Raiati

Some traditions have emerged in our Church which I haven’t seen in the Orthodox world such us having Baptisms and weddings at monasteries. The monastery is not a place for weddings because the people that live there are people who don’t get married and it is not desirable for them to see weddings where they live. Our old canon laws also state that baptisms must happen at the Church of the parish and not at other Churches.

The importance of Baptizing at the parish Church is that the baptized child is received as a member in his parish. This is why baptisms used to be held during the Divine Liturgy and people didn’t send invitations for baptisms because the entire parish would gather and receive the child and make him a member in it. However, today, whether held at the monastery or the local Church or the cathedral, parents are inviting their relatives and friends although baptism is an act of the community and isn’t only related to the family.

We have done this experience and tried baptism during the Liturgy according to an order that already existed. We also tried the wedding during the Liturgy where the wedding prayers and the liturgy prayers intersect and connect with each other. You should get married in your community and not leave the Church of your parish.

Today, we notice that most people do not pray during weddings. Fashionable clothes are exposed in an obscene way and there is no more sanctity for the temple. People are occupied with other people and don’t seem occupied by the divine words. The sanctity of marriage is violated by obscenity.

People say that they want to get married or baptize their son at a monastery because this is a vow. Why did you take this vow? All of this comes from the spirit of individualism while our spirit must be communal. The Church in our archdiocese is the Church of your village. In this Church you are spiritually born and raised and in it the joy of your marriage must be fulfilled and in it is where it should be prayed over your corpse and next to it is where you should be buried.

Many vows are wrong because they have no basis in our canon law. One of these vows is to buy a drawing or a chandelier and impose it on those who are responsible of Church property. This drawing might not be an Orthodox icon and you would feel sad because we were obliged to refuse it. You must donate an amount of money to the Church and those who are responsible would buy what they are in need of.

I thank God because our believers started to understand this and we have applied it in the mount region where people were displaced (from their villages); there, when someone comes to help, he doesn’t impose his name to be written (on what he has donated). When a person gives, he would be giving God; he shouldn’t be seeking to carve his name on an icon or a tile. If you were charitable, the Lord will register your name in the book of life.

Another important thing is that people spend too much on their weddings while people are starving to death. In the midst of the hardship that we are passing through today, spending this much on banquets and receptions is obscene. The bride and groom must have the courage to spend small amounts of money. The bliss of the bride and groom starts with their love for the poor.

It hurts me that people who want to baptize or get married are exaggerating in spending starting from the invitation cards that have become more expensive than they should be. The wedding could go along with humbleness and modesty. Priests are hurt in occasions when people spend very little over them in comparison to what they spend over the “cocktail party”. Money is wasted over pleasures and worthless glory and not even a little is given to charity or to become closer to God.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “أقوال رعائية” –Raiati n^o36- 09.09.2001

The question isn’t “How does the priest live?” but rather “Does the parish love him enough to spare him the need to search for his living?” The Scripture says: “Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk?” (Apostle Paul). What milk is this? Paul himself says: “If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?” and by this he means the means of living.

The idea is based on the Canon Law that doesn’t want the priest to search for his sources of sustenance in order to be dedicated to teaching, service and visits. Paul’s thought is that the believer that takes the spiritual giving of his pastor helps the latter to have a decent living. If he was stingy towards him, he will make him busy in money and corrupt.

If spiritual service was the most important thing for us, then the priority of spending is for the priest. He shouldn’t be given a minimum wage under the excuse of building or renovating a church. It is very clear that the priest’s decent living is more important than the physical church because this is the human church. Church councils have continuous projects in some places and restoring churches requires a lot of time. Meanwhile, how do this man and his family eat? I don’t know any family that reduces its kids’ food and their school fees and medication in order to buy an apartment or build a place. Things that are stable for you, i.e. the priority of food over any other project, are also stable for the priest.

