Raiati

The Gospel reading for today is a part of the Sermon on a plain, as described by Luke, which is parallel to the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Mathew. The part that constitutes the Gospel of toady starts as follows: “Just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.” If you want goodness, justice, compassion and love for yourself, give the other all these. Hence, you are making him equal to you, just as God has made you equal to him. Before you love him, try to avoid all that harms him: mistrust, gossip, lying, slander, hatred and so on.

Afterwards, you show him goodness. Do not await anything from him. Expect abuse from many people, expect them to be unfair. Take the initiative and love them, so you shall advance and they shall be healed. Do not care if someone hurts you, for if you were highly sensitive, you will be hurt incessantly. Instead, you will feel sad for the other, and you will wonder why he did what he did.  Rare are those who can remain steadfast. If someone hurts you, do not forget that, first of all, he has hurt himself and has sinned. The Christ died for him, thus he is invaluable. You shall have one concern: to bring him back to the Lord so that he can be healed. His unfairness does not make you lose anything. Your value lies in you or in the Christ, and it can never be taken away from you despite all the harm you would encounter.

          No one can ever overthrow your peace. Only you can cause yourself to be in trouble, and only hatred can send you down to hell. You have to act and you must act, but by righteous means. Not by slander. You can argue, and defend your positions courageously and forcefully, yet in a peaceful manner. You oppose the other’s arguments, but you do not refuse him. You hate sins, not sinners; for God loves the sinners as He loves the righteous.

          You are a healer for those who hate you. You shall not take part in hatred. The solution is not to reject those who have hurt you, for this will erase neither your sadness nor their rancor. It is your responsibility to show your enemy the path back to God. For this reason, you shall neglect your hurt pride and get him reconciled not only with you, but also with himself and with God.

          Always remember that the liars and those who have an eager desire for money and distinction abhor you because of your fondness for the truth, for you threaten their interests. Being unable to kill you or fearing the punishment of crime, they have an alternative way to kill you; slander that drives you to despair of them and of life. If your sadness led to the rupture of your relations and to isolation, you would be giving them the chance to reach their goals and continue their transgressions. It is only through mercy that you can vanquish hatred and anger.

          This conclusion marks the ending of the Gospel reading: “Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” Jesus here sheds light on one of the aspects of God. It means that God is very lenient and that He welcomes all His sons. You shall not expel anyone away from your heart. Make it as wide as God’s heart.

Translated by Amani Haddad

Original Text: “الرحمة” – Raiati n^o40- 03.10.1999

Honesty is bravery; it is the faith in the power of God that is enough to protect you. Honesty is a must in order not to harm others. Lying might not harm the other sometimes, but could only harm the liar himself. The liar thinks that he is avoiding trouble through lying, and this might work for one or several times. However, he will eventually fail when he will be caught. The question remains: Are white lies that don’t harm anyone allowed? Actually it is always harmful as the liar would be stunted when he escapes from confrontation. Our fathers gave one exception as they said that lying is allowed in one case and it is when honesty could be harmful, and they gave an example which is when you are hiding with you a scared person that is chased by criminals. In this case you are allowed to say: “This criminal is not with me”.

Of course, when you have been told a secret you should keep it. For example, if you knew about a lethal sickness that the doctor hid from the patient, or if you knew secrets related to a marriage, these are matters where you should be discreet.

Honesty makes you a reference for people because they would feel secure concerning you and your treatment to them. This security that people would feel carries peace and healthy relationships.

What does lying in words mean? It is when you know the truth and say the opposite. You can hide the truth from a person that has no right to know it, but you can’t hide anything from the responsible. You can’t hide it from the political authority when you know something related to national security for example, or from the spiritual authority if you knew that a parish is being harmed through dishonesty regarding its financial management or that there is a disturbance that could harm the parish or the priest. The person that is responsible for reforming has the right to know what is going on.

