Aziz Matta

Is the purpose of one’s profession to make a living? [Surely] it is a means for it since we have to live. Yet, livelihood can be made by any profession. Thus, there is the question of choosing it and the person might be confused in that concern. All professions yield. Thus, there is a taste for this profession or that. There is an element other than the financial one. There is [a possibility for a] work that accompanies our inner reality, i.e., there is an enthusiasm of existence and the feeling of the necessity to produce through certain instruments and with different tastes. In order to obtain money there is the manner for creation, self-realization and the conviction of the person that something calls him/[her] to walk the path, which is part of him/[her]self. Profession is an expansion of the self, similar to the language that we use, or the clothes that you put on.

Thus, there has been the need for creativity, or that which we thought it is; in the sense that it might be frail. However, it is our contribution since there is kind of an inner drive which makes you feel that it is present in the work that you offer. Thus, you emerge through that which you produce and you receive from it some of existence.

Years ago, I have noticed that the food which a woman provides is definitely better than what another presents, though the used materials are the same. What is the difference between the two?

There is kind of creation, a kind of creativity, and a personality that is committed to the food or to its preparation. So are the properties at home. How did these come skillfully, while others appear in a studied manner? There are many innovators in the economic society, except in those huge industries, where there is no big space for subjectivity in production.

In creativity, there is praise to God the Creator; a kind of an expansion of God’s creativity or God’s participation, as Christian theology expresses itself [in these terms]. There is a kind of unity [or commonality] between us and God which elevates the material that we produce to a state higher than its being merely touched by our humanity. If it were other than this there would be a separation between humanity and divinity, and the earth would not have heaven as its goal, or as if there is subject cut-out from its predicate, or an ‘alpha’ which does not expect its ‘omega’, or as if there is a creation which was found in order [merely] to observe.

This is why economics will end up as theology. If it were otherwise, God would not be the source of everything. Is the human being thrown into the world in order to produce or to praise [God], i.e. to praise as he/ [she] produces?

You would be working with others; not only in the case of huge industries, but also in a simple factory for wood-work. Nevertheless, the feeling of unity presumes a spiritual community rather than a dry political society, built on collectivism in place of cooperation. A spiritual community, in a mysterious sense, is one entity or one existent, having an organism, and is to be conceived as one regardless of its plurality. This does not mean falling apart. To fall apart is a sin and it is contrary to sharing and the inner interpenetration among the existents.

What saves humanity is that money does not interfere in all domains, and thus, they do not become blurred. Blessed is the person who does not attach importance to money and acquires only little of it. At that point, one is free and is not forced to lie. When Socrates was asked by those who passed judgment on him, how could you prove your honesty? He said: I am poor. One of the greatest painters, Van Gogh, had died as indigent. This did not prevent the beauty of his works. The great, great ones, in all areas of art, most of the times experience financial lack. The creative one is then free.

All the saints were poor and were striving to live in poverty, in order that they might own the only treasure that is God, through whom they could give up everything. Those did not have something to eat, drink, or something to shelter them or to clothe them. The ‘nothing’ for them was the condition for the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, according to the statement of St. Seraphim of Sarov. Poverty was for them the guarantee for their emergence.

This dispossession is a condition to till the earth, as God has ordered us at creation. God has made it a possession with the condition of work, and in this way the human being comes to be on the image of his/[her] Lord. “My Father is working still, and I am working.” (John 5: 17)

The purpose of work is the human being and not production for its own sake. The purpose of work is the growth of the human being in virtue, and not constructions of thought or stone. This accompanies human advancement, which needs much complexity in order to occur. It might seem that we are after a culture that is about intellectual and material levels established for their own beauty. And the truth is that the purpose behind all our establishing of cultures is the joy of the human being by the angelic [or heavenly] state, which one might attain, and his/[her] establishing cultures is an image of divine life which cares for us from above.

The [notion of] work was in the paradise before Adam’s Fall, and the present world is the recovered paradise, or this is how it is hoped to be. However, this might not be realized unless each one of us does not complete his/[her] existence through that which descends upon him/[her] from above. Thus, that which is heavenly in our hearts unites with the earth that makes us, and at the very end nothing remains in us other than divine light.

