Raiati

Paul starts in this part of his epistle to the Ephesians from God’s mercy on people and then transcends to his love that he gave us while we were under the yoke of sins and “sometimes with Christ”. By this he means that we were risen by and with him, we were in the core of his resurrection. And all of this, “being saved by God’s grace”, doesn’t result from us being good. If we had some righteousness or a lot of evil, the grace will always be free. God’s love makes him give us his grace.

Continuing with the subject of being in the core of his resurrection, Paul assures another time that God took us to him in his resurrection and “made us sit with him in the heavens, in Jesus Christ”. We celebrate this truth on the Thursday of Ascension, and this means that when Jesus sat on the right of the Father with his human nature we were with him in the core of this nature.

The Lord sitting on the right of the father promises the faithful humanity that it will have this same sitting. He descended to us through incarnation and went back to the father with the crucifixion and resurrection.

Paul sees that the result of this ascension is that the father shows in all times “the full wealth of his grace”. Paul is in a state of astonishment in front of the greatness of this grace that we received through Christ.

However, so that the reader wouldn’t think that he can ascend to God with his own effort, he confirms again that “we are saved by his grace” and that it descends to us through the faith that God gives freely to his beloved ones. He confirms this by saying: “And that not or yourselves, it if the gift of God”. For him God is always the initiator and he crowns those who received the faith. Therefore, God is also the ultimate.

Paul then moves into an idea related to previous ones: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ”. In this Paul shows that the original creation was given to us by Jesus Christ, and that we have now a new creation through baptism. The point of the initial creation and the second one is that we are made for the “good works” that “God has already prepared for us to do”.

Through grace and obedience we receive the power of the good works. We enter God’s land; we take from its fruits and become divine. The whole power of God becomes in us through faith, and if we knew that faith constitutes us we head towards the giver of this faith: The Holy Trinity.

This is the magnificence of a Christian: that he comes from God; grows in God; and lives in God’s bosom through thanking, praising and through each prayer. When we start the divine service by saying: “O heavenly king” we believe that he is being poured in us and taking all our entity and make it pray. Without God’s pouring in you, you aren’t able to say a single word in order to reach the heaven and chant with the angels for the Glory of God.

Christ is glory, and his resurrection is glory, and if we really believed we become in a state of glory here and in heaven.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “المجد الأخير” – 31.10.2010-Raiati n^o44

Paul used to dictate to a writer from his assistants probably because he was weak sighted as some exegetes have said. He started this part of the epistle to the Galatians by saying: “See what big letters I make as I write to you now with my own hand”, despite having started the epistle by signing it traditionally. When he says here “See what big letters I make as I write to you now with my own hand”, it means that he has asked the pen from his secretary to write with his own handwriting using capital letters, which are detached from each other in Greek.

He wanted to show them his love, to give an intimate feeling. The issue that he raises is that some Christians that were close to James the bishop of Jerusalem used to see that circumcision was a condition to enter Christianity, while Paul had had a council with the apostles in Jerusalem where they refused circumcision.

The apostle refused to be proud of an overturned circumcision because it was a physical sign between God and Abraham i.e. a relation to an old promise. And there is no more need for it since the new promise between God and us is through Jesus’ blood which ended the need of the old sign between God and Abraham.

So the apostle moved immediately to say: “As for me however, I will boast only about Jesus Christ”. What kind of pride is this? It’s a pride of the cross. When he says “for by means of the cross the world is dead to me” i.e. the world is dead; and “I am dead to the world” this means that if the people of the world thought that they are alive therefore I am dead, and by world he means the evil world.

And he goes back to the issue of circumcision saying: “for neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that matters is a new creation.” You will become this new creation if you were renewed through Jesus’ faith and if you took the baptism that kills your whims and gives you the consequences of Christ’s resurrection as Paul says in his epistle to the Romans.

This new law is not in the sense of legislation but in the sense of the rule of the eternal life. “As for those who follow this rule in their lives; may peace and mercy be with them, with them and with all of Israel”. Here, he refers to the new Israel which is constituted of converts from both Judaism and Paganism which form together the nation of God and the holy people.

Old Judaism with the Talmud that was written 500 years after Christ didn’t remain the Judaism of the prophets. It became hybrid, and those Christians that say that we have one common book with the current Jews are wrong. We don’t care about this – if the Talmud didn’t appear – that we read Moses and the prophets together, because what’s important is to read the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament i.e. directed from God to the vision of Christ.

