Prayer of affirmation can make you the salt of the earth.
And Jesus says this: unless you change, you will not become like children. You have to see this child in yourself and accept that you also have a child in yourself. That this child needs a hug, a kiss, noticed, praised.
Here there are very serious people of a serious age, and they can testify to you that sometimes they behave immaturely, right? And the Lord gives us such joy in this and such freedom that we do not have to pretend to be anyone.
[media=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wknVq4ZtuV8]
There is a fear within us of discovering this powerlessness in the face of reality. It is embarrassing to admit that everything is simply beyond us and that we do not know how to behave and that we have spoiled many things. We are afraid to show that we are children.
There is a desire in us to hide and justify our failures, which are like a certificate of God's childhood. Failure is a diploma that you are fit for heaven. If you can accept failure, you are fit for heaven.
If you can accept failure, you say: "Oh yes, it was a failure, I was inept, it didn't work", very well. Jesus, listening to our prayers to finally make us children, will not give us clothes from the period of our first Holy Communion.
Rather, He will make us smaller through situations, and what situation can make you smaller? A situation where you don't feel superior to others. Yes?
He can then give us events that will prove to us that we are not mature or even adults to admit that we are not mature. He can create events for us that will reveal that we are immature. Do you like such situations?
Conceit is everywhere where a person is satisfied with himself. He can be smug, in the bad sense that he can be proud of himself. Peter failed to be faithful, and so did Magdalene. And what was unsuccessful in them was successful.
What is truer in us: weakness or strength? Powerlessness or resourcefulness, coping with life or not coping with it? Greatness or smallness? Perhaps there are people who say to themselves: "God, everything in my life has gone wrong.
What I wanted to achieve, everything collapsed. What I wanted to achieve, everything turned out wrong. You have the most divine life.
Who doesn't have this life? comes out, that came out. It's really like this. You look at Jesus, He is not sitting comfortably with a crown on his head, he is hanging on the cross. And you say: "I praise You, Lord." Do you know what you are saying?
To worship means to want to imitate. Jesus says from the cross: "Your life will be thwarted. Do you want this? You already have a life marked by the cross. And fortunately, that is the case. A blessing in disguise, and this is Jesus' invention in this world. If it weren't for Him, this misfortune would be just misfortune.
And that is why He talks about blessings and curses, that those who are sad will rejoice, that those who weep will laugh, that those who are poor will be rich. See? Because a Christian is someone who has the patience to wait for misfortune to turn into happiness.
Because true joy is overcome sadness. If someone wants to wait for the kingdom of heaven, let him enter into the deepest shadow, into the nightmare of his life, into the shadow of his life, into the cross of his life, into the loneliness of his life, into the defeat of his life and wait until it all shines with light, and then it will turn out that he has entered the very middle of pleasure.
I am absolutely sure of what I am saying, because I could say it with the texts of Holy Scripture, but I am speaking with the Word of God, although it is not a quote, it is the very essence of salvation.
The Lord told us that just a little bit of leaven is enough to leaven the entire dough. A person does not have to preach retreats, does not have to preach through the media, does not have to write books. I don't have to do anything and you don't have to do anything. It is enough that you have a conviction in your heart about the truth, and then you gesticulate differently,
because convictions come out even in the smallest gestures. Have you noticed this?
And this is already passed on to others, when someone is convinced of the truth about salvation, he behaves this way, he looks this way, he talks this way, he feels it, he certainly feels it. There is also another human action, and it transforms reality. This is what Jesus said, that you will be salt, a little, and the world will immediately become tasty.
Tertullian says: "You Christians are the soul of this world. The world is the body and you are the soul." Not everyone has to be converted, you give life to others. Christians - the soul of this world.
Jesus spent many hours with his disciples, he spent many hours talking to them non-stop, especially the Gospel of John shows that he spent a lot of time talking. Why? Because when you talk a lot, the bonds deepen, and he already had such relationships with them that one day he said:
"I no longer call you servants, because the servant does not know, he does not know what his master is saying, but I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from the Father."
