Articles

The expression “civil marriage” denotes an engagement brought about by the civil society; that is it presupposes the existence of a civil society which in reality is the state. It also presupposes that the state is of an organic social structure which is vested with a legal code that can produce groupings which the citizens can belong to and one of those groupings is the family. So the family exists not only at the emotional level but also systematically under the umbrella of what resembles a structure; and in that we must consider the society as an entity with a legal aspect.

And no grouping can have a legal aspect unless it is an entity that is self-standing, that is it is complete in itself. A whole community is that civil grouping that has no legal partitions. That means that the social entity exists in itself as a whole society and not one composed of parts like religious sects. The latter have their own entities; and groupings of religious sects together do not make a society in the social understanding of the word. And you belong to the social entity as a citizen, and not as one belonging to your religious sect which is grouped together with other sects in that society. Your sect does not give you the “passport” of belonging to the society.

In the Christian view, the subject of belonging is considered dealt with from the point that religious groupings do not make up the civil society. Of course my starting point in that is the Christian view since in Islam the view is different. In Christianity, the Church is not a part of the civil community; Her liaison is with Life Eternal. That is She is not linked to the community of this world. In the Islamic expression, we say that there is “this world” (Dunia in Arabic) and also there is “the hereafter” (Aa’khira in Arabic) and between the two there is no association.

In my Christian conviction I find it necessary to deal with the civil society in one way and with the Ecclesiastical society in another. We need to distinguish between the two levels to understand the problematic we are facing.

There is a civil society in which the religious identity has no consideration. That statement is a Christian statement of course. For me, that is the only view which helps us with a duality which is good and productive; the duality of the civil (this age) and the eschatological (the age to come) even though what is of the age to come is present in the current civil life. This is so because there is no one affiliation or belonging that is not associated with that of the other. You are of “this world” (the civil) and of the “coming world” simultaneously and you move through both of them though they are distinct from each other. “You are in this world but not of this world.” (John 17: 11-16). Those words are from Jesus of Nazareth and through those words He reveals to us that we are in this world, in its hardships and in its delights, and that in this sojourn we are called and drawn to the Kingdom of God. With all our abilities, understanding and strength, we work in this world with the rationale of this world; yet we do that in the expectancy of the world to come as our Holy Books tell us. We do not deny the worldly situation we are in, but we do not sink in it so that we can work for this world and the coming one at the same time. We have in this world the rationale of the coming one and the experience of its beauties and a yearning for them; and at the same time we have to struggle in this world without getting drowned in it. And this world has its systems and laws and we find in this world ways and life in the Holy Spirit through which we taste what is forthcoming of the KIngdom.

The civil society of this world yearns for the age to come but it follows the systems of this age. And speaking of this we understand that the logic of this age leads to the founding in it of institutions one of which is that of marriage. Marriage, though it yearns for the age to come, has foundations taken from this life we are in. Marriage, in Christianity and Islam, has a sanctity that is “managed” by God though the laws of marriage are different between the two religions. So at the start of Christianity, which used to favor forming a family through believer spouses, the Christians were few and mixing with the Pagans in marriage was inevitable; and marriage had no “crowning ceremony” till after the seventh century A.D. Also the Church did not require the Pagan party to get baptized in order to have the ceremony. That does not mean that the first Christians did not consider marriage holy when one of the spouses was not Christian. And it is known that at the start of Christianity marriage, though held as sacred by the believing party did not carry with it a condition for both parties to be Christian.

And it is clear from the letters of St. Augustine who died in 117 A.D. that marriage used to be held at times with a Pagan partner and what we have as the “crowning service” in weddings was not there at the beginning though it was necessary for the spouses-to-be to acknowledge, without a ceremony, before the Bishop their desire and willingness to marry each other; but it was necessary to go through some formalities of the Roman law. So the Church did not have any Church celebration or ceremony for marriage though the approval of the Bishop was necessary. People used to marry before the Roman administration according to Roman law. And that – with the blessing of the Bishop – was enough since the wedding itself was considered sacred. But what we call “the Crowning Ceremony” was used to be a Divine sanctification of the wedding. So the terms “civil marriage” and “religious marriage” were not in the “dictionary” of the Christians. If you loved a girl, whether Christian or Pagan, and married her according to Roman law, after asking the blessing of the Bishop, your marriage would be Christian. So, was that a civil or a Christian marriage? The question here does not stand. You hold a wedding before the civil authorities and then you go to Church to partake of the Eucharist; as such the Christian community knows and understands that your marriage is in the Lord.

So what is known now as the “Crowning Ceremony” did not exist before the Sixth or Seventh Century A.D. But the Christian wedding with the blessing of the Bishop (without a ceremony at the start but later) was the expression of marital willingness and love; and that is the Sacrament.

The early Christians saw marriage as having sanctity in itself; and the Bishop would express that presence of sanctity in the union of the spouses. And marriage starts with a covenant and continues through faithfulness. There is no difference whether it is called “civil” if it had no outer expression or “Ecclesiastical” because it is based on the eternity of love. Every marriage covenant is associated with the state (the Polis) and its systems since the marriage is of this world and it also is associated with the Church which is the Body of Christ. What is important is the covenant we make in marriage and the acceptance by God of that covenant.

We are not against the civil form that exists in the state, but he who sees himself as a member of the Church, we pray for him in his marriage and accept him in his marital love and we make of his marriage an offering; and we both rise through each other to that spiritual marriage that exists between Christ and His Church.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الزواج المدني” – An Nahar – 09-02-2013

The feasts have gone by and we are back to daily routine. And in the understanding of peoples and religions, feasts break monotony and the aim is to get you out of the routine of time to place you in the eternity of the feast whereby the remembrance (of the feast) is not merely the imagination of something in the past but a summoning of the past to “nail” it to the present in such a way to bridge the gap between the present and the past. As if you get bored with what seems to you futile or morbid in our temporal time and you get to the “rendezvous” (the memory of the feast) and that brings with it the promise of blessings and the revelation of the Divine Beauty; as if the “rendezvous” breaks through the present time and transports you to the mystery of the Eternal and the choice of the Holy.