The cross became the center of our faith in the sense that it showed the salvation and prepared for the savior’s resurrection. And because of the Calvary and the resurrection our aim is to become new creations that live through the faith and the promises of our baptism.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الخليقة الجديدة” – 24.10.2010-Raiati n^o43

Late in the first millennium, St. Athanasius (July 5^th) constituted the monastic life in Mount Athos, which is a peninsula in northern Greece. Twenty independent monasteries were built according to the Orthodox rules, praying and having an ascetic life (they never eat meat). These monasteries have a central administration formed from monasteries’ delegates. In addition to these monasteries there are independent hermitages where a monk or more stay alone.

An Island full of trees especially chestnuts trees which monks use to make what they need from wooden material such as doors and other things.

They wake up two or three hours after midnight and have the long divine services standing, with a correct musical performance. After the morning prayers and the vespers they have two meals, and everyone goes to his work: Handiwork, farming, and theological studies.

Ethnically the Greek element is dominant, but there are also three monasteries from Russians, Serbs and Bulgarians. There are also people that converted to Orthodoxy from different origins.

Beside the divine services they welcome male pilgrims and provide them hospitality as they live in these very beautiful monasteries which differ by their architecture. The colors of the exterior walls are different, and the big and small domes are all over the roofs.  In addition to the main church, there are other churches in each monastery – 4 or 5 or more churches- which monks go to after the matins to have the Divine Liturgy.

Pictures of saints are everywhere especially the icon of the Theotokos the intercessor of the island. The walls of the dining rooms are all full of icons as if you are eating in the presence of the saints.

To this place we went; John (Yazegi) Metropolitan of Europe, Ephraim (Kiriakos) Metropolitan of Tripoli, and I, each with his companion. We went from one monastery to another by car on dirt roads.

We used to communicate by Greek language, directly or by translation, and we had the Divine Liturgy in Arabic, we also had Antiochian theology students with us to facilitate the communication.

The monks were honoring the Antiochian bishops with a warm and unique welcome in the church of each monastery. The linguistic communication was difficult but the hearts’ communication was easy and strong. It seems that Antioch has a special status to them, and the whole orient moves their hearts.

We received a grace after another, and we felt that whoever is able to travel to Greece should visit this holy mountain because it is a one in a million pleasure. If the nature is very beautiful then the piety is even more beautiful.

It is a center for Orthodox worship with an exceptional strength and inspiration. You don’t come back from this great monastic gathering but rich from the piety blessings that appear in front of your eyes.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “جبل آثوس” – 17.10.2010-Raiati n^o42

The apostle speaks in this part of his epistle to the Galatians about his gospel and says that he received it by Jesus Christ’s declaration to him. It is obvious that Paul is not talking about the four gospels that were not written yet. However, we do notice after they were written in the first century that the content of Paul’s teachings is identical to that of the four gospels. Everything that Paul taught, in a way, is about the Lord’s death and resurrection, in addition to a word about his nativity, and the narration of the mystical supper.

After that, the apostle clarifies that God chose him from his mother’s womb and called him by his grace so that he declares his son in him to preach among the nations (Paganism). Paul carries a teaching that he received directly from Jesus, and this is enough to assure the apostle’s credibility.

The apostle talks in this text briefly about his story saying “I persecuted without mercy the church of God” and one example of this is Stephen’s death in Acts which Paul took part in. Nevertheless, Jesus appeared to him on the road of Damascus where he was delegated to go arrest the Christians. With this appearance Jesus changed him completely making him a strong disciple roaming all the earth to create Christian communities and send them his epistles that are known for us in the New Testament and that we read in each liturgy along with other apostles’ epistles.

In this chapter he assures that after the Lord’s appearance he “did not take the opinion of flesh and blood” i.e. he didn’t hesitate to follow Jesus so he continued his way to Damascus so that Ananias baptizes and releases him from Damascus. He says that after meeting Ananias he didn’t go up to Jerusalem to the apostles who were before him in order to validate his faith, “instead, he went at once to Arabia”. Most commentators believe that “Arabia” means “Horan” and it was called “Arabia” in the Roman administration, and there must have been some Christians there.

The Scripture does not say anything about what Paul did in Horan other than praying and studying the Old Testament which he had a strong relation with as we know from his writings. Paul relates his knowledge of Jesus with the different books of the Old Testament.

