Gallery
Practical spiritual advice /3/ – The role of man in the family
You have families. Man should be as a priest in the family. He has responsibility for his wife and children. Then he will have grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Think of Abraham – he believed and God gave a blessing to all his descendants. Each of you bears responsibility. Family is your diocese, your parish. You are responsible above all for the souls, and not only for yourselves. Husband should be the head of his wife, the head of the family. He has a certain responsibility before God. God also gives man a kind of authority. Man should learn true wisdom. He needs to learn to fight against lies, to manage his family wisely and to protect it. This is not simple. It does not mean just to give orders but to be on the cross many times. Often you cannot force the truth on others, you need to learn to respect in certain situations that people are not yet mature. E.g. children rebel, are manipulated by the spirit of the world and soak it up… When you try to instil into them sound Christian principles, they don’t like it.
Practical spiritual advice /2/ – The assurance of forgiveness
God’s Word convicts us all of sin: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) But, on the other hand, it also convinces us many times of the forgiveness of sins. The First Epistle of John reads: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1Jn 1:9) We can compare it with verse 7 as well: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” So there is a condition: to walk in the light as He is in the light. It concerns God’s presence. There is no need of a vision or apparition; I just realize that God sees me and focus my attention on this truth. I can do so at any time during the day too when I face a difficult situation. I stop, realize God’s presence and ask God to give me the light because I don’t know what to do, or I call on Him to intervene in this difficult situation Himself and to give a solution.I do not have to kneel or be alone in my room; wherever I am, faced with a concrete problem or suffering, I stop and make contact with God. In this way I enter into God’s light.
If we walk in the light, the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin!
+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
Practical spiritual advice /1/ – So what is the truth then?
So what is the truth then?
1Jn 3:8-9: “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”
This is one of the most difficult verses of the Scripture. You might even say that what is written here is not true: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin.” Now compare it with verse 8 of chapter 1 in this Epistle: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1Jn 1:8) These are totally different statements. And verse 10 adds: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” (1Jn 1:10) It is emphasized twice that if someone says he has no sin, he deceives himself and makes God a liar. But on the other hand, the same Epistle reads: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin.” You can say: All of us were born of God when we were baptized, when we believed in Jesus through personal faith and received Him as our Lord and Saviour.
Reflection on Jn 14:13-14
And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
These words, uttered by Christ on the evening before His death, are a continuation of the preceding words by which Jesus revealed to the Apostles the mystery of interior unity between Him and the Father. The uniting love between you and Christ is conditioned by true repentance, i.e. by keeping Christ’s commandments (see Jn 14:15.21.23). All philosophies, theologies or psychologies which reject true repentance and the following of Christ lead to both temporal and eternal damnation.
To ask in Jesus’ name does not mean just to utter the phrase “in the name of Jesus Christ” spiritlessly. It means to be in interior unity with Christ through true repentance (see Mk 1:15). If you are in unity with Him, then you surely ask according to the will of Christ, which is also the will of the Heavenly Father.
