Reflection on Jn 16:32
“Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.”
After the words “each of you will be scattered”, the Greek original of the Holy Scriptures continues: “eis ta idia”, that is, “to his own”. The term “eis ta idia” is used once more in the Gospel of John to describe the moment when Jesus entrusted His Mother to the disciple. Jesus said: “Behold, your mother.” And the Apostle and Evangelist John, who stood by the cross and heard those words in person, writes: “And from that hour that disciple received her – eis ta idia – into his own.” We can say – inside himself. It required an act of faith. It was a spiritual transplantation of a new heart. We are the offspring of the first woman, Eve, who is in us along with the genetic code of original sin. In spiritual terms, we can liken it to a devilish spiritual mRNA vaccine, which injects a spiritual poison called sin. Every day we see how original sin works in us; this is the greatest reality.
Disciple – which means the one who has forsaken all that he had clung to in his mind or held in his hands, i.e. all his possession of people or property, for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s – keeps the first Beatitude by losing even his own soul: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” The disciple by the cross, who has received the Mother of Jesus into his own, thus allows God’s grace to enter through this new Eve, the Mother of Jesus, into his own, into his innermost being. Through her, the Spirit of God can work, so that Christ Himself may be not only conceived but also born in us by faith. He must become greater and greater in us, that is, in our spiritual realm. We must be rooted in Him (Col 2:7) and bear fruit in Him. It was through Mary and the Holy Spirit that Christ came the first time: Christ is born! He is born again and again through Mary and the Holy Spirit in us. That was why Jesus gave us His Mother as His last will on Calvary. We need to receive her spiritual essence into our spirit; she is full of grace, kecharitomenee (Lk 1:28). As our Mother she teaches us, her spiritual children, to walk by faith and trust in God. In physical terms, the mother teaches the child the basic human practices: to walk, talk, discern between good and evil, be careful and not hurt itself, and take the correct direction in life. The Mother of Jesus teaches us to take the correct direction in spiritual life, where the spirit of lies and his angels of darkness lay snares in our way, trying to deceive us and make us hurt ourselves and others. The basic virtue, therefore, is docility, that is, humility. He who does not want to learn from the wise will remain stupid. Moreover, it is a sign of pride and spiritual sclerosis. Mary is an example of humility for us. Only by humility can we overcome the devil and his evil angels, demons. If we cling to Mary, the Mother of God, we can cast out demons. The spiritual power that is promised to us by Jesus will help us and others through us. Not only do we have the power to cast out demons and overcome them, but we also have the power to develop a wise understanding of things, to preventively expose the demonic traps, not allowing demons to enslave us and bring us under the rule of lies or the pride of our egoism, i.e. the spiritual centre of evil, original sin in us. Therefore, we should not only turn to the Mother of Jesus or pray to her during the day, but we should also receive her daily in a short act of faith into our own, into our innermost being, into eis ta idia.
In chapter 16, verse 32, Jesus tells the apostles on the evening before His death that they would soon, that very night, be scattered, open their hearts to fear or, in other words, allow their eis ta idia to be dominated by the ego which does not believe in God or submit to Him. It is self-centered, independent of God, and does not trust in Him. The holy martyrs did not open their hearts to fear in the hardest moments of the most terrible torture, but stood firm in the faith with profound serenity in union with Jesus amid the greatest suffering. Christ dwelt in their eis ta idia – yes, through Mary and the Holy Spirit.
The first of the apostles to overcome fear was the Apostle John. He stood by the cross, so he had not opened his heart to fear, and then he also had the courage to come to the open tomb with Peter on Sunday morning. He was the first to believe in Christ’s resurrection. Jesus did not appear to him like He did to the Apostle Peter; John believed even without a vision. That same evening, Jesus appeared to the other apostles too.
This word of God spoken to the apostles often applies to us: “Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own (eis ta idia), and will leave Me alone.” It is a painful prediction for us that in a crisis we may open our heart to fear and betray Jesus. Every person is in such danger, but if we know in advance that there is a danger, we can prepare inwardly. Inward preparation consists in becoming ready for persecution or even martyrdom. If we are not ready and try to save ourselves from trouble all the time, we put ourselves at risk of losing everything. Fear will push us into taking gradual steps of self-destruction, and with every new step it will get harder and harder to go back. This is what we can see in the current Covid affair. All logic seems to have gone out of the window. People have proved unable to defend the truth, to call evil evil and good good. Many have lent themselves to working for the spirit of lies and death. We now find ourselves in a serious struggle, which determines our eternity. We therefore need to receive the Mother of Jesus into our eis ta idia, for through her humility she will expose the hellish serpent and crush his head. Otherwise our eis ta idia will be filled with fear, and our ego will fight against us to cause our self-destruction. We must be soldiers of Christ; if we fight for Him we thus also fight for ourselves and for the crown of eternal glory. An example for us is thousands of saints and martyrs, who have gone ahead of us in this battle.
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