So friendship is strictly dependent on listening to him a lot. One night I was desperate and rebellious, because my helplessness, helplessness, lack of self-control during the day made it so obvious that I saw myself as a kid who couldn't assess the situation at all, but he thought he could because after such conferences, retreats, a person may think to himself: I am someone extraordinary.
I saw that I couldn't control myself at all. I was angry because I wanted to hide my clumsiness under a mask of contempt and anger. When a person can't cope with something, he gets angry to hide what he can't cope with.
So I looked at others with contempt, hurt them with refusal and aggression. Where does a lot of our anger towards others come from? Because others are really that bad? Is it because we can't deal with them?
What was I angry about? That I don't know how to live. I can't be mature, I can't control the situation or my emotions, I'm not always right, I'm often not right at all, I'm wrong. Sometimes I say stupid things, I don't know how to behave, I'm afraid, I'm ashamed. Do you feel this way too?
It's good to say this to yourself: I'm not better than other people, than others. And others, looking at me, expect maturity from me, which is cosmically unavailable to me.
And today? Today the Lord calls us to look for joy in all this, not anger. This weakness, this discovery of the child within, is a grace for me, and for you too. God is saying to you: "Now don't be afraid of it, just rejoice in it, even though you may have thought it was a curse. Today, look at it as a blessing. You can see God's desire for you to be
like a child. This is your passport to heaven, your failed stories. Do not be afraid of the conditions in which you discover fears, because they bring us to our knees and teach us childlike prayer.
See when you pray most truly, when you discover that you are not living truly. When your life breaks, not necessarily suffering, but simply fear, helplessness.
That's why God sometimes allows us to experience this helplessness, helplessness, because He says: "Well, I would like to finally hear something authentic from your mouth, you keep repeating some quotes.
God says: "I will give you an experience that will make you truly pray because I am tired of these quotes. Salvation is available to those who are beset by overwhelming circumstances. Whoever copes with life does not seek God's help.
Whoever does not seek God , does not find salvation. We need to see in life that everything is beyond us in order to call out to God: "Save me." You have to be deep down for the prayer to be deep. How can there be a deep prayer if a person deep down is not ?
So what you are going through, what is even your lowest point, is necessary for the depth of your prayer. When Jonah prayed for the first time in his life, when he was inside the fish. Sometimes it happens that when others have you in... then you pray.
Do an exercise, accept your inner child, like Jesus standing before Pilate. Maybe in your free time during these days of reflection, imagine a small child with your face from a photo, preferably one you didn't like to see as a child.
If you are a woman , let it be a girl, if a man - a boy. He stands before you, the embodiment of everything you dislike and oppose yourself. It may even be a memory from your childhood, from that period that you don't like to remember.
Maybe this child has his head down, has the sadness of Jesus' face, stands like Jesus before Pilate, stands like your worst past before you, after everything the Lord told you at this conference, think what you can do for him.
Will you let him not exist? Will you accept its existence? Will you constantly deny your inner child and say, "You have to do this, you have to pull yourself together, you have to pretend," or will you tell him, "I love you"?
Do you want to deal with him as Pilate did with Jesus, wash your hands and throw him away, or do you want to deal with him as Jesus did with the deaf man whom he took into his fatherly hands? Maybe you will accept him again and tell him: "I accept you, I love you. I love your weakness
I love your incompetence, I love your failures, I love your mistakes, I love your failures, I love your fears, I love your cowardice, I love that you do not you can defend yourself, you can't justify yourself, I love that you were ridiculed, I love that you were humiliated, I love that you were crossed out, that others made you nothing. I love it because Jesus is in it. I love
you even then when it seems to you that you were a nightmare for me. I love that no one believed in me, that I couldn't cope with anything, with feelings, with intellect, with life, with work, with people. I love you. I
agree to you, I want never to reject you or be ashamed of you again. I want to always present you like this to God and to myself."