Lying could also occur without any words. There is a lying position or situation. He who betrayed the country, damaged an interest or ruined his family life is in a situation of lying. He is taking a lying route. The writer of the Psalms said concerning this: “I hate every path that leads to lying”. The book of Proverbs talks about a gift of lying. Also, the book of revelation while talking about the heavenly church says: “Nothing evil will be allowed to enter, nor anyone who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty”. Therefore, there is an act of lying. Prophet Jeremiah confirms this when he says: “everyone deals falsely”.

There is also the lying oath and the lying prophecy. The lying witness destroys people’s families, reputations and interests. The Lord says about the devil that he is “a liar and the father of the liar”.

Lying is one of the dangerous whims and the only way out of it is through Christ. If you had this weakness, ask honesty from Christ. Try to be like him, he who talked the Pharisees and Scribes with honesty while they were endangering him. In his trial he was not afraid from the Jewish High Priests and told them that he is the Son of God and didn’t hide the truth that cost him his life.

Honesty made all Christian generations go to martyrdom. They were able to stay alive if they blasphemed, but because their honesty made them die, we are able to live today. We live on their testimony that consolidated the church.

Honesty in words, position, and testifying is the power of the Savior in us. He, who wants Jesus, should behave like Jesus did.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الكذب” – 05.09.1999

In the late 1940s, Fr. Alexander Schemann (Russian) met with Nikos Nisiotis (Greek) and the writer of these lines in Europe after feeling that the movements of Orthodox youths around the world need to have more unity and coordination. We launched the idea in a bigger meeting in the suburbs of Geneva. We called this movement “Syndesmos”, which means “the bond”, and we took this name from the expression “bond of peace” that Paul used in Ephesians 4: 3.

It includes now 120 youth movements in addition to Theological institutes from fifty countries. The movement was blessed by the heads of all our churches. The Association revived preaching in pagan nations. It supported Orthodox unity and supported the faithful to have Holy Communion. It also took care of environmental issues. The general assembly meets every four years to elect its administrative body and choose the subjects it suggests on the movements to study.

The last general assembly was held between 15 and 25 July in the Transfiguration monastery, Valamo (Finland). Around 250 delegates came from all over our East, Europe, America and Africa, in addition to representatives from the Oriental Churches (non-Chalcedonic). They were distributed into groups that studied secularism, ecclesiastic traditions and habits, liturgical language, inter-Christian dialogue, social service, laics in Church, Ethical values, Theological institutes, and Orthodoxy & Environment. We were around ten from the Antiochian Church. A president, general secretary and a helping staff were elected. Then, a group went as pilgrims to Russia, to the old Monastery of Valamo situated on the Ladoga Lake next to Petersburg.

The atmosphere of the monastery was amazing in an area of 300 Hectares of land. It is visited by many pilgrims coming from the Orthodox Church of Finland that has around sixty thousand Finnish believers in addition to 150 thousand foreigners (Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians…). It is a very active Church that has a kind of autonomy under the Patriarchate of Constantinople (i.e. the Ecumenical Patriarchate agrees on the election of the Archbishop while the local Council elects the bishops of the Archdioceses and runs the issues of the Church without going back to Constantinople). Orthodox Theology is taught in an independent faculty that is a part of the state university. All of their priests are intellectual. Piety is obvious. Their liturgical style in performing and composition is Russian because Finnish Orthodox believers were a part of the Church of Moscow before the Russian Revolution. They have a lot of energy and no complex of minority (knowing that we are only 1% of the Finnish people).

This fusion between the youths of all around the world was beautiful. We used many languages because of the presence of many nations. Of course, some of the representative groups were more open and flexible such as the Antiochian group, and in comparison with those some conservative closed tendencies appeared. However, the Orthodox unity was obvious.

