In his sermon on October 3, 2021, His Beatitude Onuphry, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine, said that in order to show one’s love for God, one should collect good deeds, like grains of gold are collected in order to become a bar of gold.
The Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church emphasized that it is important to strive to fulfill the commandments of love: “To love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mark 12:30), which means putting God above everything, and “loving your neighbor as yourself ”(Mark 12:31).
Without love for God, our so-called “love” for our neighbors is disfigured, just commerce, said His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. And real – sacrificial love – arises only when a person joins Divine love.
The metropolitan noted that love unites a person with God.
“If the groom does not love the bride, and the bride does not love the groom, this marriage cannot take place. And if it does take place by mistake, it will not bear any good results: there will be quarrels, hatred, anger, etc.”, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry said and added, “God is perfect, He does not need anything from us. But we need His love, which means we partake of the Divine love.”
To love God means fulfilling His commandments on a daily basis, without waiting for some “great deeds of love,” the Archpastor noted.
“For example, a man is on the subway, someone stepped on his foot and didn’t apologize. We must not be resentful, but forgive. Or someone didn’t offer their seat to an elderly, we should not think “Look at this young person, they are sitting, lost in their cell phones, and don’t even notice that I can barely stand here.” Forgive him or her. These are such small everyday things with which we show love, collect small grains of [good deeds]. And then these grains will combine into a large bar of gold, which we will take with us into Eternity,” said His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry.
At the end of the sermon, the metropolitan encouraged those present to love God and to show their love for Him not with loud declarations, but with daily good deeds.
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