It would be good if you made such a prayer today. I cordially invite you to give yourself a chance today, because why would you listen to me for so long, or maybe not even to me, and not accept yourself? Amen.
Here there are very serious people of a serious age, and they can testify to you that sometimes they behave immaturely, right? And the Lord gives us such joy in this and such freedom that we do not have to pretend to be anyone.
[media=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wknVq4ZtuV8]
There is a fear within us of discovering this powerlessness in the face of reality. It is embarrassing to admit that everything is simply beyond us and that we do not know how to behave and that we have spoiled many things. We are afraid to show that we are children.
There is a desire in us to hide and justify our failures, which are like a certificate of God's childhood. Failure is a diploma that you are fit for heaven. If you can accept failure, you are fit for heaven.
If you can accept failure, you say: "Oh yes, it was a failure, I was inept, it didn't work", very well. Jesus, listening to our prayers to finally make us children, will not give us clothes from the period of our first Holy Communion.
Rather, He will make us smaller through situations, and what situation can make you smaller? A situation where you don't feel superior to others. Yes?
He can then give us events that will prove to us that we are not mature or even adults to admit that we are not mature. He can create events for us that will reveal that we are immature. Do you like such situations?
Conceit is everywhere where a person is satisfied with himself. He can be smug, in the bad sense that he can be proud of himself. Peter failed to be faithful, and so did Magdalene. And what was unsuccessful in them was successful.
What is truer in us: weakness or strength? Powerlessness or resourcefulness, coping with life or not coping with it? Greatness or smallness? Perhaps there are people who say to themselves: "God, everything in my life has gone wrong.
What I wanted to achieve, everything collapsed. What I wanted to achieve, everything turned out wrong. You have the most divine life.
Who doesn't have this life? comes out, that came out. It's really like this. You look at Jesus, He is not sitting comfortably with a crown on his head, he is hanging on the cross. And you say: "I praise You, Lord." Do you know what you are saying?
To worship means to want to imitate. Jesus says from the cross: "Your life will be thwarted. Do you want this? You already have a life marked by the cross. And fortunately, that is the case. A blessing in disguise, and this is Jesus' invention in this world. If it weren't for Him, this misfortune would be just misfortune.
And that is why He talks about blessings and curses, that those who are sad will rejoice, that those who weep will laugh, that those who are poor will be rich. See? Because a Christian is someone who has the patience to wait for misfortune to turn into happiness.
Because true joy is overcome sadness. If someone wants to wait for the kingdom of heaven, let him enter into the deepest shadow, into the nightmare of his life, into the shadow of his life, into the cross of his life, into the loneliness of his life, into the defeat of his life and wait until it all shines with light, and then it will turn out that he has entered the very middle of pleasure.
I am absolutely sure of what I am saying, because I could say it with the texts of Holy Scripture, but I am speaking with the Word of God, although it is not a quote, it is the very essence of salvation.
The Lord told us that just a little bit of leaven is enough to leaven the entire dough. A person does not have to preach retreats, does not have to preach through the media, does not have to write books. I don't have to do anything and you don't have to do anything. It is enough that you have a conviction in your heart about the truth, and then you gesticulate differently,
because convictions come out even in the smallest gestures. Have you noticed this?
And this is already passed on to others, when someone is convinced of the truth about salvation, he behaves this way, he looks this way, he talks this way, he feels it, he certainly feels it. There is also another human action, and it transforms reality. This is what Jesus said, that you will be salt, a little, and the world will immediately become tasty.
Tertullian says: "You Christians are the soul of this world. The world is the body and you are the soul." Not everyone has to be converted, you give life to others. Christians - the soul of this world.
Jesus spent many hours with his disciples, he spent many hours talking to them non-stop, especially the Gospel of John shows that he spent a lot of time talking. Why? Because when you talk a lot, the bonds deepen, and he already had such relationships with them that one day he said:
"I no longer call you servants, because the servant does not know, he does not know what his master is saying, but I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from the Father."
