Satan's last stronghold
Father, I pray to you not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their teaching, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, so let them be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.
I have given them the glory that I received from You, so that they may be one, just as we are one. I in them and you in me - let them become perfect one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them as you loved me.
[media=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ4A3VwpyG4]
Father, I desire that those whom you have entrusted to me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory which you have bestowed upon me. For you loved me before the creation of the world.
Righteous Father! The world didn't know you, but I knew you. And they knew that You had sent Me. I have revealed your name to them, and I will continue to reveal it to them, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I may be in them.”
Today's readings all (3) tell us about the inevitable confrontation of two worlds: the world of God's love and the world in which we live.
We live in a world full of hate, suffering, disease, sin, and no one is really doing well in this world, even those who are said to be doing well. They suffer too.
Therefore, God had pity on us and, as we hear in today's readings, decided to take us out of this world through his Son. Then we talk about our salvation. To save someone means to save someone, it means to free someone from some trouble, and this world is a trouble for us.
His plan to save man is fulfilled with his crazy love - his Son. It's hard to call it normal love when someone loves us so much, as we have an example of in his Son, Christ.
God, in love with man, became man himself to do something incredible in us: to unite us with himself, to unite creation with the creator. This world and the ruler of this world, Satan, jealously fight for each of us, for each person,
using all their strength to discourage man from crossing into the world of love in God. The evil spirit does everything to disgust us with God and to accuse us in God's eyes, so that we do not have the courage to believe that we are worthy of being loved by God, by Jesus Christ, because of what He has done.
In these two readings, especially in the first reading and the Gospel, where it talks about Stephen being stoned and Jesus announcing his love at the Last Supper, both Stephen and Jesus are shown looking into sky.
Before his death, Stephen is shown as someone who looks up to heaven and sees Jesus at the right hand of the Father. This sight of Jesus allows him to experience the moment of stoning as if without pain.
At the Last Supper, just before these words, Jesus, also looking at heaven, looking as if at the Father, speaks these words full of love and asks his Father for us. This is what they are focused on: heaven, and their attention is focused on the Father, to be one with the Father,
and this allows them to go through even such moments of life as stoning or crucifixion - it is difficult to imagine a worse kind of death. And yet they experience this worst kind of death in the easiest way thanks to the fact that they are focused on the Father.
This sight brings them relief in these difficult moments. Stephen was stoned for looking at God, for love, for unity with Jesus, with His Father.
Jesus was crucified because he remained in unity with the Father. And on the one hand, the world does everything to crush someone who is focused on the sky, to distract this person from God.
And on the other hand, gazing at this sky, gazing at this Father, makes even the worst fate in life, even the most tragic death, the most dramatic version of existence, become bearable, as if death became unnoticed.
The powerful claws of the forces of darkness are jealously trying to keep the last foothold that Satan and his spirits have left - the world of people. They have already lost all other worlds, only our world remains, which is still influenced by demons.
So there is a fight going on for us, but which side I will stand on, which side you will stand on, it all depends only on you - whether you will stand on the side of those who stoned and crucified, or whether you will be focused on God.
The fight against darkness can only be won thanks to unity with God the Father through Christ and in the Holy Spirit. Stephen looks up to heaven and sees the glory of God and Jesus at the right hand of the Father, because he was full of the Holy Spirit.
And this fullness of the Holy Spirit allowed him to survive this most dramatic moment. In the Gospel of the Father, Jesus asks us to be one with God, as He Himself is with Him.
And this unity is the Holy Spirit, this is love, this is the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit we have no contact with God the Father. And our relationship with Jesus then comes down only to the knowledge that there is such a person somewhere, but knowledge is not unity.
Faith is not the knowledge that God exists, but unity in love. We probably couldn't do anything on our own to love God, or even become interested in Him, or take even a step towards Him. He loved us first, not us.
This fragment from the Gospel of John reveals to us this unique will of God to love us. Jesus asks the Father for us to love him, he does not even ask the Father for the Father to love us, he only asks the Father for us to love the Father.
"Holy Father, I am praying not only for them. Father, I want them to be with me, just as You are with me, in unity."
God cares that man cares about God, because God knows that this is happiness for us. God asks Himself for me to love God. What kind of love is this?
The Son of God asks for God's love for man, because man does not even want to ask. This may be an imperfect comparison, but let's imagine that a wife asks her husband: "Husband, please do everything you can to make your child love you as much as possible."
All this convinces us that God cares about me, about you, about us. So movingly, Jesus asked his Father for us, so that we too may have unity with the Father in heaven.
This passage is full of feeling. Jesus, with unconcealed feelings and perhaps tears, asked the Father in front of all the disciples for the disciples' love for the Father. No one who has heard these words from today's Gospel with their hearts rather than with their ears can say: "My existence is a mistake
or I am useless to anyone. Why do I live at all? Why was I born? My life is meaningless."
Even if any of us have thought this way until now, after hearing this fragment of Jesus asking for each of us, it is very difficult not to believe that we are worthy of God's love, that we are not worthless.
"Holy Father," says Jesus, "I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am. That they may see my glory, which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world."
Truly, anyone who listened to these words must not feel unnecessary in the world or worthless. Amen.