And so, the feast saves you from boredom and ennui, from the “hell” of morbidity to lift you up to what is above, to the dynamism of beauty in the “people of Abraham” -the Church – who has placed Herself in the beauty that comes down upon her, the Beauty of the Lord. The people of the Divine Book associate themselves with the remembrance of events that started with Abraham “the Father of Monotheism” and formed a holy history framed in the general history of Man; but it is a history that God has wrought in Man’s time; it is not of Man.

The believers see themselves involved with events that God has wrought and meant them to be salvation to people; that is a type of events cast into the Holiness of Eternity. And they are events brought about by God through prophets, as they are called in monotheistic religions, or through Saints who are chosen by God for their holy path in life; God teaches us through them or He writes His acts in them so that we can read Him and not them.

And the believers feel that the life events of Jesus or those of the Prophets or the Saints, are of the spiritual richness that convey to us salvation or reminds us of it as if we could forget about it if we do not remember it. What happens boosts our spiritual life, and we in turn endeavor to keep that “boost” as a stir in us not only on the feast day but in such a way that all the days of the year would be filled by the remembrance of the feast; that is away from languor and fatigue and drawn upwards to the power of God revealed in His saints. We like to pick what we register and keep; do not we accept things slipping with the time which is ever-present and changing as Heraclitus said? How would we soar spiritually if we accept to throw into oblivion the great spiritual happenings that the Savior has accomplished, or those done by His ancestors according to the flesh since Abraham, or those done by the apostles and all those who came from His holiness after He arose from the dead?

What is of interest to the believer is whether his life gathers what is of this time to itself; or Eternity, which is in his present life, gathers what is of Eternity to it. Of course, after the Resurrection, all what is Divine in the life of the Lord is cast on every Divine sigh in the soul of the righteous since it is the Holy Spirit, which He sent from on the Cross and after the Resurrection, Who is the One who establishes the saints.

We imitate each other in the Church, so we become similar to each other because we have received the same Grace and so we make the one core of the holy with various aspects; and we get close to the tradition of the Saints though we have a different expression of saintliness and asceticism knowing that behind the many outer expressions there is one Sainthood.

Thus the feasts of Martyrs has a different significance from that of whom we call the Righteous, that is the ascetic; and the saintliness of the Monk is different in its expression from that of the married person though the meaning of purity is the same in one and the other. And since we seek holiness with all categories of the righteous, we get enriched with its several expressions so that God would illuminate with it every soul.

That spiritual richness seems different, in its external form and not in its content, among the saintly monks and the saintly married people, among the saintly kings and the saintly poor. This variety in spiritual richness and its forms urges us to “feed on” the saintliness of the various groups and all the salvific happenings of the life of the Lord. That is why we choose all what has come in the Gospel and the life of the righteous to make them sundry fountains of Holiness for ourselves. This is why we have multiform paths of holiness from which particular individuals among us can take one path or another as an example for them and as such our spiritual richness is increased and completed.

Due to the variety of aspects and richness of the saintliness we find in those who are righteous, we need all that variety among them so we can do like them and soar through them. And as such the Church finds more richness with every “saint” She discovers, richness in the “newness” of the manifestation of his saintliness. For that we must not neglect the study of a new “saint” to beatify him so that we do not become poor in our knowledge of saintliness. In the life of each Saint, there are particular sayings and details of his way of life which builds us up and lifts us; and we need to know and talk about them so that our spiritual treasure increases. This is why we need to learn about the life of righteous people here and there so we do not become spiritually poor. And we need to spread this knowledge over the days of the year. And so we have a feast, or a few, every day so that the Saints get “uncovered” for us when we remember them and thus each day of the year becomes richer in its spiritual meaning and content.

The feast is an eternity which we see in our present; we see with every “rendezvous” (that is the feasts) we have with time since we long for a rich now-present Eternity. That is why we appoint Feasts and we celebrate with Joy. In life we encounter many sorrows. That is why we long for a “piece of Heaven on earth” which we call the feast. Those who are patient and longsuffering seek it all the time. That is why I always wondered at the stories of those who used to have weddings and celebrations during the First World War. I used to think that it would be difficult for a person to marry during hard times.

During crises, the believer longs for grace that grants him understanding and good conduct; as such his conduct would sometimes be a “feast”. How do we bring down Eternity into the time we live in? How do we render the earth a Heaven and render all the believers a Heavenly sheepfold in spite of our sinfulness? How can all of life become a feast – a realm, on this earth, for God?

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “محبو الأعياد” – An Nahar – 02-02-2013

The Orthodox are now under attack because a group of them presented a political project dealing with the electoral legislation system. It is necessary here to make clear that the Orthodox who see themselves only of the Church refuse to be given another attribute since they do not recognize themselves as a united political grouping from which issues a certain party opinion. Had they generally agreed on a political position, they would have formed a sect in the Lebanese fabric something which they, in principle, disapprove of. But if the Country, in its constitution, speaks of them as a political grouping, then that is only few words said of them and not an opinion of the Orthodox people. So the Church does not call them to a binding position they have to take concerning the affairs of this world. And their Church does not get into dialogue concerning a political matter; and previously She has taken certain patriotic stands with patriotic dialectics. There is what is called the “Holy Synod” in the Orthodox people and that is the group of Bishops of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq who have taken in recent years certain positions concerning the Arab Region namely the occupied territories of Palestine; and in that the Synod disapproved of Israel. And they have taken other positions that are linked to Syria or Lebanon and we find no reference in them to the Orthodox alone. None of them made a claim concerning the Church’s position on any matter since none of them are commissioned to do so; and because we, the Orthodox, disapprove of having a unity among the Orthodox people in the field of politics since we work for the unity of the Lebanese people; the unity among the Orhtodox come is in their prayers and service to people. But if some of them get together due to some closeness of thought among them in serving the country, then who would owe them anything or has a thing against them? Do not people everywhere do that? So why this campaign against them as if the rest of the Lebanese are quiet concerning their rights and interests and the continuity of their positions and privileges in the nation; as if they are like angels who have attained to a civil or secular vision for the country. The Orthodox are accused of religious fanaticism as if the rest are exempt from that. “He among you who is without sin, let him throw the first stone.” I do not know of a religious group that does not seek to keep what it has gained in what is called the “common life” of this country.