What sources of living does this man have? It has become known for us since the beginning of the twentieth century that the priest has a fixed monthly salary and that the faithful honor him when he does a spiritual service for them. However, our experience shows that the biggest part of his income must come from the salary. Sometimes the faithful give a small amount. The number of happy occasions and sorrow ones varies. They increase and decrease and their income doesn’t give comfort. Some parish councils have a very bad tendency to say: Our priest has this number of weddings and that number of baptisms in order to take off themselves the responsibility of giving generously. I am amazed by the behavior of some people that are stingy with money that is not theirs and don’t behave the same towards their families.

Very few are convinced that a priest that has two or three children has to spend exactly as any family that also has two or three children. A lot of people don’t think about that as if there is a tendency to put the priest under the guardianship of the people in control of the Church’s money. As if they are saying that he has to be in need in order to learn humility. Who said that he can’t be humble without being in need?

Then the last and major issue is that the final decision in determining the salary is taken by the bishop who is responsible for the churches’ properties, and the deputies of these properties are only consultants for the bishop. We have to get rid completely of the following kind of speech that insults the spiritual authority: This is the property of our fathers and ancestors. This is not true. They gave, but after their giving these properties became under the guardianship of the church and not the families.

I feel very sad when I face a speech like the following: This is our maximal ability. What does this mean when we have in every parish a bunch of rich people and money in the banks? They also say that we don’t collect a lot in church. Alright, but if 3 to 8% of the faithful attended the liturgy, does this mean that the priest must live from what is collected in the liturgy only and not from a certain system of subscriptions?

These broad lines of our behavior are the thing that pleases the Lord.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “إعالة الكاهن” –Raiati 35- 02.09.2001

The first mistake is exaggerating in strictness. Sometimes, the spiritual father sees that it is beneficial to forbid the confessor from communion until he becomes sure of his repentance. The father would listen to him weekly and when he notices an improvement he would bring him back to the Holy Communion.

As for ordinary situations, wisdom is essential. For example, there could be a sick person that has to take his medicine in the morning accompanied by a piece of bread. The lord’s body is for the sick as it is for the healthy. Another case is that the spiritual son may not be intending to have communion in the morning but feels that he wants that during the service. The priest must estimate what should be done in such cases. There should be flexibility in things that are related to fasting. Ecclesiastic laws that have a disciplinary touch exist for the salvation of souls. It is up to the discerning priest to manage those laws.

In general, there is a difference between teaching and guidance. We provide teaching with strictness. However, if a person fell into sin, we must use mercy with him. This mercy facilitates the return of the lost son. There should be firmness while blaming him over the sin and sympathy while lifting the sinner from the pit.

The spiritual father commits a mistake if he disparaged the sin and if he made the issue look easy in order to try and save the sinner. Reducing the grossness of the sin usually throws the confessor in a deeper pit and ruins his evaluation for things. One shouldn’t say for example: “You lied, and lying is common; next time, be better”. This is a killing compromise with evil. You cannot say to a married person: “You used your freedom while you were traveling. I understand this. Preserve yourself in the next time”. Such words are very corrupting. To understand the person is one thing, while to excuse him is something completely different. The priest isn’t a psychoanalytic to understand how things occurred. He is a teacher of the Law and this is what gives salvation.

The counselor must encounter the sin that’s mentioned with the beauty of virtue that the spiritual son didn’t have. He must make the virtue attractive and try to make it beloved for the spiritual son. From this aspect, the priest accompanies his spiritual son with good words towards Jesus’ visage. He mustn’t act like a military person or like someone that has lost his patience. He must not be surprised by any sin and not produce any groan or sigh or anger in front of what he is hearing. Any person could commit any sin. The father must hear through his mind and try to understand the reason behind the trespass and its circumstances and the weakness that led to it. He must not confront with psychoanalysis but with the divine word. He shouldn’t play the role of a psychoanalytic. Analyzing is not his job, and having a minor knowledge might lead him to disasters. However, if he really discovered that the spiritual son needs a psychiatrist, he should lead him to one.

