Sunday, March 16(3), 2025
Second Sunday of Lent
Heb. 1:10-2:3; Mk. 2:1-12

“I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved” [Jn. 10:9].  The Lord repeats the same thing elsewhere: “No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” [Jn. 14:6]. And yet more definitely He confirmed that when He said: “Without Me ye can do nothing” [Jn. 15:5]. 

If you are a Christian, it means that you are completely in Christ.  It means that anything of a value which you have in your soul comes from Christ.  Your justification if from Christ, and your whole body belongs to Christ.  In our search of salvation we can be saved only because we “have put on Christ”  [Gal. 3:27].  Only then do we have access to the Father. We have fallen away from God and, as such, are subject to His wrath.  Only then God’s justice steps back when we approach Him in Christ and with Christ:  then His mercy reaches out to receive us as we draw near to Him. 

The whole character of a true Christian is stamped with the seal of Christ: those who have it “will walk through the valley of the shadow of death and will fear no evil” [Ps. 23:4].  For that God gives us His grace in the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist; Eucharist is coupled with Repentance for those who have committed sins after Baptism.   On our part, in order to receive it, we have to develop proper qualities in our spirit, letting Lord’s grace descend upon us: faith, by which we confess that we are doomed unless Lord Jesus Christ saves us; ─ love, which strives to commit our whole life to the Lord, sparing nothing;  ─ and hope, which has firm reliance on God rather than on oneself, reliance on His help, both inner and outer, at any instant of our life ─ until we pass on to His abode.

Read more about the author