The importance of this association is that it is a tool of revival in Churches; it spreads its thoughts in the Orthodox world which is one world distributed into regional units. Here, we have a geographic unit that includes all Arabic youth movements between the Churches of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. We hope that the influence of the Syndesmos would become stronger between our Churches and become heard by the spiritual authorities. Perhaps the coming four years would give all our Churches more whiffs from the Divine Spirit.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “رابطة الحركات الأرثوذكسية” –Raiati n^o32- 08.08.1999

There is no doubt that communion isn’t only a right for the believer in every liturgy but also a duty. The attendance towards communion became great when believers understood that they cannot become complete without it. It is their heavenly bread and the source of their eternal life. However, the encounter with Jesus is a responsible encounter based on our love and commitment for him. It is a process that requires an awareness regarding the greatness of the encounter and the depth of the love that it carries. In simpler words, the condition for this communion is repentance and the intention to leave sin and eagerness to stay with the Lord forever.

One of the ways of getting ready is staying without food since dawn. This preparation is fear in the sense: “With fear of God draw near”. He who didn’t plan to be a better person after the liturgy must abstain himself from receiving the Lord’s body. The person that is preparing a sinful plan or that is intending to stay in his hatred and bad relationships and lies isn’t concerned with the call of the priest: “With fear for God and faith and love draw near”.

If your heart wasn’t moved for Christ and you didn’t ask his friendship and intimacy, do not stand in the line of those who are approaching communion. Since the night that precedes the liturgy, you should stay alone with the Lord through prayer and holy readings. Among these prayers, there is the “metalipsis”, which is a collection of prayers that are read after the Small Compline and that contain meanings of repentance, piety and asking for forgiveness. And before going to Church, it is necessary to say any prayer (you can make it up) in which you tell the Lord that you are going to him.

If you arrived very late to the liturgy, this means that you are not interested in it. Therefore, do not have communion. You should attend the whole divine service since “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father…” and it is also better to participate in the Matins service in order to hear the meanings of resurrection which elevate your soul through resurrectional chants. How could you approach Christ’s divine blood before becoming paschal through tasting His triumph?

Communion isn’t a Sunday habit. We do not get used to things. We are always with Jesus in a renewed love. We receive Him on Sunday as if it is our first time. You cannot become a new man if you didn’t accept Him as a new dawn, as if you were baptized today. If you passed by the liturgy as if it is a group of consecutive segments with a tone that you like, i.e. if you were shallow to this extent, how could you approach such a fearful food?

You can find fondness with Jesus, but you can only earn this after fatigue. If your heart didn’t experience tears and if you weren’t stained with your tears, then you are a dry person, and dry people do not accept Christ in His tenderness. If you didn’t understand that the Lord is the whole life, you should abstain yourself.

Was your heart covered with silence and crowned with mercy? Did you stay away from the noise and glow of lust in you? Did you deny yourself from all the whispers of the devil and pushed him away from you? Did you love the divine lover? If you did so, approach while feeling fear towards your salvation and asking for mercy from your Lord and being crushed to the extent of disappearing in front of the Lord’s feet. If you weren’t in this situation, then you do seem close but you wouldn’t have approached the Lord’s heart, you wouldn’t have been thrown in His bosom. Be fearful, then feel secure and come.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الاستعداد للمناولة” –Raiati 31- 01.08.1999

Today’s Gospel starts with the Lord’s blessed saying: “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are evil your whole body will be full of darkness”. Eyes do not refer here to the body part found in the face but to the inner vision, the soul’s vision. Shakespeare talks about this in his play “Julius Caesar” saying: “The wrong, my dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in our souls”. What can the vision that’s in you see? It can either see God in front of you at all times and therefore you’d be healthy (modest), or it could be directed towards the ground and therefore you will be like an eye that has cancer or blue eye disease where a thickness in the lens prevents vision.

The simple or healthy eye is loving, while the other eye envies and therefore everything will seem dark. The world would seem beautiful when you have a beautiful vision, and it would seem dark when your internal vision is dark.

People believe that the green-eye is harmful. The church doesn’t admit that a person could harm another through envying. The person that envies can only harm himself. Even though we do have a prayer to remove the harm of the green-eye, this isn’t an admission about the existence of the “harmful eye”. The prayer helps the person that feels “hit” by this harm to be liberated from this fear, and this is why this prayer quotes from the Psalm and says: “The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” and “I feel no evil, for you are with me”.

