Archives for 2016

The word “focus” is a daily word with which we declare our special interest in something specific. The fireplace, the place where the ancients could light up a fire inside the house, was naturally the center of everyday life, because the family gathered around it and lived the special moments in the house.

The importance of this ancient practice is confirmed today with the habit of the great world leaders to meet their counterparts in front of a lit fireplace. “Focus”, therefore, means concentrating on something very meaningful and very different from everything else around me. And that’s exactly what Christ wants us to do daily in our life. Focus our attention, not on countless things and lose ourselves in chaos, but focus on something essential and after we exhaust it, move on to the next thing.

And Christ gave the best thing to focus on daily: his teaching, which no one can take away from us when we choose it as the primary and the first issue in our daily reality.

A student is someone who regularly attends school and listens to a teacher. A good student is someone who listens carefully to the teacher and understands what the teacher says. But the best one is the one who listens carefully, understands what the teacher says and also puts into practice what the teacher says and ultimately wants to become a teacher.

A student is not the one who passes by school and stays only until the first bell rings. A student is not the one who asks the regular students in order to learn what the teacher said in the classroom. A student is not the one who says they know everything, but in fact they have never sat down to listen systematically to the Master.

And a very good question is why, when it is explicitly stated that the Disciples of Christ were called Christians, we insist on calling Christians those who have never had any serious relationship with the teaching of Christ.

Fatalism is called our attitude towards events that harm us without us reacting to them; when we accept situations which are harmful to our personal life, without reacting properly. But even with the measures of our everyday life, this is not healthy and does not meet our real needs.

That’s because the fatalistic attitude prejudges our destruction. If one does not believe they have a chance to win and does not go to the battle, they have already lost and the winner is their opponent. On the contrary, by exhausting all our efforts, we are likely to win the battle.

Abandoning our efforts to win is the best chance for the enemy to become a winner and take our freedom and possessions, making us and our family, their slaves. This is also the message of Christ to every man of living faith. Never surrender. Never get disappointed.

The parable of the widow and the unjust judge, who gave in not because the widow was right but because of her persistence, is the best proof that the living God asks the believers to fight for the win and not out of obligation!

The reaction of various social groups to government measures and decisions causes strikes, i.e. abstention from work, and the blockade of public goods, roads, airports, ports, etc. When a group considers its interests to be affected, it strikes, invites its members to abstain from work, and as a rule moves vigorously.

This peculiar domestic war of modern society is of great interest in the issues of faith in the living God, because while we are paying high costs for our economic or social interests and even resorting to harsh reactions, we do not show that we are willing to pay the cost of our personal inertia on the issues of faith in the living God.

On the contrary, we seem to enjoy our inertia, we show that we are not disturbed by stagnation and indifference, we show that while for the goods of this world we are willing to work and react with high economic and social costs, to the issues of our dormant faith we have no opinion and determination, we are not reacting to our fruitless indifference, an indifference that, as time goes on, is increasingly making us less aware of our Creator.

Training means education in progress. I am educated, possess knowledge and experience, I am effective, but I want to go further, move one step further towards perfection, become better than I am today.

I want to add something more in the education I already have. And this is the modern and topical reality. Anyone who is not educated is doomed to stagnation, retreat, regression, loss of wealth, and ultimately poverty, because the others are moving forward and I am lying back.

That’s why all the major academic institutions in the world offer countless varieties of educational opportunities so that anyone who wants, can easily find the way to improve their knowledge and skills. And this is precisely where Jesus’ teaching meets the teaching and practice of ancient Greeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, and is a critical principle to our development as individuals and as people.

For, as in all matters, so in matters of faith, the lack of education and development inevitably leads to poverty, that is, to the image we all experience today.