DO YOU LOVE GOD?

Fr Luke A Veronis

Do you love God? How many of us would say we love God?

It’s easy to say with words we love God. And many of us truly believe we love God. We come to church each week to express our love for God, and as Orthodox Christians, we say, “Yes, I love God.” And yet, do we truly love Him? How do we know whether we sincerely love God? What’s the criteria for loving God? Is it simply the words we say?

Well, today is the Sunday of the Final Judgment, and we hear clearly that this will be a Judgment of Love. Did we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength? If we say “Yes, we love God,” our entire life will be played before our eyes and our life will reveal whether this is true or not. Our love for God will be determined by how we loved those created in the image and likeness of God.

Every person possesses the Divine Imprint and how we treat our neighbor, how we treat a stranger, how we treat the illegal immigrant, how we treat the person who holds a different political view than me, how we treat the people who believe differently than me, how we treat others whose lifestyle is so different than ours – how we love these people will reveal how much we truly loved God.

It's easy to say "I love God" with words but it's not always so easy to show concrete love to the person in front of us, especially when we have allowed this person to become so different in our minds. When we allow the spirit of the world to fill our hearts, a spirit that divides and separates, a spirit that puts up walls of "us verses them," a spirit that self-righteously judges and condemns others we don’t like, then it's hard to truly love such people. We dehumanize others and then justify why we ignore the Divine Image in which they were created.

Today's Gospel story and message sharply contradict what happens in our society . Instead of accepting and supporting divisions and separations, Christ reminds us that the Final Judgment will be based on whether we truly love the other, whether we truly love the person right in front of us, whether we truly love the people in need all around us. Remember, whatever we do to the LEAST of our brothers and sisters, that is how we love God!

In the Gospel story, it talks about the least as the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and in prison, yet there are many ways we can understand those who are “least” in our society. The least can be the one we forget or choose to ignore; the least can be the one whom we demonize when we take away their humanity; the least can be the one we turn into a number and don’t look at their face as a child of God. Whenever we lump an entire group of people into one label, we have turned them into one of the least of our brothers and sisters.

Saint Maria of Paris says, “Each person is the very icon of God incarnate in the world. With this recognition comes the need to accept this awesome revelation of God unconditionally, to venerate the image of God in our brothers and sisters…

People will ask in perplexity: “Lord, when did we not visit you in the hospital or in prison, when did we refuse you a cup of water?” If we believe that in every beggar and in every criminal Christ Himself addresses us, we would treat people differently. Only when one’s soul takes up another person’s cross, their doubts, their grief, their temptations, falls, sins – only then is it possible to speak of a proper relation to another. But the point is precisely that our communion with people passes mostly on the level of earthly encounters and is deprived of the authentic mysticism that turns it into communion with God.

If someone turns with their spiritual world toward the spiritual world of another person, they encounter an awesome and inspiring mystery …. We come into contact with the true image of God in humanity, with the very icon of God incarnate in the world, with a reflection of the mystery of God’s incarnation and divine manhood. And we need to accept this awesome revelation of God unconditionally, to venerate the image of God in our brother and sister.

Only when we sense, perceive and understand this will yet another mystery be revealed to us — one that demands our most dedicated efforts…. We will perceive that the divine image is veiled, distorted and disfigured by the power of evil…. And we will engage in battle with the devil for the sake of the divine image.

The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead, I shall be asked, Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says ‘I.’

‘I was hungry and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.’ To think that He puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need…. I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe.”

Do you love God? Then reflect on how you love your neighbor. Remember Saint John the Evangelist's words: “You hypocrite, how can you love God whom you have not seen, if you hate your brother or sister whom you have seen” (1 Jn 4:20).

“The essence of every conscientious Christian is to demonstrate respect for the divinely derived dignity of every other person with sincere love, irrespective of what that person believes or if that person believes at all,” notes Archbishop Anastasios. “The cultivation of such a conscience within the spaciousness and freedom of God’s children remains the exceptional contribution of followers of Jesus Christ.”

As we begin our Lenten Journey today, on this Meatfare Sunday, the last day that we eat meat until Pascha, may we remember the words of Saint Basil. “It benefits us nothing if we don’t eat meat yet we devour our neighbor.” May we fast from eating meat as well as fast from ignoring or even hating our neighbor. Let us do something positive with our self-denial. Our goal isn’t to simply not hate our neighbor, but we must truly love them, show them compassion and kindness, and treat them as we want to be treated. Remember, we love God by the way we love one another.