God--The Best of Fathers

The Sunday of the Last Judgment

Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, our Church gives to us a deep reflection on the Last Judgment, since Meatfare Sunday is also called the Sunday of the Last Judgment.  We are already preparing for Great Lent, and according to the thought of our holy fathers, the great teachers of our Ukrainian Church, the Great Fast is the image of our whole life in this world.  It is a time of “bright sadness,” since we mourn over our sins, but we know that God is greater than our sins, and He is able to change us and form us anew after the image of His Son.  It is not enough for us to say “He is able,” but rather, “He wants, He fervently desires to do this.  In order for us to take profit in Great Lent, we need to begin to understand the love of God.  We need to begin to consider that Great Lent, just like our whole life in this world, is the school in which we learn the love of God.

God—the Best of Fathers

     We human beings suffer various kinds of trouble, sickness and sorrow, and we think that we are alone.  Our understanding is darkened by the cares and anxieties of this life.  But God is present is all our trouble, sickness and sorrow.  He is the best of fathers, Who strengthens us and consoles us.  Just think, when a little child is sick with a fever, the whole household is disturbed, and the lights in the house burn through the night.  The child’s parents have no other care than getting their child out of danger.  In a similar way, our God looks after us through the trouble and sufferings of this life.  Often we do not recognize His loving presence, just as the little child does not recognize the anxious presence of her parents.  Yet, God takes us in His loving arms and paces up and down through the night of this world.  He has no other concern than to save His child from danger.  After all, is it possible to think that we are more perfect than Him? If we have compassion, then His compassion must be so much greater.

How does God feel?

     A Panachyda often brings with it tears and sadness, on account of the fact that we recognize that we will not see our relatives and friends again until the Heavenly Kingdom.  But, consider how God must feel.  He sees His image, which He loves, torn in two.  What father is able to see such a thing happen to his child? He sees the body of the one, whom He created to rule the whole material creation, thrown away like garbage, while seeing the human soul deprived of expression and sense.  He never wanted that.  He wanted us human beings to love Him freely.  Thus, the abuse of freedom is all the more tragic. 

     In the Gospel today, God’s anger is very clear, but it is possible to hear this reading in a different way.  When we hear what the Lord says to those on His left, we need to hear the deep regret that must be there.  In love He created them, but now He must dismiss them forever, for they refuse to love Him.  It is not so different with those parents looking after their sick child, when, just before dawn, they come to understand that they cannot save her.  With tears they hold her to themselves as her soul leaves her little body and goes down into silence.