Then he says “I returned to Damascus”. Why to Damascus? Because this is the place where his first love to Jesus appeared. We do not know the duration that he spent in Horan. When he says that he went up to Jerusalem after three years, does he mean that he stayed in Damascus for three years? Or he means three years in Horan and Damascus together? We don’t know and we don’t care to know. After these three years he says “I went to Jerusalem to visit Peter”. Peter had a big importance in the apostolic community. Paul stayed at Peter’s for fifteen days in which he heard a lot about Lord Jesus that Peter lived with. Then Paul did not see any other apostle except James, the Lord’s brother. All the rest had surely left Palestine for preaching. After that, Paul took off to the world.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “بداءة بولس” – 10.10.2010-Raiati n^o41

Many wonder how to love our enemies. Is this possible? The first part of the answer is that an enemy is the one that antagonized you, while you can’t antagonize anyone. You can be sad but not hold any hatred towards him because he is your brother. You cannot love him as the Lord requested unless you considered him your brother regardless of the evil his heart has. God asks you to fix this person’s heart.

Remember the Good Samaritan that found a wounded Jew on the road and healed and took care of him. The Samaritan was the enemy of the Jew religiously, and that hostility was big back then.

He who antagonized you today is wounded, shocked or has a purpose against you. You might not have harmed him, but if you replied by hatred you’ll increase his evil while your goal is to heal him, to heal a person. The lord made you today a Good Samaritan, a doctor for you enemy, and only you are his doctor since you’re the only one that knows his illness.

In most cases he accepts your forgiveness, but if he didn’t then pray for him to accept it. Mention your enemy in your prayers everyday, and let his name be mentioned on the holy altar so that the Lord’s mercy would be on him.

The reading ends with the Lord saying: “be merciful just as your Father is merciful”. The word merciful linguistically means that the heart of the Lord is big enough for all humans. Since God put all his rational creatures in his arms, you should be like him so that your enemy becomes in his arms too, and this way you meet your enemy at the lord that loves both of you.

We cannot meet a person except in the depths of the divine tenderness. The human passion changes according to the mood, but we –as believers– do not act temperamentally but we do act with a divine passion as if our heart was the Lord’s.

Remember that God is love and his heart does not differentiate between these that love him and those that don’t, because they are all his sons. If you had two children, one was nice and kind while the other was naughty; you provide them with the same love. However, there are two ways for raising them, and both ways intend to help and fix your kids.

God is love and this is the only relation between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Love is the divine oneness; it is the name of God.

God acts as a raiser and uses different methods with people, but he wants one Love for all humans. And Christ’s death is the big proof of his love towards us.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “أحبوا أعداءكم” – 3.10.2010-Raiati n^o40

In the feast of the Assumption of St. John the Evangelist, the church reads this section that speaks about the scene of the crucified and the people standing at the cross. It starts by mentioning three women: Mary Jesus’ mother, her sister the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. If we compare this with Mark and Matthew, we understand that the women at the cross were: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee. In Mark the book also says “And many other women which came up with him to Jerusalem”.

As for calling Mary the mother of James and Joseph as the sister of the Theotokos, this means that she was her relative, and this is common in the Hebrew literature and the Gospel. However, the Gospel of John which is used today for the reading is only interested in the Theotokos and the disciple whom Jesus loved, and this disciple according to all the tradition is John the Evangelist himself. The Lord addresses his mother saying “Woman, look, here is your son”. Jesus’ usage of the expression “women” is mentioned before in the wedding of Cana of Galilee, and for them this way of talking is normal and does not show any disrespect.

In this observation we must go beyond the person of John being called “the disciple that Jesus loved”, which is mentioned in other occasions in the book. If we do so starting from the apparent textual meaning, I say that Jesus made Mary a mother to every beloved disciple, i.e. to all the faithful. To clarify this statement, I say without interpretation that Mary has motherhood towards each one of us, and Jesus’ statement on the cross is enough to make us to honor the Theotokos.

No one can know precisely what does Mary’s motherhood for each believer mean. At least, it means that she has tenderness, kindness, intercession and embracing for each one of us, and that we mustn’t ignore her in our prayer. This confirms what her relative Elisabeth the mother of St. John the Baptist said: “From now on all generations will call me blessed”. The expression “Call me blessed” refers to our confession that she has the heavenly blessing which is the complete sight of God.

We do not say that except about the martyrs that nothing separates them from Christ. While about the rest of the saints, we say that they are in the Kingdom interceding for us surely, but not in the complete sight of God.

None the less, the reading focused on John the Evangelist, and his death is called Assumption like the dormition of the Theotokos is called. In our church, he is the first person that we called a theologian as we say “John the Theologian”, since no other evangelist wrote about the deity of Christ as he did.