Whenever we exclude those who follow a special ascetic method, nothing remains for us other than to work, which makes us think and through it we serve, whenever we aspire [to work] as a path to virtue, which is alone our light.

As we are surrounded by work we become saints, and sainthood [or holiness] is in the relentless pursuit, which knows neither tiresome nor boredom. In modern societies researches revolve around production, so that the rich and their countries eat and remain entrenched to the earth, as if they were independent of heaven. They would let the poor and their countries die. Our Fathers were not mistaken when they said: all sins begin with devouring, since it settles your body and declares it as independent of the bodies of the saints.

We need to construct a new philosophy as the foundation for political economics, which might reveal to us a new human being. That is, we need to bring economics back to God, and the inner reality of the human being to his/[her] virtues and the greatest virtue is love, without which there would be neither earth nor heaven.

You might repent, as you are in your work, whenever you find a way to become a new human being who makes good. Has the time for the Church, the bride, come?

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “الأرض الجديدة” –An Nahar- 03.12.2011

God’s face is known only when projected on the face of human beings. And you cannot know yourself unless you see beauty in the face of others, that is if you consider them “beautiful” as you think you are. You come from him (the other) when you realize that he is not “ugly”. And the other will not be yours if you do not accept by faith that God has lifted away from him all ugliness. And the lifting away of ugliness does not come from Man, but from grace, that is it comes down on you. And you establish a kinship with God in the sense that you become related to the Lord. And because He sees Himself in you, He makes Himself your kin conjoining Himself to you and that strengthens your kinship to Him.

Your beauty does not come from outside you for God bestows it on you so you can become what you are called to become; and if you acquire much glory, it becomes the natural means for others to see the Lord in you.

The reflection of the Divine glory on you is impossible if your eyes behold other than God. God is revealed in Nature and it is His mantle. And when you read Him in it, you will “ascend” to Him with that reading; yet the center of nature is the human being, and it is in him, above all, you can “ascend” to the Lord.

Yes God is revealed in nature but His loftiest revelations are in Man. And God offers Man His beauty freely though God is not in need of him; while Man derives his richness from God only, God being the source. And when God pours of His love on one of us, that love reaches to the others but it is not from us. Love is imparted from God to whoever wants and He helps him with it such that if the person builds his reality on that love, then that Love will be able to reach whoever one wants. Man is a carrier of the Divine love after it has acted in him and wrought him in the sense that it is a life that you live such that when others sense it in you they would say: “That’s how the power of God changes people”.

If you do not become a new person who authentically acts in love, you remain one who only speaks of love and not one who has tasted it and been changed by it. If the Lord becomes your ideal that is you have become someone who is turned to Him, you become in His likeness. And he who is illumined, becomes a god, that is a beginner in deification, acquiring the attributes of God and in communion with Him. This entails the dismissal of all false gods and pretentiousness, that is you have to purify yourself always so that you receive from God only what He wants for you in the hope of you giving to others what you have received. And if you look at the faces of the illumined believers, you will behold the one light of the one God who reveals Himself in the same way in this person or that.

The oneness of God is revealed in the oneness of His manifestations; then you are like your brother, yet each one of you keeps his own personality and that unique manifestation of God in it. Holiness does not imply the dissolution of one in another. The one who unites is God, and his manifestations in different people are different. Such a difference accounts for the communion of saints. Communion presupposes variety and plurality in the manifestations of holiness and its actions; one person has a Church rank while another does not, this one is a monk while the other is a married man, this one is a martyr while the other is not. The manifestations of holiness are different yet their essence is one, and it is one in the oneness of holiness since this unity is in the Lord himself who is our holiness and its giver.

Holiness does not mean spiritual perfection. That pertains only to God. But holiness means that you want it (holiness); it means that you seek to be nothing before God and you see yourself as nothing on the path of striving for holiness. That means that you should know that you are a sinner, a broken one on whom God will have mercy.

