Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as with the third preparatory Sunday before Great Lent!

Today the Holy Orthodox Church prepares us for the struggle of Great Lent with the remembrance of the future Dread Judgement. Today’s Gospel reading was about this. Of course, remembering that each of us will be called to answer before God for our deeds cannot but encourage us to more seriously consider our spiritual lives and seriously think about the need to truly repent of our sins.

Although in today’s Gospel reading our Lord Jesus Christ describes, in the most expressive manner, the Judgement, He was not the first to bring up this topic. The Old Testament prophets also discuss the Last Judgement. We’ve been discussing these holy men for three months now. Out of the twelve minor prophets, we have discussed everyone except for the Holy Prophet of God Joel, who in his short but expressive and beautiful book brings up two main themes: repentance and the Dread Judgement, or, as he calls this event, the Day of the Lord.

We know practically nothing about this holy prophet. Most probably Joel was from Judea and preached in Jerusalem. In his book, he does not mention the Assyrians, Chaldeans, or the Persians, and therefore it is difficult to pinpoint when exactly he lived and preached. Modern scholars of Holy Scripture believe that he is one of the later prophets, but many Church Fathers, interpreters of the Bible, such as St. Ephraim the Syrian and Blessed Jerome, on the contrary, thought that he was one of the earlier ones.

The short book of the Holy Prophet Joel can be divided into two sections. In the first part, Joel reacts to an awful disaster which befell the Jews at that time – the invasion of locusts, which destroyed all of the harvests as well as the pastures for the animals. The Holy Prophet Joel preaches that such a catastrophe must be viewed as a call to fervent repentance. He also writes that the Lord accepts heartfelt repentance and, without a doubt, will restore that which was lost.

In the second part of his book, Joel turns his attention to the distant future, to the Day of the Lord, when all nations, all people will gather in the valley of Jehoshaphat, where they will all be judged. Those who believe in the Lord will be justified and will live in peace without any needs, while those who spoke and acted against the Lord and His chosen people will be deprived of all comforts. Many of the images that are used by the Prophet Joel in the second section of his book are literally repeated by our Lord Jesus Christ in His teaching about the Dread Judgement.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, let each of us today, a week before the beginning of Great Lent, hear the voice of the Holy Prophet of God Joel and accept all the troubles, grief, and misfortunes that each of us comes up against as a call to repentance. Let’s endeavour to not become angry, to not fall in spirit, to not search for someone to blame, to not attack others for our grief. If we learn to act in such a way, even the most awful events, despite everything, will bring us closer to God. In such a way, we will prepare ourselves for the Dread Day of the Lord and, God willing, inherit a place prepared for the righteous.

priest Alexis