Do you not see that behind many positions, voiced in nationalistic terms and language, claims of self-interest of this religious group or the other? And here I think that no one is qualified to give lessons of nationalistic devotion and purity to any of the others. And I do not find one religious group which is ready to sacrifice on the altar of the nation what it has gained of privileges. And if you feel that some of the Orthodox have caught a little the virus of sectarianism, that is because this pollutant is already disseminated in the country.

In that, religious minorities cannot determine the end of national debates since the majority alone is effective there.

I can understand that one of the majority might be patriotic and civilized enough in being ready not to dominate, but it is clear that the minorities offer spiritual principles and attitudes to the others in the country and yet make no changes in the political status.

Not one person of those who follow on the affairs of this country can be convinced that one religious denomination has gone ahead of the others in calling for establishing a country on non-sectarian basis. I do not believe that those who throw blames on others calling them sectarian do so because they and their group have “dwelled already in the paradise of secularism”.

People used to write against sectarianism and recently they added the term “denominational” due to what they consider of disagreement between the Sunnis on one side and the Shiites on the other; and now the term is being used anew in “stoning” the Orthodox with it as if the rest of the Christians are far from the love of this world and its glories. The fanaticism which is at work in this country requires large numbers of people in one denomination for it to be effective. How can the Orthodox who do not exceed three hundred fifty thousand in a country of four million, threaten the peace and unity of that country?

Nowadays we find much mentioned about the Orthodox be it praise or disparagement or both; their friends and their rivals, see them as a group that is politicized in one direction; but that is not true. They are not the best “nation” given to people since among them are those who do what is good and those who do what is bad; but they are a distinct group that has no “dreams” of ruling the country even though they live in it; and they desire what is good to all people since they feel they are at their service. And their religious beliefs do not keep them from serving with what they have been given of gifts.

Perhaps one does not look down at Her (the Orthodox Church) due to its littleness, and perhaps you get attracted to Her in what She has inherited of richness of history and of beautiful religious services which, if one wants, can be his way to the Lord. But that Beauty and Truth, She has received from the Lord. She is proud of that though She does not brag because She is responsible for what has come down to Her; and when She ignores what She has received, She worships Herself and becomes lost.

It is right for the one who has this great beauty of Byzantine worship to feel that he is “abducted” to the Heavens where he can realize that he has not reached the throne (of God) yet, but he can see it from far.

Such a person does not consider untrue what others see. I have no doubt that all people have inherited much of the “light” whether they have been faithful to it or not; and we go to them with the hope that is in us. No one can be saved unless he sees things that way and receives from them what he can. If the Orthodox get bound to their “flesh” and their world, they are nothing. But if they consider that they are rooted in their heritage and they come from that heritage, then they can become kings; and as such they become of God. He who practices the Orthodox way of worship can understand what Jeremiah says: “The breath of our mouth is the Christ of the Lord.” The Orthodox becomes “something” when he does not distinguish between his mouth and that of God; that is if he through devotion to God becomes able to utter the words of the Gospel after he has plunged himself in it.

He knows that the glory of the world passes quickly. He makes fun of those who seek to divide the glory of the world among themselves. Those stay in the world and do not become holy. But those who have inherited the Kingdom, live in this present time as a preparation to be “kidnapped” to the time in which Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead.

As such the Orthodox have no issues with anyone and themselves are not the issue.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الأرثوذكس في الميزان” – An Nahar – 26-01-2013

The Maronite Church and the Orthodox Church see the election of their Beatitudes, Patriarch Bshara al Ra’i and Patriarch Yuhanna X as leaders of the two Churches a great blessing that has come down on them from Heaven. And that is reflected splendidly in how the two Patriarchs deal with each other with a high degree of cogent love and brotherliness. The two Churches look towards that broad spiritual prospect, especially that they have realized that their greatest concern with the other Churches is to foster the knowledge of the Gospel and to “till” together the Lord’s field. And the Churches in the East look forward for this unified witness after having realized that the time now is for enkindling the “Divine gift” which they have inherited together from the one and only Beloved (Jesus).

Each of us, wherever he is, has become a servant to the One sheepfold of Christ in that the One Shepherd has made him see all the Christian people as one sheepfold of One Lord. And, like never before, we have come to the understanding that we are one in the service of the mystery of Salvation, despite the different forms of ministry and its different terminologies. And there is no more any feeling of rivalry or uppity left in one group towards the other because the times have become bad and we have already been poured out as a drink offering to become a living sacrifice to the Lord.

Theologians have given great importance to the rising consciousness among Christians that they all make one people for the Lord on whom the same holiness comes down through the Word and the Offerings. And that consciousness of the believers is an accord or general agreement in Christ making the two Churches one.

The division among the churches is not a theological reality; it is the reality of sin in the history of the churches; and that cannot be relied on, but what is trustworthy is the unity which Christ builds. Division is a fruit of sin and it has no place with the Savior except in the tears that flow from His eyes. And from those tears we all do come and not from the division; until the Lord removes all traces of the separation.

When the Patriarch is a theologian, as the case is now in the Maronite and the Orthodox Churches, the quality of the relationship between them is elevated in the hope that all the believers would be elevated to the level of the Divine vision so we do not remain in the commonplace parochial relationships but we live up to a great theological understanding and to the establishing of those relationships based on the depth of that understanding. So the question is no more how to live together in one ecclesial society, but it is how to grow in a unified theological mindset and divine education so that we conduct ourselves as if we have started to build together the One Church in the sanctity of righteousness.

How do we break through the historical hurdles and the legal systems while the one vision of the future Church is being revealed to us? The above mentioned vision discloses to us how to practically handle our joint life together and answers questions like: What is the level to which we need to raise ourselves? What is it that we need to knock down so that we can see our desired unity?

There is something special in the work and dealing between the Orthodox and the Maronite Church; not to make their togetherness exclusive of others but due to a profound sense of closeness which could be due to the fact that those two Churches did not experience alienation being together in one geographical spot. Perhaps one can attribute that to the fact that none of them tried to devour the other and to steal the “sheep” of the other since each Church considers that the Lord is present in each of them with the same power. Since the emergence of the ecumenical movement and the rapprochement between the spiritual authorities of both churches, the believers belonging to a Maronite parish and the believers belonging to an Orthodox parish in the same locality, are no more conscious of the presence of division between them; and the parishioners of each start to truly feel they are truly one with those of the other in the communion of the essentials of the faith; and that no real trace of “stealing the sheep” from the other parish is left.

