St. Augustine tells in his “Confessions” how he was once about to die of some serious illness, and if he had died at that moment, he would have gone to hell with all his unrepented sins. It was only the prayers of his loving mother that saved both his body and, more importantly, his soul.

There are countless mothers who have prayed for the body and soul of their children in the same way throughout the centuries. And so our spiritual Mother – the Church – prays for all of us. It is hard to imagine anything more devastating than a mother having to bury her son. Especially if the mother is a widow and it is her only son. But there is something even more devastating: when a mother should bury her son knowing that her son’s soul will go to hell.

What does it mean to “seek first the kingdom of God”? God’s kingdom is not like earthly countries. It is not bound by place or time, it is not founded on either democratically elected or appointed institutions, it does not need to establish itself either by military force or diplomacy. God's kingdom does have borders, but they are not defined geographically, they run through human hearts.

Jesus healed many who were sick: paralyzed, blind, deaf, dumb, lepers… It is interesting that when the Bible speaks of the curing of lepers, it usually doesn’t use the word "to heal" but "to cleanse". Also, the lepers were the only ones who had to show themselves to the priests after being healed.

Leprosy, as a physical disease, is at the same time a symbol of a spiritual reality, namely sin, which burdens, defiles and destroys man, and from which we all need to be cleansed. Christ has bound the forgiveness of sins and cleansing from guilt to the promise He made to the apostles after His resurrection: „Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.“

Today’s Epistle speaks of the promise and the Law. God promised Abraham that his Seed would bring blessing to all nations. This promise has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who is the descendant of Abraham according to the flesh, Abraham’s Seed. Nothing can disannul the promise that God made to Abraham and through him to all mankind.

This promise was not abrogated even by God’s covenant with Israel, which He concluded through Moses and based on which Israel was convinced that only they were God’s people and only they could partake of the previous promises and blessings. St. Paul shows us that the meaning of the Law given through Moses was something else: God showed Israel and everyone else that if they want to be heirs of God’s promises and live as His blessed ones, then only by God’s grace, not by relying on their own works or merits. The task of the law is to show that all are transgressors, all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.

The deaf and dumb man in today’s Gospel represents the fallen man, that has preserved the inner longing for the truth and the eternal but is not able to achieve what he longs for, or even fully realize what he really needs.