Yet when the devil suggests to a person to mar his “face” because he is bored of God, then the Light will leave him. His being will be destroyed or at least it will crack. Each one of us is prone to falling, and as far as being virtue is concerned, none is guaranteed. Virtue is the result of daily strife and an awareness of our fragility and God’s protection for us. You have to seek after the Divine help always when you are attacked with seduction of any kind; or we would be getting a ticket to take us to “hell” which will “burn” us in this world and the coming one.

God’s face might shine on you to remove the ugliness that has dwelled in you. That is the business of His love which can make you grateful. And beauty might come back to you suddenly and not in stages. You learn much about sin; it educates you, it makes you cry, it hurts you. Keep what it has taught you in mind; be concerned for the downfalls without panicking because the trust you have in the Lord is more powerful than fright. In that you are pampered by God. You are in the bosom of His Fatherhood until He takes you back to Him and you “sleep” (i.e. die) in His mercy.

Your coming back to God can be of importance in that the brethren can benefit from your repentance; if they find “beauty” in that (your repentance), you would draw them to the beauty of your face when your God was visiting you, and then, with them, you come back to the communion of saints and you would become the Body of Christ.

Then you would know the freshness of what you have been dreaming of as if you have been “kidnapped” to Heaven and all what is in you would sing until you hear the sound of angels making music around the Throne; and you wonder asking “how come the angels sing a new song to the Lord?”

This angelic situation can obtain here in this world as you go about your daily job and service. Heaven is not a place; it is the depth of existence in you or your own depth in existence and those “depths” are God who gives you life as He beholds you. And when His goodwill is on you, do not seek anything else because nothing can be added above that.

I meant to say that, in this world, God is with us and in us and He fills the universe. That does not mean that God is mingled with what is created as in pantheism; He is distinct from the Creation and is above it, but He is “strewn” in the universe or else He would be considered as “absent” from the creation.  Therefore, as the Orthodox say, our relationship with Him comprises our seeing Him in His Energies; and when you see Him in you and in the universe then it means that you have accepted Him. But if you see Him “dissolved” in the material and psychic existence, then it means you had denied Him as Creator.

The issue here is that the Creator is always “up there” and always “down here”. And if you do not receive Him as one with you and in you, then there is no real creation (new birth). Creatorship carries createdness in the sense that the Lord, being the Creator, is in an ongoing movement towards you (the created) and you are always beholding Him. Creatorship has no end. The Lord did not make an object that He would throw away. He shepherds it or else it would become lifeless. All what is of our being of mind, spirit, soul and body exists through the Divine Providence; the former is an expression that implies the continuance of “creation” or in other words the continuance of God’s embrace (lit. bosoming) of the creature.

Between you and your Lord, there must be an encounter; that is your face is towards His face in order that His face would forge yours. And if you become intimate with Him to the point of constant companionship, then that would be a union – one in which there is no dissolution. He would “put you on” and you would “put Him on” as St. Paul says in 1Cor. 6: 17 “The one who joins himself to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.”

At that words become powerless and tasting (experiencing) takes over.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “وجه الله” –An Nahar- 26.11.2011

Human relationships are ones of boldness or fear. The one of boldness comes from the faith one has in his power or his prerogatives. Yet our faith in prerogatives and rights does not always lead us to confrontation even though it might lead us to martyrdom; and martyrdom is not always in need of human power but of a conviction in the believer that God who is in us will speak for us defending us even though the defense might lead to the shedding of our blood.

And you have courage because you are certain of your orthodoxy saying what you think in front of other humans being an individual or an audience that you address or write for. That is what the Arabs call moral courage. Yet at times you would be apprehensive of confronting though you are very certain that you are on the side of Truth.

St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “Be strong”, and before him the Lord has exhorted people for martyria in front of kings and rulers; and it is clear that His life was one of confrontation with others from the beginning of His mission until His death. And we also see the courage of the disciples before the Jews and the Gentiles and we know that most of them were martyred and during the three centuries of persecution, millions of believers accepted death enduring fire, and boiling oil and lions, because they were waiting for a better life. For them, life was being with Christ for whom at times we have to give up life in this world.

How come, at times, we fear someone we love? That implies that you would expect him to turn his back on you drawing his mantle of love away from you. Then you would lose the protection of his love. At that you would feel alone and when you get to chide him you would avoid that, fearing that you would lose his friendship. Then you would be cast only on God who takes care of you.