In addition to this, the priest cannot decide anything for his spiritual son. He is forbidden to command him to marry or to become a monk for example. He could say: You are qualified to be married, however he can’t exhort him to get married or to become a monk. Also, the more dangerous thing is to tell him: This girl is appropriate – or inappropriate – for you. The spiritual father doesn’t carry the responsibility of success or failure in marriage. The most important thing is that he shouldn’t carry a list of girls to make them the wives of his spiritual sons.

Again and again I want to assure that the spiritual son isn’t a slave for the priest. The priest must listen to whoever asks for guidance. In Greek, the word “obedience” is derived from the word “listening”. The main purpose of counseling is to guide the confessor to listen to the word of God so that it can change him. Therefore, no one may have dominance over the other. A loving and discerning accompaniment leads to obedience for God’s words.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “أغلاط الإرشاد الروحي” –Raiati 29- 22.07.2001

Not every priest is a spiritual father. Therefore, the Church doesn’t allow every priest to take confessions. When the bishop finds that a priest has reached a level of maturity, he declares him a spiritual father. What actually happens is that if a priest was alone in his parish, the bishop would give him this authority and call him a spiritual father even if he wasn’t able to be a counselor. The main idea is that the priest doesn’t become automatically – i.e. through his ordination or a special prayer – a spiritual father. This is a grace from above. The important thing is for the priest to know his limits. If he didn’t have enough knowledge in the Holy Book or didn’t have enough spiritual experience, it is better if he only gives forgiveness of sins without counseling. In such case, the Gospel would be a good counselor.

Deep religious education is a condition to recognize sin and its contrary. This would become available through numerous readings in different theological fields and ascetic literature if the reader can precisely differentiate between what he reads and what he must say in the case of the believer that came for counseling. How does the spiritual father move from what he has read to what he must say? This is a big question. We wouldn’t benefit people if we just repeat what we found in books.  It isn’t enough to direct people to sincerity; we should clarify how to live sincerity for example as a lawyer, a merchant or a person running for elections. What are the particularities of virtue in every case? It isn’t enough to call people for chastity. Talking about chastity with a single person is different than doing it with a married one. We cannot just ruminate ascetic words knowing that most of them have been written for monks.

No counseling could be done by simply saying ethical and social words such as: “Why did you do that? This is wrong”; or “you pray, how could you do such a sin?” If someone cannot speak from the heart of the Gospel with Jesus’ words, he must remain silent.

On a higher level, we might have a priest that has tasted the sweetness of the Lord. Such priest must not say anything except what comes from his experience. If the priest was a man of prayer, he can direct people to prayer. However, the priest that only fulfills his ritual duties cannot speak about praying. It isn’t enough for the counselor to say: “Pray, son”. If he hasn’t tasted the beauty of prayer and understood it and knew how to fight laziness or distraction in it, it is preferred for him to remain silent. Talking generally and ambiguously doesn’t take you anywhere.

All spiritual fathers must give advices and not orders. He shouldn’t cancel the personality of the person who came for confession or counseling. He isn’t his slave but his son and brother. We shouldn’t treat him as we treat a novice in monasticism. A spiritual father doesn’t put people in templates. He can be strict sometimes but not all the times; he must be sweet and tender in all situations.

The honoring given by the repentant for his spiritual father doesn’t mean that he falls in slavery to a person or that he doesn’t see any benefit except in this father. If he discovered that he isn’t getting a lot of benefits, he can leave him after taking permission. The spiritual father must make the bond loose because this is what this person has come to ask. The counselor must accept that his spiritual son could find another counselor. The spiritual father shouldn’t fall in jealousy towards other spiritual fathers.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can choose your spiritual father whenever you want. He shouldn’t necessarily be your parish’s priest. However, before leaving him, make sure that you’re going to someone better. There are very wise priests. It isn’t confirmed that all monks are better than them.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “في الإرشاد الروحي” –Raiati 28- 15.07.2001

On the nativity of the Lord, the heaven said to the people of earth: “Glory to God in the highest”. On the other hand, Herod killed the kids for the love of his own glory. In both Testaments glory is only given to God, while man gains his glory from him. Most of the shining verses state that glory is for God and we admit this. This is the glory that we saw on Christ, and was revealed through him on the cross. This glory fills the house of God, and it is for the people of God.

