This last Sunday of the liturgical year shocks us with a powerful, dramatic scene: the “universal judgment” that unveils the ultimate truth of living, the revelation when all fails, of what is genuinely eternal: LOVE.
In Genesis, God asked Cain: Where is your brother? At the judgment, Jesus will point at it.
In Matthew, he has a final statement: Because you did or didn’t! – It does so by listing six works, but then it expands: what you did to one of my little brothers, you did to me!
Extraordinary: Jesus establishes such a close bond between himself and those suffering that he identifies with them: you did it to me! The suffering person is far from being abandoned by God; we punch God’s heart when fellow humans have no regard for brother or sister.
Our church challenges souls to embody God’s Word and fulfill our mission through this time of grace; once that time is over, judgment will spotlight what was indeed significant:
1) Jesus doesn’t decry lack of veneration but their reluctance to assist the smallest of his loved ones.
2) Jesus will consider your goodness and mercy, not evil. Man, religion, and history are measured by their creative ways to help and save, not reckoned by sins.
3) No comment on personal church habits, but on how they helped you console your neighbor’s pain. At the evening of life, we will be judged only on love (St. John of the Cross).