I have given them the glory that I received from You, so that they may be one, just as we are one. I in them and you in me - let them become perfect one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them as you loved me.
[media=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ4A3VwpyG4]
Father, I desire that those whom you have entrusted to me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory which you have bestowed upon me. For you loved me before the creation of the world.
Righteous Father! The world didn't know you, but I knew you. And they knew that You had sent Me. I have revealed your name to them, and I will continue to reveal it to them, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I may be in them.”
Today's readings all (3) tell us about the inevitable confrontation of two worlds: the world of God's love and the world in which we live.
We live in a world full of hate, suffering, disease, sin, and no one is really doing well in this world, even those who are said to be doing well. They suffer too.
Therefore, God had pity on us and, as we hear in today's readings, decided to take us out of this world through his Son. Then we talk about our salvation. To save someone means to save someone, it means to free someone from some trouble, and this world is a trouble for us.
His plan to save man is fulfilled with his crazy love - his Son. It's hard to call it normal love when someone loves us so much, as we have an example of in his Son, Christ.
God, in love with man, became man himself to do something incredible in us: to unite us with himself, to unite creation with the creator. This world and the ruler of this world, Satan, jealously fight for each of us, for each person,
using all their strength to discourage man from crossing into the world of love in God. The evil spirit does everything to disgust us with God and to accuse us in God's eyes, so that we do not have the courage to believe that we are worthy of being loved by God, by Jesus Christ, because of what He has done.
In these two readings, especially in the first reading and the Gospel, where it talks about Stephen being stoned and Jesus announcing his love at the Last Supper, both Stephen and Jesus are shown looking into sky.
Before his death, Stephen is shown as someone who looks up to heaven and sees Jesus at the right hand of the Father. This sight of Jesus allows him to experience the moment of stoning as if without pain.
At the Last Supper, just before these words, Jesus, also looking at heaven, looking as if at the Father, speaks these words full of love and asks his Father for us. This is what they are focused on: heaven, and their attention is focused on the Father, to be one with the Father,
and this allows them to go through even such moments of life as stoning or crucifixion - it is difficult to imagine a worse kind of death. And yet they experience this worst kind of death in the easiest way thanks to the fact that they are focused on the Father.
This sight brings them relief in these difficult moments. Stephen was stoned for looking at God, for love, for unity with Jesus, with His Father.
Jesus was crucified because he remained in unity with the Father. And on the one hand, the world does everything to crush someone who is focused on the sky, to distract this person from God.
And on the other hand, gazing at this sky, gazing at this Father, makes even the worst fate in life, even the most tragic death, the most dramatic version of existence, become bearable, as if death became unnoticed.
The powerful claws of the forces of darkness are jealously trying to keep the last foothold that Satan and his spirits have left - the world of people. They have already lost all other worlds, only our world remains, which is still influenced by demons.
So there is a fight going on for us, but which side I will stand on, which side you will stand on, it all depends only on you - whether you will stand on the side of those who stoned and crucified, or whether you will be focused on God.
The fight against darkness can only be won thanks to unity with God the Father through Christ and in the Holy Spirit. Stephen looks up to heaven and sees the glory of God and Jesus at the right hand of the Father, because he was full of the Holy Spirit.
And this fullness of the Holy Spirit allowed him to survive this most dramatic moment. In the Gospel of the Father, Jesus asks us to be one with God, as He Himself is with Him.
And this unity is the Holy Spirit, this is love, this is the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit we have no contact with God the Father. And our relationship with Jesus then comes down only to the knowledge that there is such a person somewhere, but knowledge is not unity.
Faith is not the knowledge that God exists, but unity in love. We probably couldn't do anything on our own to love God, or even become interested in Him, or take even a step towards Him. He loved us first, not us.
This fragment from the Gospel of John reveals to us this unique will of God to love us. Jesus asks the Father for us to love him, he does not even ask the Father for the Father to love us, he only asks the Father for us to love the Father.
"Holy Father, I am praying not only for them. Father, I want them to be with me, just as You are with me, in unity."
God cares that man cares about God, because God knows that this is happiness for us. God asks Himself for me to love God. What kind of love is this?
The Son of God asks for God's love for man, because man does not even want to ask. This may be an imperfect comparison, but let's imagine that a wife asks her husband: "Husband, please do everything you can to make your child love you as much as possible."
All this convinces us that God cares about me, about you, about us. So movingly, Jesus asked his Father for us, so that we too may have unity with the Father in heaven.
This passage is full of feeling. Jesus, with unconcealed feelings and perhaps tears, asked the Father in front of all the disciples for the disciples' love for the Father. No one who has heard these words from today's Gospel with their hearts rather than with their ears can say: "My existence is a mistake
or I am useless to anyone. Why do I live at all? Why was I born? My life is meaningless."
Even if any of us have thought this way until now, after hearing this fragment of Jesus asking for each of us, it is very difficult not to believe that we are worthy of God's love, that we are not worthless.
"Holy Father," says Jesus, "I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am. That they may see my glory, which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world."
Truly, anyone who listened to these words must not feel unnecessary in the world or worthless. Amen.
51-55, F