The bible derives from God and says that wise men do not inherit glory while people with humble spirits do. The bible doesn’t see any glory in any person other than that who has piety and wisdom (and these are for God). Therefore, the Lord said: “I do not receive glory from men”. Jesus also saw that the request of glory comes from the lack of faith. This is why he said to the Jews: “How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comesfrom the only God?” (John 5: 44).

A lot of people seek compliments and want to appear in people’s eyes. The request of leadership and control comes from our love of this worthless glory. Leaders that want support and posts seek this since posts are rarely gained through efficiency and education. The powerful helps the weak, not to honor him but to make him a follower. The weak tries to please the powerful because he fears him, he fears the suppression and the injustice of the leader. These “stooges” don’t disagree over an idea or a subject, but because of their different leaders or because each one follows a certain person.

What we conclude here is that we should seek our independence through piety that makes us the followers of God only. Sometimes this independence puts us on the edge (outside) of our society or makes us unaccepted from the powerful sides. However, in this case we find our immunity in God.

When a person loves others, he wants them strong and having independence in their opinions. He admits that their dignity comes from their Lord and no person could give another dignity. If I really love someone, I want him to be free, free from me because an unconditioned obedience to me is nothing but contempt towards someone I want as a follower.

This phenomenon is getting stronger in countries where the state is weak and do not protect people’s rights. The church can do nothing but read for people the bible that pushes them to only ask God’s glory. The church is not in a struggle with the powerful but it does say: “He (God) has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly”. The Church wants the person that considers himself “important” not to do so, but ask power from the grace to make himself a brother of all, a servant for those without waiting for any retribution or gratitude. The church asks him to serve the poor and the marginalized in order for them not to fear their weakness, for their weakness not to kill them.

If we all asked God’s glory, it would have settled on us and we would have been all equal in what God gave us, and we wouldn’t have felt any notability because of earthly money or power. “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name give glory”.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “المجد الباطل” – 8.7.2001

He is called in Greek “diabolos” and means the separator; he is the one that separates between people. Against him is the only God that unites people through love that he gives them so they become one body even if they were independent from each other. The other person is independent from me but not separate. When I say that you are my enemy, this means that I don’t consider you “with me” or “in me”. If you are my enemy, then you are thrown away from me and out of my heart.

I can consider you united with me even if I thought you were different. And if I loved you, that would not be to attract you to me but to God. When you are moving towards God, I will love you because this is what matters for me. For if I was moving towards God too, God himself will become a meeting for us. Because of this meeting that we are both invited to, we become one although each one of us would still have his own different things. God is the one that unites. We would still have some contrast, as every one has his privacy, but the common thing between us is the divine momentum that makes us eager to the Lord.

Whereas, if I leave you away from me, we would both be living in our solitudes and this way I’d be destroying both of us. When I love, I wouldn’t think about having control over you, because I’d be putting you under my authority and desires. This means that I want to pass to you my lusts and make you corrupt. When this happens, I won’t be “with you”; I would be with myself as it is with its sins. I am not able to love you unless I got rid from my sin so that it doesn’t affect you, so that it doesn’t finish you. Enmity, therefore, is death.

All of this goes into Satan’s benefit, he who wants spiritual death for you and me. This death is the Kingdom of the devil. He throws each one of us in a place and prevails over us. However, if we didn’t separate, God will unite us because his job is to make us one.

We can become united with God when we understand that “God embraces the worthy to his entity. All the saints embrace with all their entity God’s whole entity and they have no reward except him” (Saint Gregory Palamas). God doesn’t leave any part of him not embraced with man. Saints leave everything that is not divine while embracing God as they don’t ask for themselves and for others anything except God.

