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.

“He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?”

Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time,

“Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things;

You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.”

He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?”  Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.”

Peter was the first of the apostles to whom Jesus appeared. On Sunday morning, Peter overcame the fear that paralysed the apostles and came to Christ’s open tomb.

At the Lake of Gennesaret, where Jesus appeared to seven apostles, He asked Peter three times about his relationship to Him. The Apostle Peter had publicly denied Christ three times with an oath. Although he immediately repented of his denial and wept bitterly, he lost the office that Jesus had entrusted to him as the head of the apostles, saying, “You are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and on this rock I will build My church.” (Mt 16) By his denial, Peter ceased to be the rock; his faith and love for the Saviour failed. Peter did repent of his sin, but he only did so in private. Even though Jesus forgave him, the public guilt and offence required public satisfaction. How could he remain the head of the apostles if he had publicly renounced Christ with an oath? Jesus therefore demanded public repentance and public confession of a personal relationship of love – namely, divine love (agape) rather than human love – when He asked Peter twice about it.

Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? It is a question addressed to each of us. Why are you weeping? We weep when we lose something or when we feel pain in our soul.

Now is a time when the souls of defenceless children are being deprived of Jesus. Whenever we lose the living Jesus, we should weep. If the soul takes pains to seek God, God can touch this soul.

Whom are you seeking? Jesus! And whom are we seeking? How often we seek pleasure, money, human praise, vanity… But all glory is senseless. We should seek God, seek the truth, seek moral values, seek what gives us eternal life, and our eternal life is in Jesus. Our heart should ache at the living Christ being cast out of the souls. Without Him there is no eternal life, without Him there is eternal punishment and moral devastation.

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one,

to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

After verse 6, we read: “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” Let us realize the fact: “We all have gone astray.” If God’s Word says all, however sure you may be that it does not concern you, you need to know that no one is an exception. Not only had we gone astray in the past but to some extent even now, despite having received much light from God’s Word and for our effort to keep God’s commandments, we often go astray in small things because of our stubbornness, unwillingness to learn or humble ourselves, etc. There is then a price to pay for our stupidity: quarrels in families, conflicts between husband and wife, children and parents. Why is that? Because we do not have enough light and spiritual harmony, which is connected with God’s grace. What should we do? We should come to know more deeply the truth about ourselves and about evil within us which leads us into self-deception, even in small things.

The liar and murderer constantly pulls our leg. We have found ourselves betrayed a thousand times and yet we habitually believe and believe and believe him and ourselves, and we do not believe God. That’s the order of the day. Whenever we are to receive something by faith, we immediately get into a bad mood or feel resentment. The spirit of lies simply leads us by the nose in our spiritual life without end. Concerning material things, we can see it easily; we look back and know that we were deceived. We singe our feathers and so we are more careful the next time. However, concerning spiritual things, it is pitiful that we keep believing the liar! You ask: And when will we manage to believe Jesus at last? Answer: When we stop being curious like Eve and stop pondering on the liar’s intrusive thoughts by which he attacks us in the smallest matters every day. We fail to walk in God’s Word or to think about it in particular situations, but whenever we get an idea to do something and feel like doing it, we do it so, cling to it and take it as our own, and it never crosses our mind that we should ask in faith what God wants us to do.

Dying on the cross, Jesus said to the disciple: “Behold, your mother.” We are saved in the holy name of Jesus: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (cf. Rom 10:13) Jesus assumed human nature through Mary and the Holy Spirit. Mary is not God but the Mother of God, and she is full of grace (cf. Lk 1:28). Jesus comes into our heart, too, through Mary and the Holy Spirit. Mary represents us, humans – in fact only those who received Christ. She stood by the cross and experienced the mystery of unity – i.e. crucifixion and death with Christ. She also experienced the truth of Eph 2:6: “He raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places.” She was raised up with Christ at the moment when Christ appeared to her. The Scripture is silent on this event but the Tradition confesses it. In baptism we were grafted on these two mysteries – death and resurrection with Christ. These mysteries should be actualized in us by faith and by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;

the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”

“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”

Who does the prophet Isaiah talk about? He talks about the suffering of Jesus Christ as the expected Messiah. The prophet Isaiah heard and wrote his words in the period 740-700 BC. The Spirit of God revealed to him the mystery of Christ’s suffering for our sins. Verses 3 and 4 read: “He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows…” On the day of the Lord’s death, the apostles abandoned Him for fear and one of them, Judas, even betrayed Him. The Apostle Peter denied Him three times that morning. Jesus endured great suffering especially when being scourged to the point of severe bleeding, crowned with thorns, and on the Way of the Cross. This suffering came to a peak when He was hanging on the cross in humiliation and abandonment.

The prophet Isaiah continues: “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” And verse 5, which we are going to recite for the next two weeks, reads: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” Indeed, it was for our sins that Jesus’ hands and feet were wounded with nails and, finally, His heart pierced with a spear. It was for our transgressions and iniquities. It is said in the end that by His stripes – wounds – we are healed. Not only by the wounds inflicted at the crucifixion, but also by the wounds caused by the cruel scourging and the mocking and painful crowning with thorns.

The only remedy for everything is Jesus. On our part we need to learn to deny our self, our self-centredness, faultfinding, envy or self-pity time and again. If we nourish it, there may be a price to pay for it – the enemy will claim his right to harm us. Therefore, it is better and wiser – for our own sake – to humble ourselves, and we will be sound in mind and body. But of course our soul can only be healed by Jesus. He is our Healer and by His wounds we are healed. Let us give all our sins, illnesses and problems to Him. If we do not do so, if we are only concerned with ourselves and do not care about Him, we cannot be healed, or our problem develops into another one and the enemy is given a new chance to claim his right.

a) Reflection on God’s Word:

Jesus is arrested: The apostle-traitor brought soldiers and temple guards with torches into Gethsemane. He came near to Jesus and gave Him a traitorous kiss. And the soldiers seized Jesus.

Last Supper

a) Reflection on God’s Word:

On Thursday evening Jesus celebrates the Last Supper with His apostles. The Passover is connected with the sacrificing of the lamb and with the Passover meal. This festival commemorates the passing over of Israel from the slavery of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Jesus came to deliver mankind from the slavery of sin and the devil.

“Whoever fears the Lord walks uprightly, but those who despise

Him are devious in their ways.”

Whoever fears the Lord walks uprightly, but those who despise Him are devious in their ways.

Why should we fear the Lord? Does the Book of Psalms not say in many places, “The Lord is good”? Psalm 136, for example, reads: “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. … To Him who by wisdom made the heavens, for His mercy endures forever. … To Him who divided the Red Sea in two and made Israel pass through the midst of it, but overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, for His mercy endures forever.”

Why should we fear God if He is good and merciful? The problem is within us. There is a source of evil in our heart which entered our human nature with the first sin of our first father Adam. This evil deceives us in a masterly fashion. Its goal is to bring us into the bondage of sin, so that we finally lose our soul by abandoning God and becoming one with the evil in us. Therefore, because He loved us, the Good Father gave His only-begotten Son for us. Jesus became man and dying in disgrace on the cross delivered us from this evil in us which we love. We also call it our self and we feel hurt if someone points out the evil we do.

On the Sunday before the beginning of Lent in the Eastern Church, we shall hear the passage from the Gospel of Matthew: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Mt 6:14-21)