We only call two others “Theologians”, Gregory of Nazianzus and Symeon the New Theologian, and it is obvious that John towered like no one else did.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “يوحنا الحبيب” – 26.09.2010- Raiati n^o39

Christ’s resurrection, for Paul, was not an event that happened so that we learn from it, but a reality that’s active in the soul and continual in the faithful. It was their general resurrection, but it is an extension in the life of the faithful. This permanent spiritual change in the life of the believer is what takes us from the Law of Moses to the new life.

Paul says concerning this: “For I through the Law died to the Law that I might live to God”. What Paul wanted was the Christian not to follow the ritual requirements of the Law since he is not saved through those, but to follow the law of love and get crucified with Christ. This is repeated in other occasions in the epistles. If I got crucified, i.e. I crucified all my whims then I will live with Christ who’s risen from the dead.

However, he seeks another expression so he says: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”. The apostle exterminates the ego; himself is not him, but Christ. This means the complete extinction of our desires, the absence of our harmful wills, and the total integration of the believer in Christ.

Finally, he says “And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”. This means that through my purification from the closed and limited ego, a life descending from the heaven stays in me. This is my faith in the Son of God who loved me. This is the only time where he doesn’t say: “loved us”, i.e. using the plural or something similar. I, personally, am the objective of his salvation. I am the person that for him Lord Jesus came to this world and “gave himself for me”.

This is the mystery of the cross that Paul talked about many times. The crucifixion of the Savior and his resurrection and Gospel are for him one thing. However, all of this is poured in man, he is crucified, resurrected and a carrier of the word of God, and he perishes his soul through toil as today’s Gospel says, and all of this in order to transcend God’s word and spread it. A person cannot carry it if he didn’t accept to crucify himself to get on earth a spiritual resurrection in the purification of defects and sins. The soul in this scriptural reading, or the “self”, is better than the whole universe. This is why you cannot sell it in exchange of anything from this world.

Money, pleasure, power, influence … All of these do not equal a human soul free from sins and capable, in the fear of God, to control the issues of the world with purity and humility and without predominance on anyone.

Nevertheless, the power of a person on himself is not obtained simply by doing the will and its insistence on the issues of the person, but the Christian power in a person’s work comes from God’s power on him. With our acceptance of God we approach people and things so that the relation won’t only be healthy but also beneficial for us and for others.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “أحيا في المسيح” – 19.9.2010-Raiati n^o 38

I have said in another occasion that when Paul said “See with what large letters I have written to you with my own hand”, he had taken the pen, which is a rod, from the writer’s hand, as Paul may have used to dictate since he was short-sighted. He took the pen and wrote with large letters that he can see, and each letter in Greek is detached from the other.

What is the subject of this section? There is a group in the church that wanted to force Gentile converts to get circumcised and follow the ritual laws of Moses. This is against the decision of the Council of Jerusalem that didn’t oblige the Gentile converts to pass through Judaism if they became Christians.

So, there were people in Galatia that did not respect the decision of the apostolic council. Paul denounced those Christian Judaizers and there circumcision pride as he said: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world”. As if he is saying that the requirements of the Law are from this world, so if they were crucified (dead) then I’ll be alive.

The apostle increases his tone as he says: “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything” but the new creation that occurs in us through baptism. Baptism is a reflection of Christ’s death and resurrection in us. Therefore, what’s the remaining importance for us from circumcision which was the sign of the testament between God and Abraham? The sign of the new testament in us is Christ’s blood and consequently the Baptism as the apostle arrives to say: “And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God”.

The common interpretation of the expression “Israel of God” is its reference to the church which includes that old Israel that converted and the Gentiles that joined through baptism.

Paul gets tired of this situation and he says: “From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus”.

These marks or signs “in my body” are the pain that Paul suffered from the Jews and Gentiles. “From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep” (2Cor 11: 24-25).

For him this was the reflection of Christ’s crucifixion in his body, which means that these sufferings invalidate the continuation of our practice to the Law of Moses in its legitimate way.

In this Sunday which precedes the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross we prepare for the feast by our admiration to the sufferings of the apostles and saints, and by our knowledge, as today’s Gospel says, that God “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son”.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “صليب المسيح” – 12.9.2010- Raiati n^o37

The feast of Resurrection is continuous in the church since it is held every Sunday, and this weekly Paschal service precedes having the annual Pascha. The resurrection is not important for us as an event but as a meaning, and this meaning begins on the Good Friday because Christ’s predominance over death appeared on the cross. Glory, in John’s gospel, is mainly what appeared from the Master while hung on the cross according to his saying: “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” Interpreters agree that glory means the crucifixion.