When God becomes everything in you and in the other person, unity happens as you would have ended your moodiness and you became light and saw light in others.

On the other side, the job of the devil is to prevent you from seeing others as light. He makes you see their defects in order to hate them so the light in you fades and you despise others to support your opinion about them; however, it is not your self that gave this opinion but your own defects.

Christ doesn’t reign over the scattered community (parish); Satan is its ruler. If these people prayed, they wouldn’t be praying for God because the spiteful worships himself. You see people coming towards the Lord’s body (Holy Communion) with the Lord not being between them; here, communion isn’t able to offer the Lord to them. They do not take anything, as Apostle Paul said that they took their condemnation and also the prayers that prepare us for communion say that they took “fire” and this means that they ate hell inside them.

The question here is: Who is your ruler? Is it Satan or Christ?

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الشيطان” – 1.7.2001

“Annahar” newspaper published on June 5^th an article entitled: “Is this the real visage of Christ?” (Talking about a form believed to be the closest to Christ’s face). This try was based on an experiment done on a skull of a Jewish man that is believed to represent the best model of people that lived in Palestine in Christ’s time as his skull goes back to the first century.

Of course, skulls don’t come from one model and are not all alike. There is also no definite dating archeologically. And we don’t know if Israeli authorities were interested in this subject and we also don’t know their intentions.

Here, we must say that early Christians didn’t care about the Lord’s physical form. Some of them said that his face was beautiful and others said the opposite. Of course, we find no interest in the Gospel concerning this issue. Studies showed that “Torino’s shroud”, that was believed to be Christ’s shroud, comes from the middle ages. Studies also proved that the text that has a description of Christ and attributed to Pilate is not a fixed text. So we don’t have any signal of the Savior’s physical appearance, and surely it doesn’t matter for us.

There is a statue that portrays the Savior artistically made after several tens of years from his resurrection. However, this is an artistic work and doesn’t have anything to do with reality. We can also find the oldest icon of the Lord preserved in the Louvre museum in Paris, and it is a Coptic icon that goes back to the Fifth century. However, this icon falls into a religious educative art in which the artist doesn’t try to imitate an actual image as he doesn’t have a photographic intention. And because Icon writers – and this is how we call painters – try to follow early models to give a spiritual idea, all their images were very similar. An icon is closer to being a symbol than a physical seen form. It is a theological reading of the person we are drawing.

European art was inspired by icons despite becoming independent in style and making. The important thing when looking at the icon is to spiritually ascend to the person portrayed on it. We don’t have any quest to know about the Lord’s skin or the color of his eyes. Of course, he did resemble the people of this oriental region and this is everything we can say.

Our relationship with the Lord is through the Holy Spirit. We don’t know him physically but spiritually as Paul says. This means that we know him through the heart when filled with grace. We also know him as the disciples of Emmaus did “when breaking the bread” through divine communion and the words that he said. We know him through love if we lived it and through the ecclesiastic bond that unites us with the brothers.

In this case, cinema doesn’t give us anything new about the Lord when an actor plays his character and it also doesn’t strengthen our faith. For us, he is not simply a human to put on stage. We look at him after resurrection, i.e. we see him a luminous creature related to us through the Holy Spirit and leading us to the Father. We can artistically enjoy the paintings done by great artists in which they drew biblical events including crucifixion. We do not deny the canonicity of these paintings, but they don’t make us pray. We meet the Lord through prayer and through icons. We also enjoy classical music that gave the tones for the polyphonic western liturgy. However, we don’t pray this way. We pray through the Spirit.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “وجه المسيح” –Raiati n^o24- 17.06.2001

Since the second century, Christians disagreed over the date of Pascha until it was fixed in the Nicene Council to be celebrated on the Sunday that follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox (i.e. 21^st of March). Then, we continued celebrating this way, in the East and the West, until the reformation of the Pope Gregory XIII who reformed the calendar. We didn’t change the calendar, therefore a 13 day gap between us and the west happened because the Western 21^st of March differs from the Eastern 21^st of March. This explains the existence of two celebrations of Pascha.