The envious person ruins his soul because he carries hatred. I mention here that while hearing once the confession of a man that asked me to help him in confession, I asked him: “Do you have jealousy?” He answered: “yes”. Then I told him: “What would you lose if you thought that you are beautiful, and others are too? What do you lose if you thought that you are intelligent and believed, at the same time, that many of you friends also have a lot of intelligence?” Beauty and intelligence are common between people, and therefore God shall be glorified through this.

The person who loves should be happy for the fact that gifts are distributed and miscellaneous. Gifted people lead us to praise the God that gave them the good things they have. No one of us could have all the good things for himself. When you recognize these gifts in others you shall enhance yourself and progress, while when you envy you shall fight the person whom you are envying and, therefore, you shall live in constant bitterness in which you hurt yourself.

If you recognized goodness in you thank God, and if you recognized it in others also be thankful because the only God has shined over both of you. On the other hand, if you saw badness in people you should be sad for this, and pray for the person perhaps God embraces him through his mercy. Inspire all people to see the glory, dignity, and purity so that they could assimilate Christ’s simplicity.

Of course, you cannot withhold your qualities; your qualities shine and their brightness could make the envier more envious. However, do not lose hope from his repentance. His lord might be merciful one day and make him see the beauties of the world, gain the simplicity of vision, and learn to praise. Perhaps envy comes from fear or Insecurity. It is, for sure, a kind of weakness in faith. You often find yourself unable to lead the envier into light. Here, you have no solution except to continue praying for the person that hates you, and he has his God who shall deal with this: He might cure him in a time of satisfaction. You should believe that all people are better than you and be thankful.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “العين الشريرة” – 20.06.1999

At a time of lack of discipline and rebellion of children against parental authority, and in a society calling for the freedom of husbands and wives, talking about obedience has become an old issue. I know that the concept of counseling exists among believers; nonetheless, this concept does not really take place if the seeker of counsel is not willing to accept the truth coming from someone else. The truth always prevails, and counseling is not having many standpoints; but rather reaching a proper one that satisfies God, not the majority.

              The Bible mentions obedience to God. As for obedience to humans, it is restricted to those who have the word of God, or who remind us about it. We do not obey anyone because of his rank; but rather because he says the word of God. Obedience through him is, thus, obedience to God. Within the Church, you obey the spiritual leaders because they are responsible for your salvation. Originally, they are where they are because they learned, before taking up this responsibility, to ensure your salvation.

              Once I was preaching and I was told:”You are saying so because you are a bishop.” (The person meant that I was repeating words imposed by my job). I told him that, on the contrary, I have been named bishop because of my words.

              In monasticism, the spiritual father who is obeyed and who guides the monks does not fulfill this role because he listens to confessions. A spiritual father has acquired an extensive knowledge in Christ; and consequently in the human heart on one hand, and in the divine word on the other hand. Because he is not authoritative and has no interest, he guides you towards what is beneficial for you. Obedience is based on confidence in this context and on the faith that your spiritual father represents God.

              All this begins with the obedience of the Son to the Father “…made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death.” (Philippians 2: 7-8). This obedience was the way of the Lord to resurrection.

              Going down from the Lord to our fraternal relationships, we find that God wants us to be “submitting to one another in the fear of God”. (Ephesians 5:21) In this call, we see that the elderly can submit to the young, the young to the elderly, the woman to the man and the man to the woman. There is no dominant category, and another submitting one. You submit to whoever says the truth regardless of what you think of him. You always submit to whoever has the Spirit of the Lord. If you knew that someone has the Spirit of the Lord, you shall submit your will to him.

              First and foremost, do not reject a fair demand and do not close your heart in front of any asker. Listen fairly to those who argument. Be open to people as the Lord has said: “Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.” (Mathew 5:41) In this the Father may be glorified.

