+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them,

I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:

and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house;

and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.”

In the preceding verses, Jesus points out the essence – doing the will of God: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” If we seek first the will of God in our life and if we also try to do it, it is true about us that we are like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Sooner or later the winds blow, the rain descends and the floods come, but if our house is founded on the rock, it will not fall. The problem why we try to build a house on the sand many times is that we easily believe in what seems good to us, evokes our interest, offers advantage and makes the impression that right this attractive option is the ideal solution in our decision-making. Once we cling to this vision and try to achieve our dream, we are no longer willing to seek the will of God because we avoid the thought that we should abandon our house on the sand. It seems so hard, disadvantageous and often even repulsive to us to start building on the rock, and so under the pressure of the false good we throw away the true good, or we make ourselves believe that this false good is the will of God.

Our mission is to seek Jesus together, to carry our own cross and, as the Apostle Paul says: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” If we bear one another’s burdens, people will feel divine love which is founded on a living faith, self-denial, carrying one’s cross and the following of Christ. We must allow Christ to reign in our life, that it may be true: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” We must let Him reign so that we ourselves may be saved and so that we can make every effort to save as many souls as possible for eternal life after the example of the saint apostles. We cannot do it by our might but Jesus wants to do it through every one of us – through you, through your brother, through brotherly love. The whole reform, in fact, consists not only in evangelization but also in the building of a living Church. And this should take a concrete form in building fellowship.

It is programmed in the nature of each of us that it is natural for us to do good things, but at the same time there is a kind of spiritual poison in our nature, a specific form of pride, blindness and negative manners which practically destroy that which is positive in us. And this is the same in all people, only the tint is slightly different in each. Behind certain natural gifts there is the poison of sin which we have inherited from Adam. It only takes different forms. It is the old self in disguise which has only one aim: It refuses to repent and to call the poison in us, that which is negative, by its proper name, and if anyone touches it, the fat is in the fire. The old self has a wonderful inbuilt defence mechanism.

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing,

but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.

Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?”

By these words the Lord Jesus teaches and warns us that in order to persevere on the narrow way leading to eternal life, we should first beware of false teachings, heresies and those who preach them (heretics and apostates). So this is the most essential thing – to keep the true faith and a true inner relationship with Christ. Therefore, the Apostle Paul says that if an apostle, or even an angel from heaven, should preach a different (i.e. false) gospel, let him be accursed (cf. Gal 1:8-9).

We know the Word of God and we know the Tradition of the Church. We have God-given conscience. This all gives us the power and the art of discerning the teaching of Christ from the false teaching of the current apostate hierarchy and theologians. The Lord Jesus established forever that he who is of the Truth and of God hears His voice and will not follow a stranger. And he who is not of God does not hear His voice (cf. Jn 7:17; Jn 8:47; Jn 18:37).

It is said: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” And then Jesus says that if two agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them. This really is the key not only to building a living Church as the basic cell but also to true unity where Jesus is in the midst and where it is necessary for both of the believers to become powerless, i.e. to deny themselves and take up their cross, and then Jesus can show His power. If we do not obey the principle of self-denial and if we refuse to carry our cross, Jesus is paralyzed.

In the reflection on Jesus encountering the Emmaus disciples, we read: “Grant to me, O Lord, that I may see You both in me and my brother who is praying with me.” We see Christ neither in us nor in our brother. Jesus wants us to look with the eyes of faith.

We must take up our daily cross. This cross is in the first place our own nature and character. If someone tells us his attitude towards us, it hurts us. The problem with many beginners is that although they have received Christ, their nature, the old self, is so strong that it cannot stand criticism and use it as an incentive for true repentance. They fail to use this inner pain to look at Christ scourged, crowned with thorns and crucified or to unite their pain to His pain. The old self, on the contrary, either turns this painful wound into hatred towards the brother – this works automatically without any effort – or indulges in self-pity, which also is a false path. We often not only nourish our wounded feelings for years, but we masterfully reopen or even deepen the wound. So we really have reason to know ourselves more and more deeply and motivation to fight against the spiritual poison in us.

On the one hand, there is a need for evangelization, but on the other hand, there is a need to pray to the Lord for evangelizations to be organized in a certain rhythm, because although they bring zeal and dedication, and one can say a spiritual harvest in their climax, they are just like the exodus from Egypt. Then follows the Red Sea and the desert, i.e. a series of trials, which are also symbolized by snakes that bit the Israelites when they grumbled, in which period God purified their hearts. And then the people of God came to the land of Canaan, but we see that they very quickly turned away to pagan practices again, as described in the Book of Judges, and actually in the entire history of Israel. The tendency to go back to the old way of life – paganism and the cult of the old self connected with it – continues. The climax comes with the coming of Christ, His death and glorious Resurrection and then the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In the Apostolic period, we see the zeal of an evangelist and missionary particularly in the life of St Paul. After that, all of the Apostles died martyrs and a period of a bloody persecution of Christians followed.