In March 1997, the representatives of all Christian Churches met for discussions in Aleppo. They agreed on following the decision of the First Ecumenical Council (the Nicene), as we previously said, according to the vernal equinox and the full moon. They agreed on the necessity of doing the calculations through the most precise scientific methods.

There is an initial orientation towards unity. However, nothing shows till this moment that we are heading towards it. I believe that this issue, that seems a great concern in our region, doesn’t have such an importance in countries that are religiously homogeneous. The existence of a mixture strengthens the concern.

Also, if some countries suffered in the past from the change that was done to the date of Christmas, what would they feel towards a change in Pascha? In Greece, a great number of believers didn’t accept the decision of the Church management to adopt the western calculation for Christmas. The difficulty for us, as Orthodox Christians, is that such a decision needs to be discussed and agreed by our Churches. However, supposedly the spiritual authorities agreed, this doesn’t necessitate that people will follow. There are field studies that show whether people agree or don’t.

However, before a global solution, we could think about regional ones. In this sense, Pope Paul VI allowed Eastern Catholics to celebrate with the Orthodox if they were the majority. According to this, the feast was united in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine (the region of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem).

Here, we got closer to each other, and Catholic Churches almost shared with us one date until one of their authorities decided to do a referendum for this subject over the faithful. We didn’t get any results of this referendum. Obviously, we have to preserve the Orthodox brotherhood in the world before reaching a global solution.

Nevertheless, my wish today is to say that the public gives this issue an undeserved great importance. The Evangelical and the Western celebrate together but this didn’t make them closer theologically and intellectually. The Catholics and we are closer to each other than the Evangelical, and celebrating Pascha differently added nothing to our conflicts.

Those who call for unity say: “We want to feel that we are united”. Is this our unity? If we celebrated together in 2002, would conflicts between Churches disappear (At least the Pope’s global authority and his immaculacy without mentioning other conflicts)?

We get anaesthetized by the unity of Pascha, and this might suggest that problems got solved. The truth is that we would appear in a scene of unity and not a state of unity. The reality of the situation today is that great difficulties appeared among us recently (confrontations in Easter Europe) and also on the theological level [excluding us from our Catholic (i.e. universal) Church membership]. What would a united feast benefit us in the midst of intellectual diverge?

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “هل ضروري الفصح الواحد؟” –Raiati 5-

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “هل ضروري الفصح الواحد؟” –Raiati 5- 04.02.2001

Since the priest, through fulfilling the sacraments, is an icon of Christ, then whoever dispraises him would be dispraising Christ. God said: “Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people”. If you wanted to blame him, go and do it with a meek spirit and blame him clearly. And if he committed a big mistake and didn’t fix himself, you could complain to the bishop. These are the limits that you could move between.

If gossip against any person is bad, then gossip against the priest, if it spread, could destroy the parish and the trust between the parish and the pastor. The determination of the dispraised priest and of the faithful both decrease. This could also affect other priests. In this country, we sometimes tend to generalize the accusation.

Perhaps the gossip started from our wish for our priest to be a saint. This wish is good. However, if we noticed a weakness in him, he won’t be healed if we criticized him in front of people. He will be healed through our treatment for him, through taking care of him and our feeling towards him. Create a strong bond between the priest and yourself. Invite him to your home and do not wait for him to pass by you once every year. And if he was a good speaker, listen to him so that he feels that you need him. And do not become sad if he was closer to someone than he is to you. He might be happy with that in his isolation.

Push him into education. The danger lies in him getting bored from books because of being busy with divine services, weddings, funerals and visits. Encourage him to continue studying until he masters his job. Without understanding, how could a priest be beneficial? What could he give? Influence him to be interested in books so that he provides you with knowledge that laymen don’t have enough time to obtain.