Translated from Arabic – 07.04.10

Original Text: “الطاعة” – 23.05.99

Thoughts from Today’s Feast

     The importance of the holy St. Antonios resides in the fact that he was the founder of the monasticism. It is not that there weren’t any hermits for studentship in Egypt, but they say that the monasticism has also appeared in this same historical era, which means in the third century and in between western Aleppo and Antioch, the cities known as learners’ cities of northern Syria. St. Athanasios the Great, the famous patriarch of Alexandria, who had participated in the unification of this movement with the church, had written the biography of St. Antonios. As I’ve said, the monasticism was an evangelical movement that insisted on living the gospel totally and this was after that St. Antonios had noticed a bit of corruption penetrating to the believers’ crowds.

     He wanted a Christian life in the desert, a life with no adulteration and no haggling, a life based on abstinence, self-control and fighting desires; but a life based on love and tenderness. St. Bakhomios and St. Basilios had succeeded him building up the mutual life, a life determined by groups living together and leaded by a guide who they should obey. This first independent enthusiasm had grown into vows and had been spread all over the world: in the east and in the west.

     Yes, the monasticism had not invented the virtues. These have already existed in the gospel. However, the monks showed us how to struggle against lowness. They have studied and known the ruses of the evil spirit and how we can be rescued from lowness. They have put rules to liberate ourselves from pressing caprices and a technique to reach virtues and to preserve them. The believers have learnt from them the seriousness of the spiritual war and the seriousness of living with Jesus. From here, the monastic example became the example for all the orthodox people. It is not that we have to put an end to marriages, but we have to be all related to the spirit of poverty, abstinence and obedience, either we were living in this world, or isolated in monasteries.

      In addition to this base, the monks had accomplished a very sublime work, as they had organized the worships determining their basics and organization. They had organized the mutual prayers that we practice (the hours, Matins, Vespers, and the liturgical books) as they had structured them. Only the divine mass had already existed before the monasticism. However, the most important of our people who determined its last organization were John Chrysostom and Basilios who were monks.

     Furthermore, the monks had put a great heritage into the ascetical literature (Zorothios Al Ghazawi, John Climacus, Isaac of Nineveh) and if we only mention the great of them, it is for to be guided by their heritage in order to self-redress from our faults and our trials. Its essence is useful for all people.

     Some of them had also participated in writing the pure theology and we mention here John of Damascus and Safronios (both of them were from Damascus) and Maximus the Confessor. Thus, we can say that there is no knowledge domain in the church in which monks did not participate.

     Nevertheless, the spiritual life is an expansion in people life. And this is particularly obvious in Russia and in the west, where each cultural activity used to appear in the monasteries and then to reach the outside. We mention here the industries and agriculture of Russia that arose in the monasteries. You devote yourself to God and you wait for the second arrival of Jesus Christ. This doesn’t separate you from the laics, but it brings you closer to them, for supporting them in love and in their economic life.

     It is not the appropriate occasion now to enumerate the great activities that the monks in our lands had done. Our specificity in the See of Antioch is that we have a monasticism that preaches and goes out to the world. The monasticism of Antioch existed until the eighteenth century; it was then disappearing between men until the moment when God gave it back to us in the beginnings of the fifties (but it has always existed between women in the Patriarchal diocese in Sednaya and Maaloula). It came back today to the Patriarchal monastery of St. George’s in Humeyra and to the Lady Monastery in Blemana (the diocese of Lattakia) and in Mount Lebanon. We have in this diocese today fifty monks and nuns and they are distributed among all our monasteries (The Lady of Hamatoura, The Lady of Nourieh, The Lady of Kaftoun, St. Michael in Bekaata, The Monastery of St. Georgios in the village of Deir El Harf, The Monastery of St. John and The Monastery of St. Selwan in Douma) and all those monasteries are established the old way.

     All those monasteries are still visited by believers in order to pray and to be guided. They also have some ascetical and theological publications that participate in our raising. All this has started with this great man Antonios.