In that situation, your apprehensions would be misinterpreted by others as weakness and lack of faith; yet God reigns and you know it for sure while they do not, because God does not make claims and allegations; He inspires and reveals.

And though love casts out fear as John says in one of his epistles, the one who loves but is afraid feels that he cannot combat and at times loses his case in the argument. This happens much in groupings that in whose dealings there is much craftiness and deception.

The tragic in this is that the righteous are trampled over by the “deceivers” and sin hails as victorious; but it does so only seemingly until, by the grace of the Lord, the real truth is revealed.

You, be on the side of the weak especially the “underdogs” who often have purity of heart and weightiness of opinion while the oppressors “vanish” under the Lord who tramples them over with His wisdom because they try to appease Him to no avail; but the underdogs are the lords in His Kingdom and they are content with such a grace.

A question remains as to how to provide those poor of the earth with the power to combat the evil in this world so that the light of the Kingdom of God does not dwindle but is revealed. Here we call to mind Jesus’ words: “Be as wise as serpents and meek as doves”. The difficulty in this life is that some people are serpents and some are doves. How do we lead the wicked to meekness and how do we bring up the meek on dealing with the traps that some set up, to undo their (the traps) effects. When St. Paul says: “Love believes all”, does he mean that all what you hear others say is true? I do not think so, because we know that Paul had wisdom in how to manage different people differently and how to use Roman law in defense of himself before the procurator of Palestine. “Love believes all” must mean that one could believe, at times, those who usually lie. And what is atrocious is that at times we can do wrong to those who tell the truth (by not believing them). That would hurt them; but the Lord would have accepted their repentance while we do not because we do not believe them. Would that cause them to regret their good action (being honest) because we have considered them among the liars anew?

Learn boldness by seeking it from the Lord; for the fear you have has entrenched itself in you because of the complexes that have intertwined in your being and you have not been able to undo them with your own strength; but you feel that if you progress in the spiritual life you will receive power from above. The only armor you can put on is kindness and the word of God.

Yet many consider kindness a weakness because they measure it with the cruelty they use to gain authority; and authority, they think, makes them great. Be careful not to fall in the desire to oppress others so you can feel yourself powerful. There is nothing in that. Love those who oppose you for that would help them to make themselves better.

Learn how to combine kindness and strictness if you have to pass judgment on matters others oppose you with. You are responsible to bring your “opposer” to the Lord. It is not important to win the argument – or to lose it; what is important is to take your “opposer” by the hand and help him get closer to the Lord.

Yet there are those who know how to defend themselves and those who do not though they know they are oppressed by the other. One has to be careful not to become despotic but to harbor strictness with the compassion that he has. And if he remains weak, and that is not a demerit, then God will be his “mouthpiece” in this world and the one to come. Such a person has God and God alone.

We have learned from the Saints that gradually are trained in righteousness unless the Lord transforms you miraculously to the spiritual summit all at once. But train yourself in this spiritual power through which boldness waxes in you so that you become like the serpent in its cunning and the dove in its meekness; then the Lord will cover you with His wings.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الشجاعة” –An Nahar- 19.11.2011

The Church thrived in poor countries without a single institution, according to what the great Russian theologian Sergius Bulgakov said: “The Church is not an institution; She is life in the Holy Spirit”. As if he wanted to say that educational institutions and others do not necessarily make believers of people. It is well known that some of the avid atheists in the West did their studies at institutions run by monks. They say that in those institutions, there is a basic atmosphere of faith which might draw you to believe; this is true. And I know of some secular schools that also draw people to the faith. Recently,I have read somewhere that most of the Maronite priests of a certain Archdiocese have studied in public schools that did not offer any religious teaching.

I am afraid that the Church would feel that Her strength is in the institutions She has while Her power resides in Her holiness. During the Third Century in Jordan, The Church was called the Church of tents; that is, the members of the congregation lived in tents, the Bishopric was a tent and the Liturgy was celebrated in a tent; and there is no evidence that those who enjoyed the great Cathedrals had more piety than the Bedouin Christians. The Danish philosopher Kierkegard says: “No matter how high the walls of the monastery are, sin can still find a way to get in”. Solitude might help one in the spiritual life but not necessarily so for certain. The monks and priests and bishops might put you in a frame in which you remain and thus you do not progress spiritually. Spiritual life is not an insurance company; this life is poured on you from above and only from above. You might choose to be on fire with that life or you might remain frozen cold in your frame.

The big question you are in front of is where are your priorities and where do you expect healing to come from. You either live with the Lord and in Him and for Him and through Him or you have very little of the institutions. I have witnessed spiritual splendor in people who have been pastored by priests who have little education and I have witnessed spiritual lukewarmness in people who had a great spiritual guide. One of the poor parishes in my Archdiocese shows great compassion and care towards the needy among them. “O Man, all what there is but a ‘heart’”. And those of us on whom there is an anointing from the Holy One come from Churches that are not wealthy and bountiful but the Lord gives us the desire of our hearts.

Things in the Church run as if She does not believe that holiness in itself is effective and that there is a need for something to support Her. Everything indicates that the Church wants the language of the world and the ways of the world, and that She considers Herself as an alternative for the State; She even would not hesitate, if the State is weak or absent, to set Herself in the place of the State or to “put on Herself the garment of the State” instead of upholding it (the State) in its constitution and legitimacy.

What is not understood by those in charge of the Church is that Christ came to change the world and the logic of this world. When Jesus was standing in front of Pilate, He told him: “You do not have authority over me had it not been given to you from above”. Heaven has given you to kill me; and though it appears as if I submit to your judgment, but in reality I submit to my Father. If we do not use Christ’s logic, then automatically we are of the mind of the world; and we would adopt the ways of the world and empower ourselves with its power. With that we would be disparaging the logic of Christ (which is in reality, and is supposed to be our logic in the Church) and we would have borrowed a language from this world and believed in its efficacy and would have done away with Christ’s language in order to appear as intelligent as and more effective than our Christ.

Jesus of Nazareth came to change the language of history because He believes in the language that He made putting an end to the language of this world. We are thus in front of one question: Did Jesus come to us with a new language that revives the ear that listens to it and the heart in which it is poured or He brought us a rigid hard one? Would the reader of the Gospels realize that the meanings in there are not just a compilation of words and that the Music within is different from the tunes that mesmerize us and excite our desires?

If Christ dwells in you and works through you and is of your company, then you are an innovator. And I do not refer here to what is poetic in your words but to that which is poetic in your being; that which shakes you and shakes the world. At that you would be praying with the “Bedouins” and follow the “Bedouin” bishop to receive the Body and Blood and dispense with all man-made beauty that has been pushed on you or put in you. At that you become concerned not to betray and not to borrow the beauty of no one, or the words of no one or the uniqueness of no one except that of Jesus of Nazareth.

He incarnated in your flesh and bones – and more explicitly said, He took your being to give you His so you get transfigured even for just few moments. You would become a new human being by just touching the hem of His garment; and only such “touching” is what guides you.

You have to chose to be fully stripped of your world so that God would open for you the gates of His heaven and pour in your inside the garment of light. Those whose language (mind) has not changed would only see you as stripped and do not hear your “new language”; but you would be more splendid than all of them because you have mantled yourself with the mantle of light while they are still dressed in old rags that can cover nothing in them since they would get torn apart little by little.

Do not exchange the Lord’s language with platitudes. If you do, there will come a day when you yourself would forget the “language” of salvation and you might, thinking mistakenly, that you are supporting the Church of Christ with what you have borrowed for Her from this world. If you lose the gift of discernment you would lose everything. Discern what is Christ’s from what is not His, and dispense with the language of this world and its structures so that Heaven will make you a new ‘structure’ that seduces the mind and the heart at the same time revealing you as the icon of Christ. The icon is made with inspiration from above, totally different from human décor and design. What is important is that you avoid believing in external décor and that which is the product of human imagination only.

Christianity hails from the Holy Spirit. Take Him to your inside being so your being would come from above.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “مسيحية والمؤسسات” –An Nahar- 12.11.2011