So friendship is strictly dependent on listening to him a lot. One night I was desperate and rebellious, because my helplessness, helplessness, lack of self-control during the day made it so obvious that I saw myself as a kid who couldn't assess the situation at all, but he thought he could because after such conferences, retreats, a person may think to himself: I am someone extraordinary.
I saw that I couldn't control myself at all. I was angry because I wanted to hide my clumsiness under a mask of contempt and anger. When a person can't cope with something, he gets angry to hide what he can't cope with.
So I looked at others with contempt, hurt them with refusal and aggression. Where does a lot of our anger towards others come from? Because others are really that bad? Is it because we can't deal with them?
What was I angry about? That I don't know how to live. I can't be mature, I can't control the situation or my emotions, I'm not always right, I'm often not right at all, I'm wrong. Sometimes I say stupid things, I don't know how to behave, I'm afraid, I'm ashamed. Do you feel this way too?
It's good to say this to yourself: I'm not better than other people, than others. And others, looking at me, expect maturity from me, which is cosmically unavailable to me.
And today? Today the Lord calls us to look for joy in all this, not anger. This weakness, this discovery of the child within, is a grace for me, and for you too. God is saying to you: "Now don't be afraid of it, just rejoice in it, even though you may have thought it was a curse. Today, look at it as a blessing. You can see God's desire for you to be
like a child. This is your passport to heaven, your failed stories. Do not be afraid of the conditions in which you discover fears, because they bring us to our knees and teach us childlike prayer.
See when you pray most truly, when you discover that you are not living truly. When your life breaks, not necessarily suffering, but simply fear, helplessness.
That's why God sometimes allows us to experience this helplessness, helplessness, because He says: "Well, I would like to finally hear something authentic from your mouth, you keep repeating some quotes.
God says: "I will give you an experience that will make you truly pray because I am tired of these quotes. Salvation is available to those who are beset by overwhelming circumstances. Whoever copes with life does not seek God's help.
Whoever does not seek God , does not find salvation. We need to see in life that everything is beyond us in order to call out to God: "Save me." You have to be deep down for the prayer to be deep. How can there be a deep prayer if a person deep down is not ?
So what you are going through, what is even your lowest point, is necessary for the depth of your prayer. When Jonah prayed for the first time in his life, when he was inside the fish. Sometimes it happens that when others have you in... then you pray.
Do an exercise, accept your inner child, like Jesus standing before Pilate. Maybe in your free time during these days of reflection, imagine a small child with your face from a photo, preferably one you didn't like to see as a child.
If you are a woman , let it be a girl, if a man - a boy. He stands before you, the embodiment of everything you dislike and oppose yourself. It may even be a memory from your childhood, from that period that you don't like to remember.
Maybe this child has his head down, has the sadness of Jesus' face, stands like Jesus before Pilate, stands like your worst past before you, after everything the Lord told you at this conference, think what you can do for him.
Will you let him not exist? Will you accept its existence? Will you constantly deny your inner child and say, "You have to do this, you have to pull yourself together, you have to pretend," or will you tell him, "I love you"?
Do you want to deal with him as Pilate did with Jesus, wash your hands and throw him away, or do you want to deal with him as Jesus did with the deaf man whom he took into his fatherly hands? Maybe you will accept him again and tell him: "I accept you, I love you. I love your weakness
I love your incompetence, I love your failures, I love your mistakes, I love your failures, I love your fears, I love your cowardice, I love that you do not you can defend yourself, you can't justify yourself, I love that you were ridiculed, I love that you were humiliated, I love that you were crossed out, that others made you nothing. I love it because Jesus is in it. I love
you even then when it seems to you that you were a nightmare for me. I love that no one believed in me, that I couldn't cope with anything, with feelings, with intellect, with life, with work, with people. I love you. I
agree to you, I want never to reject you or be ashamed of you again. I want to always present you like this to God and to myself."
It would be good if you made such a prayer today. I cordially invite you to give yourself a chance today, because why would you listen to me for so long, or maybe not even to me, and not accept yourself? Amen.