Many of the attitudes of our people can be summed up by the following: I said so and I am not willing to change my mind; if you have a different opinion, I will further insist on what I said; and the two people become two parties. On the other side, we have the Cross that consists of two woody pieces, one vertical and the other horizontal. Vertically, the Christ is oriented towards God His Father; and horizontally, He embraces people in His arms. If you are not oriented towards the Truth, that is God’s Self, words and actions; you can in no way accept others. If you do not tell your friend or foe when he is right “you have convinced me and I will renounce my thoughts”, you are standing outside the way of the Christ who knows no place for you but the Truth, for He said: “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”.

            This is what Jesus pointed out in the Gospel reading for today: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” In fact, cross-bearing is as simple as renouncing your own words – if they were incorrect – and admitting that you have adopted a different and more convenient thought. Being the man of Truth means believing in Jesus for He is the Truth.

            In this context, the Lord claimed: “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” You might gain money, power and prestige; yet all that you have shall be void if you refuse the Truth and insist on falsehood. You cannot enter the Kingdom of God if you keep on resisting the Truth. Nothing is of more importance than maintaining your soul in the Truth of God, in honesty and purity. This is why He said: “What will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Man is made by his heart, not by the money in his pocket or his bank account. If you were the reference of the Truth, so falsehood will have no place in your words, behavior and intentions; then you shall have an unparalleled strength. And the Kingdom of God would be already bestowed upon you.

The main question for the followers of the Cross religion is the following: Do I accept to be crucified as required by my baptism? Am I ready to mortify my desires in order to live with the Christ? If I do not do so, the Cross would only be a piece of wood or gold attached to my neck; a symbol with no meaning. We are invited to go beyond the symbol and reach for the meaning that is the new life. The first desire to be mortified is the worship we offer for ourselves and our opinions. This is arrogance; and the arrogant is a sinner because he considers himself a god; he does not see his brother in humanity and does not embrace him. He worships his own words, his own attitudes. The whole world is made by his arrangement, his own decisions; and all people have to comply with his plans. He cannot accept the failure of any of his plans.

The Cross of the Christ would only be a beautiful melody if we do not believe that our situation is one of crucifixion, of self-denial, of listening and respect to others; so that we can feel the sufferings and needs of others. The Cross is when I embrace others into my heart and we ascend our way to the Christ who brings us together.

Translated from Arabic – 27.03.10

Original Text: “إنكار الأنا” – 20.09.98

We hear the word of lust in us. It shouts in us, it noises, and it calls us to follow it. If we obeyed it, we would be satisfied, or we would rather convince ourselves to be. The alcoholic drink calls you to follow it. And if you became dependent, you would think that this is good. If you became addicted to power, if you controlled people and knew your status, you will enjoy the pleasure of power, thinking that this is good. You will create some convictions, a group of convictions you would someday consider as your own religion; and if you were sincere, this will be your true religion.

            You will try in vain to disregard the voice of lust in you, should you not believe that it is truly harmful. You will not reach this conviction unless you realize that there exists something far more rewarding and lasting. But, who will tell you that frankness is more beneficial than lying, and that it does really save you? Your objection here might be: how could frankness save me when it leads me to lose my job and success in life? The only way to know the need to be sincere is to feel that lying makes you hurt others, or at least it makes you lose your audacity and regress. If you feel that a frank position leads you to an internal peace and exhilaration, you shall be set on the way of truth.

            You need someone to tell you that a certain virtue revives an aspect of your personality. That someone should be convincing, speaking without mistake; and you shall be able to trust him, for you will know that he has both wisdom and love for you.

            This unique being is the Christ. He spoke once and for all in the Gospel. He addresses your person, just as you are, with all your weaknesses, to turn you into a wondrous person. If you wish to get rid of all that hurts you, you shall give yourself for Him, for you know that He loves for you what you do not love for yourself, and that He knows where your interests truly lie, unlike you. How do you ask Him about your interests? He told you in His Gospel, and through the teachings of His disciples, what has the power to make you a good person. He said that you ought to set aside all that hampers your reaching a righteous life, just as He told Peter and Andrew to leave their nets and follow Him, and as He told James son of Zebedee and his brother John to leave their nets and father and follow Him.  