Nowadays, the Christians of this country (Lebanon) live together with a consciousness of unity which exists though it does not have a legal systematic expression. You accept deep inside you – with an understanding be it deep or shallow – that the other Christian is your brother and that you will not wound him. And that is due to the fact that you have started to love him since thirty or forty years and have become conscious that God is blessed with that attitude of yours.

That could be due to the fact that one party among the people no more wants dispute and discord. The reason behind that could be that the difficulties that rise due to the division have become harmful to each other and we find that harm needless. In this overall ambiance of rapprochement among the people, the consciousness of unity among them has increased.

How do we cross with that from the simplest level of parochial togetherness among us to the level of high theology? I cannot feel my unity with the Catholic person if I do not put before him my questions concerning several issues related to his intellectual and practical practices. I am not able to love the Catholic truly and greatly if I do not put before him questions concerning some of his religious literature and his pastoral life. The relations among Churches are void of common courtesy. They are based on theology; that is on the great meeting together in Christ Jesus. I think that the weakness of the Churches, or of some of them, is due to the mentality of the people of the East who live together, with their intellectual adversaries and with their friends alike, on the basis of courtesy and shallow rapprochement in all the scopes and domains of their life together.

When we have two Patriarchs who are worthy of all appreciation and love, we can kindly ask of them for the commencing of theological discussions. This of course requires a serious preamble for the study; but if that does not start we would be the prisoners of confessional courtesy and not the brotherly meeting which is great in its conscientiousness and great in its knowledge.

Perhaps our time now is one of togetherness based on brotherly candid discussion. Whoever has known his Beatitude the Maronite Patriarch and his Beatitude the Orthodox Patriarch, and has given them the merit they deserve, cannot but speak of the “breath” (of the Holy Spirit) that descends upon each of them and as such declares that “This is a time during which work is done for the Lord”.

The theological vision is now attainable in the two Churches after they have been drawn with Divine love; and after Divine love comes thought and teaching; and that is what the Apostle calls “the mind of Christ”. And since that mind is alive in the two Churches and in their Heads, it is certain that one of them would call his brother with the call of love so that they meet in the heart of the Lord. And when the Lord inclines Himself towards them and settles on them, then every meeting among them is blessed.

The meeting of the Maronites and the Orthodox is not accomplished by people of this world; but by Christ. And we, together, come from the One who saves and builds hearts with His love.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الموارنة والأرثوذكس في حضرة الرب” – An Nahar – 19.01.2013

When the angel greeted Mary saying: “Rejoice you who are full of grace” he meant that what dwells in her is merely grace; or that her existence is only in the presence of God since no one or nothing can exist if He does not “touch” it. If all what is in you is not a reflection of Him then it is all for nothing. So if we admit that the Lord is in everything, we mean to say that He puts all things under His Lordship and apart from that nothingness is your portion.

The giving of ourselves to God cancels our closed in self-fullness, and so our life becomes as such a march with our face looking God-ward after it used to be only His “journey” towards us, that is only He looking Man-ward. In His union with us, He does not cancel our self, so “humanity” remains in us in full, but that humanity becomes full of Divinity. Of course the self becomes divinized as Islam says or deified as Christianity says especially in Eastern Christianity. The humanity of the person with its created aspect is not cancelled, but you inherit in your created humanity, while still in this world, the Divine Glory that is uncreated since the Beginning.

The insistence on the “I” and its individualism in the history of world civilizations ranging from the sciences to philosophy gave the signal for the emergence of the Humanities in the West; for instance, the nude body in graphic art put an end to the symbolic nature of painting and drawing and hindered Man from knowing himself as a creature in the image and likeness of God. Man started to “worship” his body and get mesmerized with a kind of beauty leaving aside the knowledge of himself as an heir of the Lord. And he got to cancel the face in the human body while in iconography the face represents the “presence” of God.

Contrary to the grace in that view of things is the fall of “braggadocio” and show off; that imprisons Man in his earthliness which in its nature does not “face Upwards”. Show off is an open statement of the triviality of our humanity starting with the pretentiousness there is in the beauty of the body. That means nothing when it is not a recognition of the beauty of God and His splendor shining on us. That is the difference between the Icon and the painting. The Icon speaks of the Lord and the painting speaks of the human body or of human nature without pointing to what is “above” them.

In the West, that was at the core of the Renaissance that was determined to sever the relationship between Nature and its creator. In fact, historically, European art has brought in atheism since the sixteenth century. Man did not “utter” atheism verbally first, but through art; and after that through words and ideas.

Yet, in the first place, life is not philosophical precepts but attitude and conduct. Thinking of things in depth, one wonders what the bragging of a pretty woman of her beauty really means. in the last analysis, seduction by a woman is a summoning for others to adore her namely to adore her body. Braggadocio can mean nothing except the seeking of adoration, or worship in other words, which is actually blasphemy since it is basically impossible to worship two things simultaneously.

Money is more dangerous to worship than the flesh since the Lord says that it is “a worship of idols” in Colossians 3: 5. The Lord has made you make it (money) so that you can distribute it as the Scriptures say “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever; their horn will be lifted high in honor” (Palms 112: 9). Beauty and money are two possessions which when you make them “reign” in your life, you become a person whose freedom has been usurped from him. Each of the passions we have is a distraction from the “the grace that saves all people” (from Titus 2: 11).

The believer who has beautiful features does not give heed to praise; he might not be aware of the gift of creation or might not think about it and accepts its dissolution when the time comes. He does not approach it as possessed only by him or by others. His “possession” is only that which comes down on him from above. Perhaps intelligence is the most “seductive” gift since it is splendor par excellence since it is linked to something greater and since the “divine mind” which is the mind of Christ, is reflected in it. Every smart person, regardless of his religion, is essentially close to God whether his faith is great or little. God manifests Himself in him in a splendid way and perhaps without his knowledge. And when compared with richness in beauty and money, intelligence reveals God as no other gift does. And in contrast with money and beauty, intelligence does not remain in custody of its owner since in its nature it spreads and is given to others.

Does that mean that a person does not know his qualities or even his spiritual virtues? He who renounces his money understands that but the ascetic, if he is a true believer, does not attribute goodness to himself and acknowledges only the gift that is Divine. In the same way, it is hard for a pretty woman to attribute her beauty to God; but He is able to put such faith in her and then she would have obtained a good sum of holiness.

