WHAT ABOUT THE JUDGING?

A point about “the judging”, as Peter Cook and Dudley Moore memorably put it. “As God is my judge” was an old oath-like phrase. And most of us have an image of such judgement, whether Michelangelo’s or otherwise.

At yesterday’s Gaudete Mass, however, our small hyperactive Algerian priest made a point in his homily that I found interesting, and perhaps consoling, enough to share. The Epistle reading was James 5:9 “Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.” And Fr Jean-Kamel said: “Don’t get this wrong. God will not judge you. God does not judge. God only loves. It is you who will judge you. How? Because God will confront you, as you are, with the immensity, the glory and the absoluteness of His love. And when He does that, you will judge yourself. And if and when you have judged yourself, you will be forgiven, and accepted, and loved.” Rather breathtaking, I thought. Possibly heretical? But when you think it through it makes sense, even orthodoxly. Food for thought; and for rejoicing. Perhaps. 

A GOOD ASKING

This mosaic of St Ephrem is the oldest image I could find: an 11C mosaic from the Nea Moni monastery 
on the Greek island of Chios. He looks as if he has just seen the ghost of Mani threatening him. 

I was looking up the 4th-century St Ephrem of Syria, nicknamed "the harp of the Holy Spirit" for his Syriac hymns, and came across "the Prayer of St Ephrem" which is part of the Orthodox liturgy and which I found simple and touching:

O Lord and Master of my life, give me not the spirit of idleness, meddling, lust for power and idle talk.

But grant unto me, Thy servant, a spirit of wisdom, humility, patience and love.

Truly, Lord and King, grant me to see mine own faults and not to judge my brother. For blessed art Thou, world without end. Amen.

The "wisdom" in the second line is sophrosunè in Greek, which is a kind of general intelligent sanity of life: it is traditionally translated as "chastity" but in modern terms something like "wisdom, discernment, integrity, simplicity" and/or a mixture of all of those seems more accurate.