The Divine Saviour obtained heaven for us with His own Blood. He did not need to purchase heaven for Himself but He sacrificed His life and His Blood for our sake to open the path for us to eternal happiness in heaven. He left all His rights and claims to us, His least brethren. In view of the merits of Jesus Christ, His passion and death, I may say: Heaven belongs to me. St Bernard used this logic to silence the devil. When on his death-bed the saint was joyfully awaiting heaven, the evil spirit came to him and said: “How can you hope that God will receive you into heaven if you know how poor your works were?!” But the saint replied: “I knew long ago that I could not build on my poor deeds, but my Saviour obtained heaven for me through His sufferings and Blood, and He will impart His merits to me. I hope therefore that I will be allowed to enter heaven.” And the devil left ashamed.

The most important thing which makes heaven heaven is that we are in communion with God which will never end, or in other words, we participate in the life of God. Angels are close to God and live a perfect life. Unlike them, we share in the very life of God because Jesus became man. Becoming man, He grafted the divine life onto our nature. We who have received Christ have eternal life already on this earth. The essence of eternal life consists in receiving the divine nature, becoming joint heirs of the kingdom of God. We have been literally grafted onto Christ. We have the same Spirit as Christ.

Jesus speaks about the narrow gate and difficult way which leads to life. The narrow gate is Christ’s commandments of love and the difficult way is Christ’s cross and His death by which one enters into eternal life. The broad way which leads to destruction is the way of egoism, moral licentiousness, deceit and lies, which is often tied up with the demonic practices of divination, magic or spiritualism, de facto the worship of evil and demons. This way leads to eternal destruction. The painful reality is that mass media, public opinion, fashion, destructive influences such as decadent music or art, admiration of the occult, promotion of perversion etc. literally drag the souls onto the broad way to destruction. They persuasively present it as prestige and if anyone refuses to follow it, one is ridiculed. The narrow way of justice is presented as something degrading and old-fashioned. He who does not love the truth is easily deceived. Today young people need the courage to struggle against the decadent current. This is true heroism!

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads

to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate

and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

6 August 2016

To the Government of Poland

To the Bishops of Poland

Dear members of the Polish government and the Polish episcopate!

The Polish nation has done much good in the history of Europe and the Church. Were it not for the bravery of John Sobieski, Europe would long have been Muslim.

Between 26 and 31 July 2016, World Youth Day took place in Krakow with Francis. On the very first day, the Catholic world was shocked by the news of the ritual murder of an 85-year-old French priest during a church service. Francis touched on this tragedy only evasively and immediately afterwards lobbied the Polish government to accept Islamization by accepting Muslim “immigrants”.

Francis kisses the feet of transsexuals, privileges homosexuals and apologizes to them on behalf of the Catholic Church, advocates the Islamization of Europe. Even unbelievers ask themselves: Who does this pseudo Pope serve? Does he serve God and the Church or the Antichrist and Freemasons? According to the dogmatic Bull of Pope Paul IV (1559), if a bishop or a pope has fallen into heresy, he is excommunicated from the Church and all of his actions are without force. This pseudo Pope canonized John Paul II two years ago – so this canonization is without force too!

3 August 2016

Vatican Secretariat of State

At World Youth Day in Krakow, pseudo Pope Bergoglio dishonestly and cynically deceived the Catholic youth. In five homilies he fascinated them by naturalness, seeming simplicity and an interest in young people. The sermons were sometimes almost charismatic and full of a spirit. But what spirit? A young inexperienced Christian can hardly distinguish this spirit, and all the more so because Bergoglio kept telling the youth that God “fanatically” loves them the way they are … without repentance, without breaking with sin, without orthodox doctrine.

What fruit will this World Youth Day bear? Will the Catholic youth call a sin a sin, will they strive to live a moral life and in premarital chastity? Will they avoid the influence of rock and metal music or narcotics? Will they reject occultism which is the root of paganism? Will they believe in Jesus Christ as the only Saviour? Will they understand that homosexuality is the main driving force of the NWO towards genocide of humanity and is directly connected with the criminal juvenile justice system which steals children from their loving parents? Will they defend themselves against the Islamization of Europe today? Under Francis’ influence, the youth continue to be kept in the dark about these essential things. He just used an opiate to create a false euphoria.