What is loftier than that is for the very cultured person to consider himself nothing and to say: “I am nothing. All what my mind has is partly a training, but sense is poured in me from above and I will not dissipate it so that wisdom obtains; and blessed is he who can depart from what he has known in me of wisdom to Him who has all knowledge.

“And at the end, Christ will submit all the Kingdom to God the Father who has submitted all things to Christ.” After this God will be all things and in all things (from 1Corinthians 15: 24-28). All the gifts that we are given are from Christ and the gifts essentially come from Him. And we are nothing if we do not admit and acknowledge that. But if we believe that God is all things and in all things, then we also understand that He is in our beauty no matter what its nature is; we also will realize that we have torn asunder the veil that is made of money and beauty and intelligence in order to behold the Word that is from the Beginning.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “التباهي” – An Nahar – 12.01.2013

When the angel greeted Mary saying: “Rejoice you who are full of grace” he meant that what dwells in her is merely grace; or that her existence is only in the presence of God since no one or nothing can exist if He does not “touch” it. If all what is in you is not a reflection of Him then it is all for nothing. So if we admit that the Lord is in everything, we mean to say that He puts all things under His Lordship and apart from that nothingness is your portion.

The giving of ourselves to God cancels our closed in self-fullness, and so our life becomes as such a march with our face looking God-ward after it used to be only His “journey” towards us, that is only He looking Man-ward. In His union with us, He does not cancel our self, so “humanity” remains in us in full, but that humanity becomes full of Divinity. Of course the self becomes divinized as Islam says or deified as Christianity says especially in Eastern Christianity. The humanity of the person with its created aspect is not cancelled, but you inherit in your created humanity, while still in this world, the Divine Glory that is uncreated since the Beginning.

The insistence on the “I” and its individualism in the history of world civilizations ranging from the sciences to philosophy gave the signal for the emergence of the Humanities in the West; for instance, the nude body in graphic art put an end to the symbolic nature of painting and drawing and hindered Man from knowing himself as a creature in the image and likeness of God. Man started to “worship” his body and get mesmerized with a kind of beauty leaving aside the knowledge of himself as an heir of the Lord. And he got to cancel the face in the human body while in iconography the face represents the “presence” of God.

Contrary to the grace in that view of things is the fall of “braggadocio” and show off; that imprisons Man in his earthliness which in its nature does not “face Upwards”. Show off is an open statement of the triviality of our humanity starting with the pretentiousness there is in the beauty of the body. That means nothing when it is not a recognition of the beauty of God and His splendor shining on us. That is the difference between the Icon and the painting. The Icon speaks of the Lord and the painting speaks of the human body or of human nature without pointing to what is “above” them.

In the West, that was at the core of the Renaissance that was determined to sever the relationship between Nature and its creator. In fact, historically, European art has brought in atheism since the sixteenth century. Man did not “utter” atheism verbally first, but through art; and after that through words and ideas.

Yet, in the first place, life is not philosophical precepts but attitude and conduct. Thinking of things in depth, one wonders what the bragging of a pretty woman of her beauty really means. in the last analysis, seduction by a woman is a summoning for others to adore her namely to adore her body. Braggadocio can mean nothing except the seeking of adoration, or worship in other words, which is actually blasphemy since it is basically impossible to worship two things simultaneously.

Money is more dangerous to worship than the flesh since the Lord says that it is “a worship of idols” in Colossians 3: 5. The Lord has made you make it (money) so that you can distribute it as the Scriptures say “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever; their horn will be lifted high in honor” (Palms 112: 9). Beauty and money are two possessions which when you make them “reign” in your life, you become a person whose freedom has been usurped from him. Each of the passions we have is a distraction from the “the grace that saves all people” (from Titus 2: 11).

The believer who has beautiful features does not give heed to praise; he might not be aware of the gift of creation or might not think about it and accepts its dissolution when the time comes. He does not approach it as possessed only by him or by others. His “possession” is only that which comes down on him from above. Perhaps intelligence is the most “seductive” gift since it is splendor par excellence since it is linked to something greater and since the “divine mind” which is the mind of Christ, is reflected in it. Every smart person, regardless of his religion, is essentially close to God whether his faith is great or little. God manifests Himself in him in a splendid way and perhaps without his knowledge. And when compared with richness in beauty and money, intelligence reveals God as no other gift does. And in contrast with money and beauty, intelligence does not remain in custody of its owner since in its nature it spreads and is given to others.

Does that mean that a person does not know his qualities or even his spiritual virtues? He who renounces his money understands that but the ascetic, if he is a true believer, does not attribute goodness to himself and acknowledges only the gift that is Divine. In the same way, it is hard for a pretty woman to attribute her beauty to God; but He is able to put such faith in her and then she would have obtained a good sum of holiness.

What is loftier than that is for the very cultured person to consider himself nothing and to say: “I am nothing. All what my mind has is partly a training, but sense is poured in me from above and I will not dissipate it so that wisdom obtains; and blessed is he who can depart from what he has known in me of wisdom to Him who has all knowledge.

“And at the end, Christ will submit all the Kingdom to God the Father who has submitted all things to Christ.” After this God will be all things and in all things (from 1Corinthians 15: 24-28). All the gifts that we are given are from Christ and the gifts essentially come from Him. And we are nothing if we do not admit and acknowledge that. But if we believe that God is all things and in all things, then we also understand that He is in our beauty no matter what its nature is; we also will realize that we have torn asunder the veil that is made of money and beauty and intelligence in order to behold the Word that is from the Beginning.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “التباهي” – An Nahar – 12.01.2013

In the Gospel of Matthew it says “Blessed are the poor in spirit”; and according to our Fathers, that means the humble. And the scholars agree that this verse is a palliative rendering of the rather harsh verse in Luke 6: 20 “Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” And they say that what Matthew says is the original version that the Lord has uttered. Regardless of the interpretation, it is clear that the needy have a special place with Jesus of Nazareth since He says that the Good News will be preached to them in Matthew 11:5. As if the writer of those words wanted to say that the Gospel is for them, or that they are the ones who accept it since they are the ones who seek the Kingdom of Heaven. It is as if he also says that the rich have their possessions which they consider their “place of rest”. As such, money is the focus of their sentiments and they rely on it. So we find in the story of Lazarus and the rich man that the rich man is almost a synonym for luxury and pleasure and ease which sort of “contain” the rich man.

