Today, 16 june 2019

What does God expect from us? In what can we satisfy Him, in order that His wrath doesn’t turn against us? These questions, and especially in such incorrect way, always interest us. The prediction of Isaiah, which we read today, answers to it with reprimands in important things and what are most unpleasant, very familiar things...

What does God expect from us? In what can we satisfy Him, in order that His wrath doesn’t turn against us? These questions, and especially in such incorrect way, always interest us. The prediction of Isaiah, which we read today, answers to it with reprimands in important things and what are most unpleasant, very familiar things. God speaks through the prophet about ingratitude, infidelity and cruelty. In the first part of the prediction read today, God binds the adversities reaching us with the fact that we do not know our Master. "Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more" - exclaims the prophet. Well, which adversities do we have to undergo again to see that their reason is in the fact that we left the Holy Israel? Which wars and revolutions, repressions and impoverishments are still necessary for us, so that we can see all the ungodliness of our life, cease to do evil and learn to do good?

Lately it seems to us that we have seen that, and began to take place what we call "the religious revival" of our world. And of this speaks God: "When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? ". Terrible words. Can it be true that God doesn’t want us to come to His House? But it is even more terrible what He says further: "… when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood." It comes out here that we can "renew" everything in big quantities, but not be heard and not have mercy for one simple reason: our hands are full of blood.

It turns out that instead of a pompous cult and abundant offerings, God completely needs something different from us: "... seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."God speaks to us today that only like that, by fulfilling His law of mercy to the neighbor, we shall be able "to eat the good of the land". Otherwise, whatever we do: "if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword".