Raiati

John the Evangelist didn’t write this long chapter about the man born blind only to talk about a miracle Jesus made, but to say through it that Jesus is the giver of light and that the non-recognition of Christ is blindness itself. Since the beginning of the fourth Gospel, where this passage is found, the apostle says: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world”. The Gospel of John talks a lot about the light.

The Jews used to believe that a disaster hits a person as a punishment for a sin he did. The Lord replies saying: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned”. One doesn’t inherit the results of the sins his parents did. The Master goes beyond this debate through healing the man blind from birth. “He came home seeing”. In the end of the talk about the healing this man becomes “seeing” from the spiritual aspect since he believed in Jesus. The physical healing was a way into the spiritual one as the man told Jesus: “Lord, I believe’ and he worshiped him”.

The Evangelist uses the occasion of this miracle to insert a theological debate between Jesus and the Pharisees because the miracle happened on a Saturday and they used the Law of Moses to say that the miracle is a work and one should not work on a Sabbath although they have heard what the Lord said: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”.

The issue of Sabbath as explained by the Pharisees was one of the main reasons that made them provoke the people to kill the Lord. Lord Jesus was the victim of this wrong interpretation of Sabbath, the victim of the tyrannical system that people put and didn’t come from Moses.

There is also another part of the debate, which is the debate that happened between the parents of this man and the Pharisees. Was he blind or not? They refused the fact that the blind was healed and that they entered into darkness although they saw the truth. However, they didn’t want to admit it because if they did they would be then admitting that Jesus is at least a prophet or the anticipated messiah. They refused to admit this in order not to lose their power over the Jewish people and for the doctrine of the Pharisees which they inserted into the pure Jewish doctrine won’t be lost. This young man can’t be blind; they had to insist on that in order to save themselves.

Even if the truth appeared to us, we could sometimes escape from it because it is the surrender of soul to the savior and a complete repentance of all our sins. You can either be with Jesus, and consequently with all what he taught and asked for or with the darkness of your heart and sins.

The Gospel of the blind man is the choice between being completely to the Lord or not. It is nothing to be partially for him. “Your will be done”: This is how we are saved and not through our own will.

Christ is the complete light and we cannot choose parts of the light. Choosing parts of the light is blindness.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “أحد الأعمى” –Raiati n^o22- 29.05.2011

When Jesus was going from Judea to Galilee he had to pass through Samaria, so he went to Sychar, a city close to Nablus. There, was Jacob’s well that still exists today and an Orthodox Church was made next to it. So, Jesus sat down by the well…

It was about noon when a Samaritan woman arrived- which means a foreigner that is also split from the Jewish religion- and one of the finest conversations in the Gospels was held between Jesus and that woman. The Lord asked her to give him a drink as she was carrying a jar, but she was surprised from his request because Jews did not associate Samaritans. Jesus went beyond what separates people and promised her to give her the living water. She did not understand that this was something different than the water found in the well. So, she said: “Where can you get this living water?” and Jesus took her into another level saying: “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life”. This is, therefore, water with a different nature than that in the well. What is this water? How is it?

She wanted it, but Jesus couldn’t give her immediately water from his kingdom because she was an adulteress. She did not deserve a gift from heavens because she insisted on the bad behavior she’s behaving. This is why the Lord changed the path of the conversation and told her: “Go, call your husband”. She confessed that she had no man and then she confessed to her people that Jesus is a prophet. She wanted to enter into a theological discussion; so she said: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem”. Christ abolished the doctrine of the Samaritans concerning worshiping in their region and also abolished worshiping in Jerusalem: “A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth”. Their hearts would worship if they knew the Father, his Son and his Spirit. The old temples coming from Moses have no value anymore. God does not live anymore in Jerusalem’s temple after the Jewish return from the Babylonian captivity. After that, Jesus called himself the Temple, and we have become an extension of this temple after his resurrection. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?”

