“Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. …behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!’” (Mt 17:1-5)

Three disciples, Peter, James and John, were witnesses of Jesus’ transfiguration on Mount Tabor in Galilee. The light of Jesus’ Divinity shone on them. It was a great experience for them. At the close of chapter 16, Jesus says: “Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” (Mt 16:28) On Mount Tabor, they saw a flash of Jesus’ glory.

You think to yourself: If I had a vision, my faith would deepen. But we can see what an impact that vision had on the apostles. After a few days these three disciples were on the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed: “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” (Mt 26:39)

Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

These are the next words of Jesus’ prayer before He left the upper room where He instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

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.

Jesus is the Judge. The Father has given all judgment to the Son. When He sits on the throne on the Day of Judgment, the sheep will stand on His right and the goats on His left. And the latter will go away to eternal damnation. He will separate the good from the evil. Wheat is mixed with tares on earth. God allows it and one can hardly separate it. We cannot remove evil from this world, because evil is in our hearts as well. The kingdoms or countries throughout history have always had their laws, courts and punishments which they applied to people who committed crimes; nevertheless, they will never be able to uproot evil completely, they can just reduce it so as to prevent total devastation. All people have a conscience, the voice of God, and understand what is good and what is bad.

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) Fallen man cannot save himself. After the first sin of our first parents we cannot open the heaven by ourselves. No teaching of self-redemption, as promoted by Hindus or Buddhists, no human methods can save anyone or deliver one from sins. Between us and God there is a great chasm. Fallen man is on one side and holy God on the other. No human efforts, good works, self-redemptive religions or meditations can bridge this chasm. The only bridge is the cross of Christ. By crossing over this bridge, a sinful man can unite to holy God. These are the simple truths of Christianity.

If Christ has not died for our sins, we all are going to hell. If there is no forgiveness of sins, Christianity is good for nothing. Christ did die for our sins! This is the main thing! The very first sermon of the Apostles was about this. This is the essence of the proclamation of the Gospel. The two sentences that were preached by all the Apostles: 1) He died for our sins, 2) He 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.

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 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. We must learn to fight with serpents, wolves and Pharisees just as Jesus did it. They said about Him that He was out of His mind, that He had a demon… When king Ahab attacked the prophet Elijah with the words: “Is that you, O troubler of Israel?”, Elijah answered him immediately: “I have not troubled Israel, but you have!” Similarly, when someone attacks you with a lie, just smile and say: “Well said! It’s exactly what applies to you. Well said!” Do not be overtaken! When someone attacks you arrogantly, just pray in silence: “Lord, what is Your purpose in this situation?” Pray and God will show you His purposes.

There are people who have a charisma to preach. However, if a preacher himself lacks the sound spiritual foundation of union with Christ, his preaching may encourage people at the beginning but eventually turns out to be mere superficiality without the Spirit. It fails to change the hearts of people. But if you put the divine truths into practice and embody them in your life, your word is with power. When you then bear witness, the Spirit descends on people without you being aware of it. Be righteous people who live by faith. 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.

“And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You.

Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me,

that they may be one, even as We are one.”

Some translations of Jn 17:11 read “whom You have given Me”, referring to the disciples, instead of “which You have given Me”, referring to the name of the Father. We use the correct translation based on the Greek original, and we will use these words in our prayer stops.

The name which the Father has given to the Only-Begotten Son fully reveals the mystery of the divine name. God revealed the depth of the divine name to Moses only partially in the burning bush. It is contained in the name Yahweh, or I AM WHO I AM, or I AM HE WHO IS. It expresses that God is almighty, that He has always existed and that all that exists was given being by Him.

Jesus used the name I AM several times so as to reveal the truth and the mystery of Him being the Son of God who is one with the Father as to His divinity. He said: “I and the Father are one.” (Jn 10:30) And in another place: “Before Abraham was, I AM.” This evoked an instinctive emotional response of the Jews who considered it blasphemy and wanted to stone Him.

If we ask what eternal life is, Jesus gives us the answer: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Jesus speaks here 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.

During the prayer stops we can think particularly of the words: “know You”.

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. Today the exact opposite is being proclaimed. This being the case, mission becomes pointless. It is not even possible to carry out any mission, nor are we allowed to say who we are because pagans, as the saying goes, would take offence. 20 years ago, an editor of a Catholic magazine in USA was prohibited from publishing an article about the conversion of a Buddhist because the editor-in-chief told him that such article dishonoured other religions. So if someone converts to Christianity, it reportedly offends pagans. And it was no atheistic magazine! What destructive manipulation of human minds!

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. An evangelist preaches the Gospel in power. A teacher interprets Scripture. A prophet is the one who sees and points out the essence of things. There is a so-called law of spiritual entropy. An example is the people of Israel. The Israelites came out of Egypt but then returned to their idols. As soon as Moses went up to the mountain, they made for themselves a metal bull calf. This is the picture of our old self: it is eager to bow before sin and demons, even to make sacrifices or observe fasts… For example, some Indian gurus are skin and bone, but not for the sake of Christ and for the salvation of their soul. They are stimulated by their pride and by demons to whom they opened. In contrast to them, 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.

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. The apostles were no theologians. They were simple fishermen. But the whole world was saved through their preaching. Human pride and philosophizing is absurd. The Word of God is connected with mystery. Human reason must be conformed to the Word of God, then it can govern the will, and emotions come last. If we reverse the order and cast away the relationship with God founded on faith, everything in our life is turned upside down. This is the result of our pride. Many people have no experience of spiritual battle and of the cunning of human nature but they set norms and invent theories without ever trying them out in practice.

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.” And what to say to those who speculate or to Jehovah’s Witnesses if they ask: “And what about hell? What is it like?” Say simply: “You’ll see for yourself when you are there! Don’t ask me; I’ve never been there and I don’t want to go there either!”

“Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.”

Jesus closes His intimate words to the apostles with a prayer. He spoke about a deep mystery related to the Holy Spirit, about the life of the Triune God in us, about the promise that the Father will hear a prayer in the name of Jesus, about the greatest love which we can show for our friends when we lay down our life for them, and about other deep mysteries.

“Jesus spoke these words…” It concerns the words in chapters 13-16. “…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.

One can live in a community which has received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who wants to guide us into all truth (“When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth”) and yet one can become withdrawn and not let oneself be influenced by the community. Jesus says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will do it! He will guide you into all truth!” And what are the fundamental and full truths of the Gospel? It is above all the truth that we are sinners enslaved by the old self, flesh, world and devil. People do not want to hear it and think they are free.