But what is poorness? Is not it having a low income status in a certain community? But what is the weak? There is a relatively new term being used and it is “at the threshold of poverty” whereby the person has an income that just barely keeps him from dying of hunger or makes him unable to support his family with the necessities like food, clothing, shelter and education.

That condition makes one belong to a social grouping that is looked down upon by those who are proud making them a marginal group and not one that participates with them in production and in the active political life. And as such, in their eyes, the world is classified into two classes, the rich and the poor.

Then Karl Marx comes with what he considered to be the balance of justice calling to abolish the social classes at a time the European continent has become a group of people in which one finds an outrageous distinction between social classes. He did not wish that people would have social and economical sameness, but he desired that there would be a reasonable mutual existence void of humiliation due to the outrageous difference in the standards of living.

It does not seem that Marxism was successfully realized with Lenin. And after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it is clear that there is no “romantic sense for communism” among the millions that benefited from it whether they are of the proletariat or the highly cultured among them. But the longing for a reasonable justice is still in the heart of many.

It is clear to those interested that Christianity is not based on an economical system and does not call for one. Jesus did not place Himself in the framework of a social organization as communism did in its denunciation of individual property in production and trade and its rejection of social inequality. Christianity is a call for the sake of the needy and the poor or one may say that in Christianity there is such a call. But Christianity is neither a system that is realized through a revolution nor a non-revolutionary social system like we have in the Scandinavian countries.

The obsession with a revolution or a coup is foreign to Christianity which is a call. That is what Jesus of Nazareth, who never wanted to coerce anyone or to impose a system by force even by just calling for it, desired. That is what makes us understand that Apostolic Christianity did not associate itself with the state or separate itself from it. At its primordial appearance, Christainity had its followers as Romans and it never sought to establish itself as a state outside that of the Roman Empire because the Man from Nazareth was content to reveal that His reign is that of the Kingdom of God and that it is in people’s hearts.

He did conquer countries neither by force nor by peace. During His days that was the business of the Roman Empire. And after His death, during the times of the Church, the spread of His Kingdom was, in principle, not associated with politics. He wanted to work through His Spirit and His Gospel; and the kingdoms of this world are left to the different approaches of the different periods of time. And we who follow Him are not of that system though we are in the world; Christ is King in people’s hearts.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not present the rich as being without a heart but it teaches that wealth is a danger on Man. The Nazarene warns of the spiritual dangers whatever they are, of enslaving yourself to any creature or man-made thing; and thus He says “you cannot worship both God and money” (Matthew 6: 24). We have the worship of the only and unique God. And as a worshipper God considers you not a slave but His son. But according to the understanding of one of our great theologians, you make yourself God’s slave through love.

If you become through love a slave to God, you cannot make for yourself another lord.

No doubt that money and all your possessions capture you strongly. If this is so, then you are not left free to worship God. You have to surrender yourself to Him alone. That is the condition of love; as such there is no love other than God. So we see that there is no place for money in one’s heart and there is no enslavement to any human being. To love others like the Nazarene said “love your neighbor as yourself” is not an enslavement but it is giving till the end that is till death. That is in conflict with the love of money and possessions.

Are the rich a group of people whom Christ denounced? In fact Jesus spoke about those rich who are in love with their money and are attached to it not considering the presence of those who are poor and severing themselves from them. The concern of Jesus of Nazareth is that we be socially one with all people without being separated by social standards and as such we see ourselves as people who are entrusted with what belongs to God (our money and possessions).

Our money is not ours. We manage it for our own benefit and the benefit of others. Christianity does not have rulings concerning the possession of money or giving it away. It says to every human being that the other human being is your brother and so treat him as a brother.

So if you behave accordingly there remains no separation between you and the other; and you would not run your life with pomp and affluence but with compassion not allowing your neighbor to get close to death due to hunger or due to any other need because your neighbor is of your flesh and of your bones. So what has come to you through an inheritance or what you have earned through work would be spent by those who are in need of it and you look after their need and serve them as if they are Christ.

Christianity dictates on you to give those around you a portion of your wealth. Christianity makes your heart feel that you have nothing on this earth. And with that you get to a point where you stop believing in keeping things as private belongings but as things to share with others (communion).

Communion means that you do not consider the “I” alone but you say “you” and “I”; in fact you say “we”. Translating that to our living reality means to love the community which you are part of and is part of you.

Some differences will remain. “The poor are with you always but I am not with you always”. Saying that to Judas, Jesus does not mean to say that He accepts that others should be in need. He wants us to bring justice into the society we are part of and above justice love. Jesus was not metaphysical that is putting off what is good. “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”

Love is the Kingdom of God.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الفقراء” – An Nahar – 05.01.2013

The year 2012 would be gone in two days and we hope that with it the “bad times” would also be gone; and we hope that we have blessed times of justice and peace to all peoples, times that are inaugurated by Grace so that our efforts would be made in Grace and so that our hearts would “come” from God’s heart, something that happens with those who are able to behold the Divine.

Sorrowing over the losses we experienced during the past year is of no benefit. What is good is how holy each of us has become according to his faithfulness to God. And sanctification is the only good remaining from the days that are gone since it is the whiff of hope with which we advance towards love. Time wraps away the wrong we have done when we repent and leaves us with the good that has come down upon us. If we abhor wrong deeds, they will leave us; and if we cherish the good deeds, they expand into our future times and God keeps in our hearts what we cherish and effaces what has hurt us.

Cherishing memories of the virtues and goodness in our lives disposes us for newness of life. But iniquity and sins are better not to me remembered lest they might come back since when the Divine Spirit dwells in us, He drives away sins and rears us on experiencing and partaking of the Divine Benevolence. And such Goodness and the experience of it become integrated in the souls of those who are renewed by the longing for God’s face. But there is no tie between the sins and the Divine Benevolence in us until the Lord grants us, after having died, a new life.

