our own betrayals, that “I do not love You either, my Lord”, tears are not enough for us… My Lord, please grant to me that I may love You, that I may cry out to You!

Saint Augustine says: “Chastise me here, O God, and spare me the tortures (fire) of hell.” Lord, I want to be a holy egoist. I want to love myself truly and so I do not want to be in Purgatory for a single minute. If through chastising I will be saved from Purgatory, please chastise me. But I love my neighbours too. I do not even want my enemy to go to hell or Purgatory. If You want to purify him by Your fire through suffering, e.g. a disease, Your will be done. I love both myself and my neighbour, and I believe that the punishment which You will send on both me and him will save us. I want to be with him in heaven. This is pure love of enemies too. Jesus says: “Love your enemies.” It would be no love if I said: “Let them do what they want!” True love says: “Chastise them, O Lord, in order that they may be saved and not go to hell nor even to Purgatory if possible.” But we want this for ourselves first. And what we want for ourselves we also want for them – eternal life, true happiness – and this is in Christ. That is why we want others to have Him too. This is true love....

The whole world is undergoing a crisis of faith; we are witnesses to mass apostasy from Christianity. Thank God that we can fight for the purity of faith. God has put us into this fight. We are not fighting for Ukraine only; God has put us on a battlefield to fight for the whole Church. Seeing how big this problem is, we say in prayer: “O God, what shall we do? We are not in a position as David against Goliath but rather as if we stood with a sling against an atom bomb. We have no chance. But we trust that You are Almighty, that You will overcome in this fight and that there will be spiritual resurrection.

Feelings can be mental or spiritual. It is hard to discern it. They are somehow intertwined. But, I would say, if you give yourself wholly to God in prayer, if you give Him your concrete pain, concrete fears which oppress you – e.g. you fear what awaits you tomorrow or even today, that something bad may happen… Simply, give it to Him and abandon it. Say to Him: “I trust in You.” or “I love You.” “You know everything. You know that I love You.” Like the Apostle Peter. One day in my life will be the last, anyway. And God knows which day it will be. I must bear it in mind during my life. So when I stop seven times a day and pray with my mouth, there should be at least a few seconds of a living faith and love for God. At least a moment. In interior prayer, you will gradually learn to pray with your heart. It means that you need not reflect on something but you just know that God sees you and now you open your heart before Him and put everything into His hands.

God speaks to us but the problem is that we are unable to hear Him. The problem is in our receiver. Our heart needs to be attuned to His voice. He wants to work through you, through your faith too. The weaker we are, the more trust we need to place in the Lord, because “when I am weak, then I am strong”. Jesus, I trust in You.

Do not indulge in self-pity but go to Jesus, cling to Him and learn from Him. He will give you true wisdom, He will give you strength, He is alive, He is here, and He loves you more than your parents or your children can love you. He loves you more than you love yourself.

In times of life’s trials, many of you see yourselves in the role of Peter and the other apostles after the death of Jesus. It seems to you that God has forsaken us and that evil and death celebrate their ultimate triumph. We forget God’s promises like the apostles, and fear and sorrow steal our faith and trust in these promises. Jesus is the resurrection and the life! He is really with us all the days of our life, and of your life too. May the angel roll back the stone of unbelief from your heart, and through the tears of repentance you will hear the voice of Jesus in the depths of your soul and feel His gentle touch bringing you deep peace which the world cannot give. At the hour of death, which may soon come to some, you will then see His face. Remember, Jesus is with you! Be with Him too. Do not abandon Him! In Him you have all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and in Him you have life, eternal life. The angel also says to you today: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is risen!”

We must see Christ both in ourselves and in our neighbour. However, this is not possible without denying ourselves, especially our opinion of ourselves, various philosophies we were acquainted with or various views which must be put aside, because seeing Jesus in ourselves is a question of faith. But beware – this is no autosuggestion. This is reality. We can recall in a flash several times a day: “Where is Jesus in this situation?” How often we think about pious and good things, but then suddenly comes the thought: “Where is Jesus in this all?” Only then we wake up to reality and suddenly realize that we forgot about personal contact, about entering into God’s presence, and we replaced it with something else, even though it was a good or divine thing. Jesus answers the question where He is: “I am with you. And to be clear, not only now but I was with you all through the night while you were asleep. You do not even know how demons attacked, and I protected you. I am with you not only during this day but all the days of your life. But I ask you: Where are you? I am with you, but you indulge in daydreaming, toys and vanities, and there is no place for Me in your thoughts.”

Let us do works which are of worth for eternity. Let us do them together with Jesus. Let us be with Him. This is of worth for eternity; otherwise it is good for nothing. We tend to do things for effect and desire the praise of others. More often than not we receive no praise but are rather beaten and persecuted and there is no effect – it seems to us that we just wasted our time, energy… You can say: “Well, that’s how things are, but You know, Lord, that I acted in faith.” And then it is of worth for eternity, and the fruit will come later. The greatest crisis of Christians today is that they have not been instructed on how to respond properly to particular situations and so they flee the “battlefield”, give up and fall away because they have not learned the mystery of the cross: i.e. to give thanks to God and to make steps of faith. There was no one to teach them. The priests spoke just phrases about love…

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Jesus has a kind of right to us. We no longer belong to ourselves. Why not? Partly because God created us, called us into existence, created us in His own image. He is really our Father. Our spirit longs for Him, as St Augustine says: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” This is a deep truth. Even young children sometimes have a kind of existential depression. They cannot express it in words but somehow perceive the vanity of all things. None of the created things can satisfy us. None. Neither wealth, nor career, nor worldly pleasures. Our soul is hungry for God. God not only created us but He also has the right to us because He gave His Son for us. Jesus shed His Blood for our sake. He paid a high price for us – not with silver or gold but with His Blood, out of His love for us.

We need to experience what it means to be in the Lord’s presence. It does not mean that we will have a vision, or that Christ will appear to us. Standing before the Lord is very simple: I stop, realize God’s presence and stand in truth, as a sinner, before God. I confess at least one sin to Him, and I am ready to accept that He will expose my other sins too. I am also ready to forgive all who have hurt me, because I want God to forgive me.

Moreover, when we enter into the presence of God, we need to be aware that pure love for God means to give our all to Him again. This is a true relationship. We always want to keep something. But we have to abandon it time and time again.