Push him into piety. This could increase through human effort and the vigilance of the soul; the priest is an example and a reference of behavior. You could ask from him the best behavior in order for the parish to do the same and become on the road of salvation. He takes care of the parish first through his purity and then through his word, and the word must become a service for him.

Don’t complain if your priest wasn’t the greatest priest in the world. But if you synergized with the brothers in the parish in order not to put on the shoulders of the spiritual father a heavy burden, he might ascend to the higher atmospheres and then descend to you with the greatest love.

The job of the parish towards itself is to be bonded with divine love between its members in a way that no conflicts would exist so that it doesn’t tire itself and its pastor. When disputes occur, the parish must expect a discipline. No one is exempt from being blamed and very few are from being rebuked. The faithful should behave with the priest with meekness that would make him happy and encourage him to do a greater service.

God is the priest’s fortune. Do not push him with your stinginess to seek for money in a sick way. Don’t give him the chance to humiliate himself and then dispraise him. Give him joy by having some affluence so that he wouldn’t have any excuse to be careless towards you. And above everything, have chaste tongues.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “ذمّ الكاهن” –Raiati 04- 28.01.2001

We arrive to Church at the beginning of the Divine Service. In the early Church, the group of faithful used to arrive before the priest and he enters carrying the Gospel and saying: “Wisdom, let us be attentive”, which means that what I carry in my hands is the Wisdom so stand up to receive it. The divine words that we say or chant or act with motion is a banquet, and the invited come to the banquet of the righteous in a specified time.

And if the invitation was for the Divine Liturgy, it is one motion that has a beginning and an end. Everything in the Liturgy is a multi-faced food like the Litanies, chants, the two New Testament readings, and also the words of sanctification, communion and the ending. All the phases of the service are overlapping. At the Gospel reading for example, the divine word purifies you and you repent to be able to have communion with worthiness, therefore it isn’t compatible with the phases to go forward to communion if you didn’t get ready with what precedes it.

And if you wanted to live a perfect Sunday, you come to the Matins service in order to enter the ambience of Resurrection. And the meaningful Resurrection is spread in your ears. However, this is another subject.

If you were invited to a wedding, you are originally going to pray for the bride and groom and not only to congratulate them at the end. Congratulating has another place. How ugly it is to see the believers coming throughout the whole hour of the Liturgy. In this archdiocese, the time of the beginning of the service on Sunday morning is at ten or a little bit before. Why all this deceleration? What were you doing before that? If it is an issue of breakfast, this is out of question because you are coming to have Divine Communion. And if the slowing down is a result of being late at night, then this means that you love to stay up more than you love the Liturgy. Also, one of your family members being late cannot be your excuse. Teach your family to have time discipline because in all occasions this is a part of politeness and in the issue of your prayer this is a part of piety.

A flaming person in God’s love does not miss any word of His Words. You might miss a word that could save you from the situation that is causing you pain. You might find in some words an answer to questions that were worrying you. I hope that you also don’t forget that you are not alone in existence and that the Liturgy on Sunday morning or in feasts is the place where the community meets in front of God’s face. You are formed of two things: To be seen by the Lord on his banquet, and to be seen by the brothers as a support for them so that Christ looks at you as his body, i.e. his visible spread. As for going whenever suites your mood, this means that you do not want to condition your mind according to Christ and that you meet him whenever you want while he wants to receive you in every offering and in every season.

As for complaining that your circumstances didn’t allow you, this is unacceptable because your circumstances always allow you to welcome a friend that you love. And if you were an immigrant and a dear person died here, you leave everything to attend a funeral. I know countries in which believers spend one or two hours by car to reach the closest Church of ours. And you leave an Orthodox Church that is not more than quarter of an hour away to go to another Church because it is located in your street. And your excuse in this is that all Christian sects are one.

The issue of time and time accuracy is an essential subject in our education and an essential part in our spiritual belonging. If you were disciplined in time you prove that you are a serious person.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “وقت المجيء إلى الكنيسة” –Raiati 1 – 07.01.2001