So, since the Calvary we taste the triumph of Christ over death and sin. Likewise, The dwelling Christ in the tomb is not under the dominance of death but dwells in the entire universe since he is victorious.

Christ’s glory shines as his body did not stink. And you could notice that the church in its gospel and worship does not use the term “Christ’s corpse” or “Christ’s remains”.

His body is always in light and never tasted corruption.

We call his body a luminous body according to Paul’s sayings when he spoke in the first epistle to the Corinthians about the resurrection of the dead on the last day: “The body is sown dead; it is raised eternal… it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power, it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body”.

In fact, Paul applied on the resurrection of the dead what he knew about the resurrection of the Savior whose body became “spiritual”. Spiritual does not mean ethereal or gaseous as Jehovah’s witnesses say. Spiritual means that it is not subject to the limitations of the earthly human being whose body is opaque or concentrated. The luminous body which the Master got penetrates barriers. He entered to the disciples while the doors were closed.

And the spiritual body which the Christ got was not recognized neither by the disciples when appeared to them nor by Mary Magdalene in the garden, but he introduced himself which means that he gave their earthly eyes a grace from him to be able to know him. And when he ate with them fish and honey he made himself capable of that (eating) in order to participate with them, since his luminous body was not in need of food.

Based on this, the need to instincts is ended in heaven. This is why the Master said: “They neither marry, nor are given marriage”. This was a trend related to our life on earth. According to all this, we must recognize that Christ will neither die nor will be ruled over by death, this means that he has put a limit to death and entered into resurrection.

This is why we celebrate Pascha for the Lord because his reception of these things is an introduction to our reception of them. In this sense the apostle says: He is the first out from the dead, which means that he launches the vanishing of the kingdom of death so that we could ourselves emerge from it on the last day.

This is what Paul saw when he said: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom 6: 4). As if he’s saying that Christ put for us the basis of a righteous life that we live thanks to him, because if he hadn’t resurrected we’d be dead forever and without having hope, and the whole world would be drowned in corruption, as if God created us to vanish, and God did not create the world to Vanish. The world vanished itself by sin, and Christ revived it by his resurrection.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “القيامة” – 4.4.2010-Raiati n^o14

God enlivened us with the Christ even when we were dead in trespasses. Paul proclaimed in his Epistle to the Ephesians that the Lord has quickened us when the Jews crucified Him. He brought us near to Him, and because He is alive, He abolished our sins. Since then, we have been endowed with the mercy He bestowed upon us.

“It is by grace you have been saved” means that the Law of Moses can no more save you, neither do your works. You have been saved thanks to the grace always conferred by God and received by you in obedience. Those who merely know the truth of faith imagine that it is by good works that one can be saved. Nevertheless, the question is: who enables us to perform good works?

You are the gift of God. You are a fruit. Your salvation is the gift God has granted to you. Not only did the apostle say that God loves us, but also: “God raised us up and seated us with him in the heavenly realms.” This means that it is not only by repentance that we rise today, but that we rose back then and ascended with him to heavenly places.

Therefore, the Lord shows in the coming ages “the riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” The kindness of God has been revealed through the incarnation of His beloved Son and His moving amongst us. We perceived His utter compassion upon His death on the Cross and His resurrection. Here, the conviction the apostle had previously divulged reappeared again, as he proclaimed that we are saved by grace through faith, for faith is first our gift from God, and then comes our obedience thereto.

Paul asserted that faith is the gift of God, so that the reader would not doubt that it is God who initiates faith and confers it to us. For further evidence, he declared: “Not by works, so that no one can boast.” This is why Paul mentioned in his first Epistle to the Corinthians: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

The apostle states that we are God’s workmanship, “created in Christ Jesus in the strength of his Holy Spirit.” Are we created randomly to do any work? We are created to do “good works”. This is the aim of our existence; good works which “God has before ordained that we should do them.” This means that at every stage of our spiritual life, it is God who takes the initiative.

Indeed, we do receive the good work as a gift from God. He provides us with it. Since we are creatures endowed with freedom, no one is forced to accept the good work. Our role is to deliberately welcome in our spirits the good work God has proposed to us. Freedom does not imply choosing good or bad. It is a psychological power that exists in us. However, without grace we have no ability to choose good works. “You know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Translated from Arabic – 03/12/2009

Original Text: “النعمة”, Raiati, Issue No.46, 15/11/2009