Anaphora Prayer: "We offer You, Yours of Your own, in behalf of all and for all"

This prayer comes from the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy. Most people, when they look at this prayer, notice the offering of "Yours of Your own" to God, and recognize that the prayer is talking about the sacrificial offering of Christ at the altar.

What struck me today, as I listened during Divine Liturgy, was the latter portion: "in behalf of all and for all." Who are the "all"? Does all mean all members of the Church? All persons living on earth? All persons on earth and those deceased? Or, does all refer to something more encompassing than man alone, such as all creation?

Certainly the redemption of man is the main concern of Christ in his sacrificial offering. This is clear in Christ's priestly prayer, just before he offers himself up (John 17). However, it should be noted that redemption affects not man alone but all creation. The New Covenant brings forth a New Creation in which all things are made new. The Bread and Wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, and God's divine energies permeate and transform all things unto him. I believe St. Irenaeus said something similar with his theme of "recapitulation" of all creation into Christ. St. Paul, even earlier, writes: And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10)

God is Good, but what does this mean?

The priest at my church has asserted, as do other Orthodox I've read and heard, that God is Good. I completely agree with this. This is the teaching of the Church since the beginning, and can even be seen in God's abiding love for the Israelites during the Old Covenant. Where I am having difficulty understanding God's goodness is when it comes to suffering. According to "A prayer in time of trouble," found in my Antiochian Pocket Prayer book, "[A]ll trials of this life are given by Thee for our chastisement, when we drift away from thee, and disobey thy commandments." Does this then mean that every suffering I have is sent by God? Perhaps I did not understand my correctly (which is quite possible) but the way he was speaking made it sound as though God does not harm us in any way--that our sufferings are not of God. If all suffering is of God for our chastisement, then what of horrendous sufferings--such as the Holocaust, the Gulags, wars, chronic illnesses, and so on. Did God send these for our chastisement? Recently, I have read a book on Father Isidore, a simple Russian monk. At one point in the book, Fr. Isidore tells a sickly monk that he should rejoice in his illness, since his illness shows that God loves him. Perhaps I am not thinking correctly, but I always saw sufferings as the work of the Devil, perhaps transformed by God to our benefit, but nonetheless the work of the Devil working in a fallen world.

My priest never has spoken of God's wrath, or God's anger, but only of God's mercy. Now, I come from a Roman Catholic background, and although the "Hell homilies" no longer are vogue in Roman Catholic churches today, I know that, until recently, there were, and still may be found in some traditional churches. Yet, from what I can tell, the Orthodox do no really concern themselves with the "wrath of God," of God's "righteous anger" at man for sin. They focus instead on God's mercy and the need to repent, not because God is angry and will destroy us if we don't, but because it is what we need to do to receive forgiveness.