In times of life’s trials, many of you see yourselves in the role of Peter and the other apostles after the death of Jesus. It seems to you that God has forsaken us and that evil and death celebrate their ultimate triumph. We forget God’s promises like the apostles, and fear and sorrow steal our faith and trust in these promises. Jesus is the resurrection and the life! He is really with us all the days of our life, and of your life too. May the angel roll back the stone of unbelief from your heart, and through the tears of repentance you will hear the voice of Jesus in the depths of your soul and feel His gentle touch bringing you deep peace which the world cannot give. At the hour of death, which may soon come to some, you will then see His face. Remember, Jesus is with you! Be with Him too. Do not abandon Him! In Him you have all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and in Him you have life, eternal life. The angel also says to you today: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is risen!”

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

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.

When the Scripture speaks about Peter’s first encounter with the Risen Lord by the tomb, it makes no mention of a dialogue. It was a mere glance… But now Jesus asks Peter: “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” My prayer should not be just a reflection on Peter’s encounter with Jesus. During prayer, I should realize the presence of Jesus – Jesus is here now; He sees me and knows me. Jesus is here, the same Jesus as by the Lake of Gennesaret. With an aching heart, I confess together with Peter: “I betrayed You, I denied You.” Looking back on my life from early childhood, how many times I have denied Jesus! I have denied Him by every single sin, be it a weakness when sin was stronger, or fear, or pride, when I was afraid to confess Jesus.

“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.

We must see Christ both in ourselves and in our neighbour. However, this is not possible without denying ourselves, especially our opinion of ourselves, various philosophies we were acquainted with or various views which must be put aside, because seeing Jesus in ourselves is a question of faith. But beware – this is no autosuggestion. This is reality. We can recall in a flash several times a day: “Where is Jesus in this situation?” How often we think about pious and good things, but then suddenly comes the thought: “Where is Jesus in this all?” Only then we wake up to reality and suddenly realize that we forgot about personal contact, about entering into God’s presence, and we replaced it with something else, even though it was a good or divine thing. Jesus answers the question where He is: “I am with you. And to be clear, not only now but I was with you all through the night while you were asleep. You do not even know how demons attacked, and I protected you. I am with you not only during this day but all the days of your life. But I ask you: Where are you? I am with you, but you indulge in daydreaming, toys and vanities, and there is no place for Me in your thoughts.”

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

Let us do works which are of worth for eternity. Let us do them together with Jesus. Let us be with Him. This is of worth for eternity; otherwise it is good for nothing. We tend to do things for effect and desire the praise of others. More often than not we receive no praise but are rather beaten and persecuted and there is no effect – it seems to us that we just wasted our time, energy… You can say: “Well, that’s how things are, but You know, Lord, that I acted in faith.” And then it is of worth for eternity, and the fruit will come later. The greatest crisis of Christians today is that they have not been instructed on how to respond properly to particular situations and so they flee the “battlefield”, give up and fall away because they have not learned the mystery of the cross: i.e. to give thanks to God and to make steps of faith. There was no one to teach them. The priests spoke just phrases about love…

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.

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

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.