Reflecting on what was said above we long for the New that comes down on us from above; and there is no Freshness except in that. And this is Newness, that you do not inherit what is “old” which is from this obsolete and threadbare world and not from God. You are the heir of God. Otherwise you would be of perdition. And the “New” does not mean that which is in the present, but that which flows over on us of Divine Life. The issue is not one of time – a time that has gone or one that has come now; it is the story of what is Perennial in us; that is our course to what is Eternal which comes down upon us in our human predicament but is not of that predicament.

According to that standard, you live what has happened with you and to you during the past year. That does not mean that you can pass judgment on them. The Lord alone judges you always; and if you were of those who repent, He would disclose to you your Judgment before you die because He wants you to die well.

When you face what this life brings about, falling is inevitable since it is hard to bear all the difficulties that come your way. But if you are God’s man, He would lift you up because of His tenderness towards you; and you have come from “tenderness” the first time when your mother gave you birth; and after then you have experienced much of it when God reveals Himself as He lifts you after you have fallen.

The training the Lord asks of you now is to continuously benefit from the good that you have tasted; such experience makes you grow. And in depth, that means that you build on that good to thank the Lord first, and secondly to promise Him that you continue on with Him for faithfulness’ sake. Only in that can you know newness in the days to come. But do not forget that time in itself as it passes does not bring about newness. The Lord alone grants you that and then you would know that He alone is the pillar of your existence and your progress towards His face.

But go to the Lord with those you love. Your service to them is that you love them to bring them to thank God once they know that they exist and abide in His love for them and in your love for them. You cannot get to the compassionate Lord unless you reveal to those around you His compassion thus making them become His. You cannot walk your course to Him alone. If you accompany each other, you will know that you are marching towards Him together. You cannot see God’s face unless you see Him first on the face of the brethren. Perhaps he, whom you see as such, himself will reveal the Lord’s face to you.

This is a mutual accompaniment which is “outside time” though it takes place in our times. It is eternity in you in the middle of both your evil and your good times. God reveals to you that He alone is Goodness in what He brings to you all of your times. It is not history that is important. History is nothing if God does not settle in it, if God’s “history” does not become in you.

That means that Eternity does not come to you from the future. If it comes down on your present and future, they both become the place of God in you. The Eternity that comes down on the present time makes it the “time of God”. That is why God Himself is “newness”.

And since things with us are as we described above, then this requires of us that we fill the coming year with the Divine Presence so that meaning is given to it. While filling the days and the weeks and the months with things other than the Divine Presence makes them unsubstantial since the real substance is God Himself.

And I would say that you fill yourself and others whom you love with God; you are able to do that; and you would call the others through your sweetness to turn their face to God so He beholds them. You tend to make the days to come your own. But you actually make them your own when you ask for God’s mercy on them.

It is not your business to be concerned for your daily matters. Every day belongs to the Lord if He is revealed to the Church or to the brethren who are righteous. Your business is to ask that He be present in all your days and to make each hour of your time better than the one that came before it; as such when you get renewed, the Lord will grant you to renew others. The Lord’s life alone can purify you from the heavy weight of the bad times that come your way, and as such you become a new creation and God will wipe away every tear from your eyes.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الأيام القادمة” – An Nahar – 29.12.2012

The Orthodox Church sometimes appears weak in its human aspect and yet we see that She rises through a Divine visitation as the Lord has promised Her:” I betroth you to me forever, I betroth you to me in righteousness, justice, love and compassion.” (Hosea 2: 19)

As humans, spiritual death is our companion. It draws us away from Christ yet He calls those chosen ones to go forth in Him. And He gives us life with what He bestows on us of His grace. The Christian people are human and are subject to the weaknesses of all humans though they are in a longing for the renewal that is wrought by the Lord’s presence in them. The glorious and radiant Church is a promise of the Lord which is realized to some extent only. The glory of the Church does not shine in us wholly as long as we are in this body and as long as sin has a place in us; that happens when the flesh is “ceased to be” through death, then we can taste the promises of glory, given to those who have repented.

The Church is glorious in hope (or in the promise); and that is an eschatological truth (a truth of the age to come). Sin is nested in the human soul in which also dwells the call for glory and the capacity to taste the Kingdom to come. In other words, we long for and desire that glory; and that desire itself is only “some” of that glory the accomplishment of which takes place on the Last Day.

You live in a Church which is fragile due to our fall, and which is great due to God’s grace; and you long for holiness which you are granted in hope but is not fully realized in you. There is no full victory in this world but also there is no despair since sin does not swallow you completely; your soul stands on the promises of God and the Divine pledge.

What is true about all the brethren in this human reality does not mean that the believers are not on the paths of salvation even though they vary in the effort they make and their abilities. And according to the Orthodox tradition, there is no believer who is in Heaven except Mary who was raised from the dead, and those who shed their blood for the Lord. But all the other Saints, like everybody else, dwell in Hope.

The above mentioned is an exhortation to behold the spiritual beauty found in some people. When we talk about some of the Saints, it is not to attribute to them glory. This is only for Mary and those who have given their blood as martyrs for the Lord.

All that the Lord has given us He has done so as a word of promise; and a promise is somewhat a realization. Because of that the “march” towards Him lasts till the Lord takes us to Himself after death.

And the “march” or journey of some is so advanced to the extent that you see it as if it has reached Heaven. The Kingdom ever comes with Christ as He comes; and, in some people, He is so vested that you feel that they are His “presence”; we see the Lord directly in the Word and quite often we see Him in faces of those who have been illuminated; and it would be hard for us to make a distinction between their faces and that of the Lord.

Humanity thrives on those and the Lord bears testimony to Himself through them. And it is by virtue of those that the Lord does not get confined in His Heaven; as such He comes down to the earth making the earth another Heaven in which righteousness dwells.

Your soul seeks such people so that it gets refreshed. No human lives by himself, but he lives in the communion of love. That in Christianity is called “the Church”.

There is nothing like that because it is the radiance of the Divine Incarnation which “visits” us after few days (on Christmas day). All what Christianity has to say is that Man has become the dwelling of God on Earth. And when the Blessed One was crucified, God appeared coming to us in His poured blood; and in that “pouring down” He lifted us up to the Heavens.

To such light is all of humanity summoned. Except that that is not realized in all of humanity. The Light chooses how He reveals Himself. You do not dictate to the Lord how and where He reveals Himself. He chooses this the way He wishes. And it is up to you to recognize the “places” of His revelation in people.

