9781644135945

The Light of the World
all-wise, all-holy, and the most just God. We must all make answer to Him who “searcheth
the reins and the hearts” (Apoc 2:23). “Lord, Thou has proved me and known me; Thou
hast known my sitting down and my rising up. Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off ”
(Ps 138:1–3). The liturgy reminds us that if we keep the thought of the coming judgment
in mind, we shall perform our duties more correctly, form a much more correct appraisal
of our trials, sufferings, joys, and successes in life.
He who redeemed us on the cross because of His love for us, is also to be our Judge.
He has done all that He could do to draw us to His love and to induce us to model our lives
after His own holy life. During our life on earth He keeps Himself concealed from us and
maintains a continual silence whether men serve Him faithfully or sin against Him. But
He cannot and will not remain forever silent. At the moment when our life is at an end,
when the union between body and soul is broken, He will assert His complete dominion
over the soul. He will appear then as the Lord and Master. Fortunate will we be if we can
appear before Him clean and unspotted and say to Him: “Show us Thy face, and we shall
be saved” (Ps 79:4). Woe, then, to all those who have forgotten Him; His appearance will
strike terror into their hearts. Woe to those who have transgressed His commandments, to
those who have rejected His truth and His grace, who have been unfaithful to His Church,
and who have slandered and maligned it. Woe to those who have lived after the fashion of
this world. They will tremble with fear when He takes into His royal hand the scepter and
passes judgment upon them.
Those things in which we have failed, whatever we have omitted or done out of self-will, whatever
we have done out of pride or self-interest, will have to be submitted to the scrutiny of
the judge. In so far as we have allowed our heart to become attached to creatures, we shall be
obliged to acknowledge the emptiness and vanity of all creatures. In those things in which our
hearts have wandered away from God, they must now return to Him. If our heart has found
its rest in a life that knew no prayer or self-denial, it will now awaken to a sense of confusion
and abandonment. If in our present life there is much injustice, if virtue is not rewarded but is
rather penalized while vice triumphs, in that day the right order will be restored. The Lord will
set everything in its proper place.
The Lord will come also as the rewarder. Then the just will receive the reward of their faith
and of their patience, and they shall look upon the gentle face of Christ. Then those who have
followed Him and have daily borne His cross, those who have fought for Him, suffered and
mortified themselves for Him, will enter into peace. Woe to those who have resisted God and
His holy will, and who die in that state. God will have no choice but to punish them. All those
who have resisted God will be banished from His presence (Ps 9:4).
“Be sincere and without offense unto the day of Christ” (Epistle). The Lord Himself has
pointed out the way that we are to follow: “Judge not and you shall not be judged” (Lk 6:37).
And the Apostle exhorts us: “But if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1
Cor 11:31). We should pass judgment on ourselves in our examination of conscience, in our
daily meditation, and in the confessional. Woe to us for our unrepented sins, for our failures in
fraternal charity, for the false judgments we have made, for our sinful speech, for our dishonest
dealing, for our neglect of meditation and self-examination. “If we would judge ourselves, we
should not be judged.”
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