Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands.

In another vision, the Apostle John saw those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God. The reason why they were killed was that they had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. The Apostle then says that they reigned with Christ. It is also written that over such the second death, that is hell, has no power. Before this vision, the Apostle gives the following description: “And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.”

And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name.

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.

And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.

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.

“He forces all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads.”

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.

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

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.

“Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,

who delights greatly in His commandments.”

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).

“Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face evermore!”

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.

“In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; my soul refused to be comforted.”

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.

How shall we turn to God? The psalmist teaches us: “my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing”.

There is a difference if in a difficult situation you fall into depression which paralyses you in your trouble so that you just lie idle, sleepless, weighed down by negative thoughts, or if you have the same experience as the psalmist. In days of trouble, he lifts up his hands to God without ceasing and seeks the Lord even in this difficult, almost hopeless situation.

“Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink; let me be delivered from those who hate me, and out of the deep waters.”

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?

“Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloodthirsty men.”

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.”

“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.’”

If one has not suppressed a sense of truth, one is aware of the futility of life, and if one has faith, one longs to stand before God in prayer, i.e. in God’s presence. Some saints would look for hours at the face of Christ on the cross. Here was the source of true wisdom. Here the mysteries of life encoded in the Bible were revealed to them. Here they were drawn deep into the great love of Christ for them and motivated to make heroic sacrifices for the salvation of souls. Here many even received the strength to die martyrs.

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.

“Surely every man walks about like a shadow; surely they busy themselves in vain; he heaps up riches, and does not know who will gather them.”

This verse of the Psalm points to a profound truth concerning the brevity of our lives, the reality of death, and human blindness which avoids the thought of death as well as the thought of what will happen to the riches that man has accumulated. In other words, it points to vanity. In the previous verses 5 and 6 it is said: “Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am. Indeed, You have made my days as handbreaths, and my age is as nothing before you; certainly every man at his best state is but vapour.” Who among us humans is aware of this reality that concerns each of us? Therefore, it is also said in the word of life that every man walks about like a shadow, that is, like someone who does not respect reality.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”

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.

“Why do the nations rebel? Why are the countries devising futile plans?The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed One”

God’s Word in Psalm 2 is very topical for this time. We live in a time of mass apostasy from God; God’s laws are being destroyed by supranational institutions (see Lisbon Treaty in place of Ten Commandments) as well as by the apostate Pope Bergoglio. In his exhortation Amoris Laetitia, he eliminates objective moral principles and de facto calls for apostasy from God. The psalmist asks: Why do the nations rebel? Why are the countries devising futile plans – quarantine, vaccines, microchip implants, artificial intelligence, depopulation…? Moreover, these are not just futile plans, but literally suicidal plans! Why? Because God’s laws have been abandoned.

“Blessed is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked, take the path of sinners, or join the company of mockers.”

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.