Meatfare Sunday Sunday of the Last Judgment

Ambon Prayer 10

Postfestive Day of the Meeting of Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ with Simeon and Anna. Our Venerable Father Isidore of Pelusium.

Title

Choosing the Kingdom of Love

Outline

Modern society is idolatrous.

Idolatry is, of course, built on lies, lies re-creating a false reality around its purported idols.

This idolatry creeps into the Church when the Church, or parts of the Church, allies itself with the idols and myths of our age.

The myth may be one of libertarian freedom, whether that of the left or the right, which leaves us in theory free to collect the wealth it idolizes, seek the pleasures that are its goals in life, and of course seek the power and honor as the means of preserving those things.

Paul tells us that material goods, in his case food, are in themselves indifferent to God, but that “freedom” wrongly used can destroy what he terms “weaker” believers and since that is not love it is anathema to God. He would therefore follow a permanent fast from meat rather than that: “if food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.” That makes meatfare Sunday - esentially beginning 54 days without meat - sound rather tame. But notice the abstinence is for the purpose of self-discipline out of love for God, not because meat is evil. It is an anti-materialistic action.

Equally opposed to modern materialism is the gospel

Jesus pictures the parousia having happened and the Son of Man. having marched into planet earth surrounded by angelic armies, is sitting in judgment.

He separates all peoples into two categories that we discover are on the basis of their use of material goods or, one could say, time, energy, and money.

The one group has used what they had (beyond their own simple needs, of course) to feed the hungry, quench the thirst of the thirsty, welcome the immigrant and refugee, clothe the naked, visit, implying care for, the sick and the imprisoned. In other words they acted in love, seeking the good of the other and recognizing all human beings and certainly all Christians as “brothers and sisters” and - perhaps not consciously - as therefore Jesus in disguise, for the Son became a human like us.

The other group has chosen to keep their goods for themselves, for while they may have claimed allegiance to the Son of Man, they are far from his mind, having believed some demonic lie, and cannot grasp love as the principle of the kingdom nor Jesus in the person of the needy.

The first group is inited into the kingdom: “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” - this kingdom is what the world is supposed to be like. They are invited in for they have already chosen the kingdom and lived the kingdom in their showing love to and seeing Jesus in the poor.

The second group is sent to the place prepared, not for people, but for the devil, for they have chosen the lies of the devil, even though they call the Son of Man Lord, and so they get their choice of living where the great “Me” is the rule. And without God’s brakes such a pseudo-kingdom of “Me” is “eternal fire.”

Brothers and Sisters, we are making our choices

We understand the asceticism of the saints as a big no to demonic lies and a struggle for self-control over against materialism in all forms to gain lives focused on Christ. That is the meaning of the great fast and all its ascetic practices. It is a breaking free in order to be available to live the kingdom.

We understand the charity of the saints in all their forms as the applying of the love of Jesus to the needy they saw around them for they saw Jesus in them. That is the application of the freedom gained in asceticism to living in the kingdom already.

And both are founded on a heartfelt relationship with Jesus we express in prayer and devotion.

We make choices every day as to whether we will follow the culture around us to materialist fire or follow the saints and Jesus to “the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” May God’s grace and mercy be with us as we choose, for choices soon become habits, and ultimately our choices are our destiny.