Dear Reader,

This post (please read it here) is currently the last in this series in English. From 2020 only the Hungarian version of this homepage is continued containing my sermons and lectures first as an undergraduate of theology and from July 2022 as a Lutheran pastor. Please have a look to the 58 essays published here between 2017 and 2020. Many thanks,

Peter Csermely

1. What we mistakenly believe about faith. Faith is not a task. Faith does not have any advantage or objective. We do not believe to be rewarded. Faith is not a barter trade. „I believe in You, my Lord, and You take care of my salvation in return.” Faith is not a refuge that is used by people only when getting into a big trouble. We do not pray because we want to reach something that otherwise cannot be reached but… We do not go to a congregation because it helps us spiritually or because that’s how we can live an honest life but… (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

2. How to put the essence of faith in words? „Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.” (Hebrews 11:1) As Calvin pointed out, this sentence, which almost alone „defines” faith in the Bible, naturally cannot give a complete description about the nature of faith. At the same time it provides us with three very important clues: that of hope, trust and confidence. The one who believes, trusts in things hoped for and is convinced of the meaning of life, his own place in the world, his love relation with Jesus, his future, the good order of his life and death despite of that he cannot see all this with his own eyes. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

3. Faith as a subjective confession. For me faith is accepting mercy. Faith and its deepening are continuous events in our lives. Faith is a state of being. In the 18th-19th century’s France St. John Vianney was famous for that the line of those whose complaints and grievances he heard snaked in front of his church from morning to evening. He owed a lot to an old peasant who did nothing but only sitting in his church for days. Then he went to the old man: "May I ask you what you are doing here?” "I am not doing anything, I am just sitting here and looking at Christ. And He is looking at me.” For me this story (about contemplation which leads us to action) is somehow the essence of faith. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

1. Our "own" pleasures. In everyone’s life the moment comes at different times and in different ways when he starts to feel something about that he lives in the middle of a huge ocean of love – that he has not noticed so far. Realizing this is an unutterably big source of joy. It is a beautiful feeling when already here, in our Earthly lives sometimes we can feel or experience something about the Holy Trinity’s loving relationship. The joy of the archetypal woman is an immanent joy that discovers the infinity of God in the heart’s innermost totality. The joy of the archetypal man is a transcendent joy that is poured out and discovers the infinity of God in the beauty of the whole world. Both of them start from the same place and arrive at the same place. Just in different ways. This is one of the miracles of the creation. We can also experience the joy of God’s persistence during our Earthly lives. Mutual commitment, the joy of faithfulness; serenity: the joy of safety and understanding; hope: the joy of Providence and working of the Holy Spirit all are such silent joys that are much deeper and much more complete than the joys of individual events flaring up. (If you would like to read about this more, please, read my essay published here.)

2. The joys of Totality’s foretastes. Among the joys of encounters with God’s love the joy of God’s Word stands first. The Word of God is not a dead letter. The Word of God speaks in the depth of our souls by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Word of God always fulfils what it has declared. (It is worth thinking about this sentence for a while. The most important events of our lives depend on whether we understand this sentence or not.) When our encounters with the Holy Trinity’s love get more regular, we become more and more capable of seeing ourselves and everybody around with the gracious eyes of God. When these meetings will get even more regular, we will see the Face of Jesus in front of us. The Face of Jesus is not a precisely seen image but a radiation. It is the beam of the Glory of God projected on us in Christ. We delight in it, and we bathe in it. Peace, love and serenity fulfills us that we all radiate in our surroundings. This is the joy of being blessed. (If you would like to read about this more, please, read my essay published here)

3. The joys of Totality. In the Kingdom of God the boundaries of the individual disappear. All that we have been guessing "by the mirror obscurely" so far (1Corinthians 13:12), we will see and know. God, the persistence of the world’s essence, is not noise but Silence. He is not a range of galloping events but timelessness. He is not a set of bonds but undistorted purity. God’s timeless, pure Silence is not empty. This Silence is full of love and the energy radiating His love around. God’s Silence is filled with the Glory of God. The highest level of joy is bathing in the Glory of God and spreading It all around. (If you would like to read about this more, please, read my essay published here.)

1. Poorness as Christ’s virtue consummating humility and purity. In the current, customer-centric centuries poorness is a highly non-popular virtue. It is very difficult to accept that each and every of our properties is an additional bond to Earth that does not enrich but restrains us. Poorness is not a lack of possessions but a gain of unlimited freedom. The three Christian virtues: humility, purity and poorness are the three stages of the spirit’s path leading to Totality (God). How are the virtue-trinity of humility, purity and poorness related to the cardinal virtues of justice-temperance-fortitude-prudence and to the theological virtues of faith-hope-love? How are the virtue-trinity of humility, purity, and poorness related to the essence of God? (If you want to know more about this, please read the post here.)

2. Totality of Christ’s Way. The totality of the virtues of humility, purity and poorness is revealed in Christ’s mission, too. During His life and mission Christ overwrote everything that was human in Him. By this Christ became a bridge, a stretched ladder of love connecting the believers, the church and the Father. (If you want to know more about this, please read the post here – preferably on Good Friday or Great Saturday.)

3. Poorness as the highest stage of richness. With humility we have been opened for Mercy. In purity we have become transparent. In poorness we have left behind everything that in the form of bonds, possession-gummy-glues or unsettled insistences would have prevented us to unite with Totality. All this is not an exceptional status for a few people. The love of the Father dwells in all of our spirits. Christ is a "stumblingstone" (Romans 9:32). We do not come up against Christ Only, if we are within Him and so: go along with Him on His Way. But this also connects us into the omnipotent stream of love in which we become united with the Father, Christ, their Holy Spirit, as well as everyone and everything who has understood and experienced this. This is the mystery of Easter and Eternal Life. Christ has risen! Hallelujah! Amen. (If you want to know more about this, please read the post here – preferably on Easter Sunday.)