Ever since history began, man fallen away from Paradise has tried to kill God. Since the time of the fall, God’s presence has been an unbearable wound for man, a cunning killer. It triggered the memory of Paradise lost, filling him with pain and indignation; it became his inner revolt when he recalled how beautiful and good he had been; it triggered the gnashing of his teeth at the thought of the lost Father’s embrace, in which Adam had leaned his head on the Father’s bosom and heard God’s heartbeat.
Orphaned, amidst the thorns of the earth and his own passions, man tried to destroy every image that would raise up his mind to the Lover of mankind and extinguish every gleam of the thought of the bliss of Paradise. He started erasing every reminiscence of God, His beautiful face, inspiring look, every angelic voice, every flap of the wings, the celestial fragrance, the taste of heavenly fruits—in a word, any sparkle of love in his heart.
However, the entire world, alas, continued to remind him of God—of the lost gifts, the love that is above our nature, the everlasting light, and the lost hopes. Then, frantic with spite, man began to do his best to kill God. First he killed God in himself, kissing and idolizing deaf and blind matter, cutting off all the “arteries of light” in his “spiritual body”, plunging himself into non-existence, playing with death, giving himself up to the most rabid passions.
Next he set about killing God in nature. Everything reminded him of God. Every instance of a bird twittering reminded him of Paradise. So he slaughtered birds and stopped up his ears in order not to hear their song. All kinds of flowers would hurt him, reminding him of the ineffable Garden of love. So he eradicated flowers, with indescribable fury and hatred mowing them and tearing them out by the root. A child’s smile would break his heart, so he began exterminating children. He ruined their childhood by teaching them to lie, steal, hurt and murder. He littered and polluted all of nature in the search for comfort and energy, for he had neither the peace of Paradise nor the uncreated energies of heavenly grace anymore.
Then he set about killing God in fellow humans. First he slew the naïve Abel, then all those who were not of his tribe, kin, religion, race etc. Thus wars appeared from the need to kill God. However, God was so far away, so high and inaccessible for man made of the dirt that he started killing the image of God in other people he met. Hence various murderous ideologies, racism, epidemics of diseases invented in labs, abortions with millions of babies massacred in the slaughter houses called “mothers”, chemicals that ruin everything under the pretext of “curing”, pharmacies with synthetic nightmares, pills against life and especially eternal life.
But God persisted in living, since He is eternal. And then man started killing himself at every moment of the death called “life” to destroy the image of God in himself. Conscience, a sense of guilt and pain after committing a murder—all of this cannot be torn away from the depth of the human soul in any other way than through suicide. Hence euthanasia, drugs (that offer pleasure in exchange for life), depression as a result of the absence of God, and so on.
In the twilight of history, God Himself shone forth on earth to tell us about our new home, our new life, our new and eternal citizenship—the Heavenly Kingdom. And guess what man did? He put God Who became man to death. He invented various ruses and tricks, shook his head at the sight of miracles, closed his ears so as not to hear the life-giving words, closed his eyes at the sight of numerous cures, found “rational explanations” for the whole universe of the wonders of the life of Christ. And then he executed Him with the hatred accumulated from the very dawn of history. But Christ rose from the dead, ascended to heaven and drew humanity (infected by death) to Himself through His resurrected Body—that is, the Church.
God is unkillable. By trying to kill Him in ourselves we kill ourselves. By driving Him away from our lives we throw ourselves out of being, for we are animate dust. By striving to forget His love we plunge ourselves into the total oblivion called hell.
But, nevertheless, God, the holy Call of eternity, comes every time we call Him, even when He knows that we will kill Him later. He is so close that a single thought will be enough for Him to come and give us peace. A hand given to a beggar is enough for Him to stretch a helping hand to us and get us out of the depths. A smile given to a stranger is enough for Him, the Creator, to smile to us in secret. A piece of bread offered to an unfortunate wretch is enough for Him to give us the Bread of life, His Body of Eucharist, the Communion. And we need nothing except a tear of pain and repentance to see Him, the weeping Light to the world.