There are those we can know in the beauty of their virtues and ignore their defects or not see them because we see the Lord in them. The saved are the dwelling of God. How does the Incarnation go on if we do not see it in the good ones who bestow on us their sweetness, gentleness and candidness? The above mentioned “Incarnation” is given to people who have made God their portion in life. You do not find God if you just seek Him; that is a way. But you can also find Him with those who have made Him their companion through obedience that is through selflessness; and you can receive Him in the “giving of yourself”. God is not in people who close themselves up from others; He is in the others and in you when you get in communion with each other. God is in such a type of people.

The spiritual life demands that those who are spiritual to get together. He who is spiritual should not be to himself. Of course there is light in him, but light is intensified by the coming of the righteous together. The meeting of the righteous results in an efficacy which is a product of their communion. Being together helps in spiritual efficacy. And such togetherness strengthens the Christians in their mission.

I am not one who condones cliquishness in the spiritual life. But the togetherness of the righteous makes their giving bounteous and multiplies it. Of course, the righteous do not make a party or show fanaticism, but in their togetherness God dwells. The wicked are numerous and they go their way; but the righteous shock them by their understanding, their profoundness and truthfulness; and their witness is strengthened by their togetherness.

The wicked are “destroyed” only through martyrdom; and their numerousness is not frightful. One righteous man does undo their evil completely. This is why it is necessary that the righteous cooperate together, not only in their purity, but also in their culture and steadfastness and togetherness; since such togetherness brings the presence of God in this world.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “عطاء الأبرار” – An Nahar – 22.12.2012

The great are few. One of them is the Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius IV. He left us and went to the Divine Compassion. As he was being buried, I felt that he was settling in the Kingdom of the Father. We longed for his stay among us. He left to “the infinitude”, to the dwelling in the quiet of his Lord and to “we missing him”.

His piety, as a priest, would draw people to it in such a way that you become indwelled with it and with what he has accomplished through that piety in the hearts of those he has pastored. That is what the Lord and those who love Him expect from the pastor. And as a pastor, he gave himself to all people, whether they were of his Church or other churches or people of this world.

He gave to the intellectual world what he has obtained through the intellect and he radiated with that; and I think that was his strong point. I have said what came above about a bishop who had a significant presence in this world. In that he reminds me of those great spiritual fathers who did not separate between what God inspires them with and that which their minds create; as such they gave the world what came down on them (from God). His Eminence Ignatius IV enjoyed both, divine and human wisdom; and humanity is a real pillar that holds the divine that comes down on us. I think the significance of this great late man dwells in that he was able to probe human knowledge in order to tell the skeptics that they do not have monopoly over free pure thinking but that people of the faith also have it.

Because of his life, as I read it, those who do not believe in God cannot claim that intellectual understanding and knowledge is something that belongs solely to them. In the realm of knowledge and understanding, the unbelievers are not more intelligent than those who believe. Patriarch Ignatius confirmed that through his intellectual exploits.

This great man was able to show that the pure intellect is not severed from simplicity. He had a simplicity, which was Jesus-like, that was fused with intelligence. In sharp words, he maintained the village-like humility with the sophistication of academia. At times his simplicity would be so amazing that those with him would wonder as to how that very intelligent man can combine between a bright enkindled mind and the child like expressions that he utters at times. Then one would also wonder about the nature of his faith or about its style because one would find him candid in his religious expression and yet very philosophical. And if one would classify the nature of his intellect you would say that he was brought up on a philosophical methodology without neglecting the simplicity of verbal expression.

He hides his simplicity with an expressive style behind which he remains obscure; I think he got that from a shyness inherited from the ways of asceticism. In that he used to hurt over those who do not have the fervor of faith, though he would be very patient with them. He learned patience from a long sufferance in our religious milieus and from seeing our weaknesses one of which is that the Church has not yet arrived at what She aspires for, to be the Bride of Christ. He used to see our lethargy; in spite of that, he was “a man of sorrows”, as Isaiah says, and at the same time, a man of great hopes.

Perhaps due to seeing what has not been realized (in the Church) and seeking what is aspired for, he became the “man of the institutions”. Did he think that the “institution” provides stability and makes one’s dream materializd? I think so. That was an expression of the pragmatic side of him. And that is what made him prefer what is practical over that which is theoretical.

That is noticed in his directorship of the Balamand and every educational institution and realm in our Church. And if I want to highlight his personality more, I would say that he was a pedagogue in all the different educational fields that he undertook both as an instructor and as a pastor in the Church. He was concerned that we would sink in what is purely theoretical and neglect to deal with the real problems of the Theological University and those of the Church. In both situations, he approached the matters concerned with more emphasis on the pastoral aspect than on the academic aspect. What was important was salvation and the practical outcomes of what we say or think of. For sure, and without any doubt pastoring meant suffering; and that showed in all what he endeavored. And shepherding starts in the heart and moves up to the mind; and so the late Patriarch used to oversee his heart through his mind. That makes the priest or the bishop in a tension between his theoretical convictions and the necessity of practical application or between the truth and dealing with people. How can you lead, using the religious texts, a group of people who are not acquainted with them? How can you maintain peace and truth, in your parish, at the same time? And in other words, how can you, as a teacher, instruct people in the faith yet, as a pastor, hammer it down in their minds in as much as they are able to receive it and make them ready to accept what the truth is? I think that he did not digress from the simplicity of living in all things. He did not see any conflict between simplicity and high culture. He used to amaze me how he blends both the simplicity of thinking and its complexity, in himself. You would find him that person who is strong in channeling paradoxes into one stream, as we say during Lent; he wanted to be rational and sensitive at the same time. In our worship, the mind and feelings blend; and that is something he had mastered. Perhaps his religiousity is founded on what it has of reasoning despite his Christ-like simplicity. And here I say that he did not care for positions and he did not accept them in order to raise himself above others. The Orthodox Church everywhere is fond of the image of the Deacon who is well read and yet does not seek positions. Those above you call you to hold positions for certain needs and you are expected to obey. You become a Patriarch who maintains in himself the spirit of the Deacon who prefers hymning and delighting in worship above all else. The Orthodox are “Liturgy” and all the rest is only added to them.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “البطريرك إغناطيوس” – An Nahar – 15.12.2012