            There is always a separation from what you think is a pleasure, from the love for money that hinders your forming an independent personality that prevails over money. He calls you to leave the love for power and to be humble while in a powerful position, for in power exists a selfishness that imprisons you. He also asks you to abstain from sexual activity outside marriage, no matter how tempting it is, for it destroys you and takes away your freedom.

            The Christ in you is His word in you. The Gospel is the source from which you can take this word, if you keep on reading it on a daily basis, and if you let your mind adapt to it. This is why Paul claimed: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”  (Philippians 2: 5) Your struggle is to reject the mind that the sins implanted in you and made you utter. If you acquire in your heart the mind of Christ, your mind shall be as the Christ’s. And this explains the psalm: “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”  (Psalm 119: 11)

            This is the key to repentance; to keep the mind of Lord in store so as to reject with it the words that the Evil wants you to hear. When the Lord said “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mathew 4: 4), He meant that this new life in you makes you forthwith reject the words of death implied to you by the Evil. A true repentance is one that allows the word of Christ to inhabit you.

Translated from Arabic – 12.05.10

Original Text: “سكنى الكلمة فينا” – 29.03.98

             The first step towards righteousness is to have faith in God and to believe that what He declared in the Bible is the truth. This also necessitates making all your desires and whims die away. For our minds are often influenced by our actions, especially the frequent ones. If you have been lying so long and you think that it has been saving you, you might be convinced that lying is a good and smart behavior. The same will also happen if you steal or cheat, so you shall not see the divine truth. Your iniquities will become the source of your mind. Since all humans incline to the wickedness and tend to turn the same into a way of thinking, God spoke to eradicate this misconception from our hearts. The divine word exists, because our minds are incapable of choosing the right position; or because our minds are inclined to do trespasses and are damaged by iniquities.

            For this reason came the guiding word to which we resort and from which we come, so we shall be in the truth, or we shall be the truth. Nevertheless, you have to adapt yourself to the word and you ought not to abandon it, so as not to allow your own words to take control of your actions. The word of the Bible, and not your own word, knows what is good for you more than you do. If you adapt yourself to the word, it will stay in you and your soul will be relieved, so you will resort to it and keep it on your mouth and in your ears. If you are tempted by evil, you shall be able to repel it by the truth with which your soul has been molded, so it will be the shield, the sword, the helmet and the whole weapon.

            The author of the Psalms recognized this and talked about our love to the commandments, in Psalm 118 (Psalm 119 in modern versions). Before our spiritual maturity, when we were acting as children in the Christian life, we were like school students. We feel that God is like the teacher; He gives orders and we delight ourselves in disobedience. At first, the individual builds an enmity between him and the commandment because he feels that it threatens his freedom. He is his own god. He wants to take his own decisions, and not from any human or divine authority. But, at one point, the student will become mature, and he will understand that it is of interest to him to be obedient, and that the teacher decides what knowledge he will give his student.

            To trust God – and this is what faith is all about – is not only to be convinced of the commandment, but also to love it, because we know that it can heal and embellish the soul; and all that is not a commandment is a temptation. This is why David claimed in this great Psalm: “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” Not only have I read it over and over again, but also I have eaten it. The divine word shall come into our hearts so that it will protect us from the sin if it tried to infiltrate.

             The prophet-melodist talks about love by which we accept the word: “My soul breaks with longing for Your judgments.” Compare this statement and what we usually do.   We long for sins, whereas David longs for the commandments of God.

            And after longing comes love, for he says: “My hands also I will lift up to Your commandments, which I love.”  He then talks about action: “It is time for You to act, O LORD, for they have regarded Your law as void. Therefore I love Your commandments more than gold, yes, than fine gold!” Your word is a weapon with which I fight against the wicked. I will have neither a strong weapon in my hands, nor enough strength to fight them, unless I love Your commandments, so that they will attract and move me, to go into your fight in the universe. 

Translated by Amani Haddad – 09.02.10

Original Text: “محبة الوصايا” – 07.09.1997