This woman moved after the words of the Lord into the way he thinks and the behavior he wanted for her and preached all the people of Samaria about the Master. When the Samaritans asked him to stay at theirs, he stayed for two days and a lot of people believed in him after seeing and talking to him. The woman took them to the savior and they confessed saying “we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world”. The idea of the Messiah being the Savior of the world was not known for the Samaritans or for the Jews. The Content of the Bible descended on them, and then after the resurrection of the Savior, the people that followed him knew that he is the savior of the whole world and goes beyond Jews, Samaritans and all nations. The Holy Spirit revealed for people that Jesus is the savior of the world through his death and resurrection.

When our heart discovers Jesus, we become attached only to him and not tied to anything, any place, family, memory or sins. Jesus takes off us all the weights and makes everyone of us a beloved disciple lying on his chest and a great in the Kingdom.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “السامرية” –Raiati n^o21- 22.05.2011

The word “saints” used in this chapter (of the book of acts) refers to Christians. When Paul wrote his first epistle to the Corinthians, he called them saints because they are sanctified through truth and baptism. This was the early period of the growth of Christianity.  After they took their preaching to Antioch, they were called Christians there. In the city of Lydda- a Palestinian city that still exist today- Peter found a paralyzed man and told him: Get up and roll up your mat, so he immediately got up.

Then, this chapter tells us about a girl in Joppa that got sick and died. Peter was invited to her house so he got down on his knees, prayed and said: Tabitha (which means doe), get up, and she did.

The result of healing Aeneas in Lydda and Tabitha in Joppa was that a lot of people believed in Lord Jesus. This is not something weird as the Lord has told his disciples: “Heal the sick, cleanse those who have leprosy” (He gave them the power he had from the Father and they transformed it through the power of Resurrection).

These miracles continued in the Church with the saints that were, like the apostles, working through the power of resurrection. We do not say that every saint has surely done a miracle. However, we do call some saints such as Saint Nicolas and Spyridon as wonder workers.

The idea falls into the fact that God is able to heal the sick regardless from the laws of medicine because he is not limited with the law of nature. We don’t know how does the miracle happen, how does the blind get his sight back or the paralyzed his movement. Healing happens through the will of God.

We do not have a medical office that decides whether a miracle happened or not. We just notice that something supernatural happened and glorify God. This doesn’t mean that we should be automatic believers of everything people talk about. You are free to believe or not when someone tells you about a miracle, but no one should accuse others of blasphemy in such cases. You are free to believe or disbelieve all the miracles except those found in the bible. However, if you saw any fruits, thank God.

Other than healing, our Lord has made much more important things than miracles that happened through people. His incarnation from virgin Mary, transforming bread and wine in his body and blood, his Resurrection from the dead, the sanctification that occurs after repentance…, all of these indicate that God does miracles constantly and always remember us with his mercy.

Everything started with the Resurrection of the Savior. We should know that we are people of Resurrection that wait the miracle in every moment and sanctify our souls through the interferences of God in our life so that we recognize that the New Testament is still active.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “عجائب الرسل” –Raiati n^o20- 15.05.2011

What was this complaint that came from the Hellenistics and Hebraics in the early Church in Jerusalem? The Hellenistic Jews are Jews that became Christian and lived for a long period away from Palestine where they received some of the Hellenistic culture. Those were not able to understand the Aramaic language that was used by the people in Palestine including Palestinian Christians. On the other side, those who the book of Acts calls Hebraic Jews were the Jews of Palestine that became Christian and didn’t immigrate, so they refused to speak except using the national language of the people of Palestine, i.e. Aramaic.

The Hellenistic Jews complained against the Hebraic Jews saying that “their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food”, i.e. in the aids that were distributed.

Each of these two communities had its own synagogue (It is what we call today the Knesset) so that they could understand preaching with their own language.

It is known that the Torah was only read in Hebrew for both the Hellenistics and the Hebraic, however that language was not used anymore. Therefore, they used to preach using Greek or Aramaic according to the linguistic knowledge of every nation.

When this problem appeared, the Apostles assigned seven men. Most of the interpreters said that this selection was the establishment of the system of deacons and the church named the martyr Saint Stephen, who was one of them, a deacon.

The apostles laid their hands on them and this expression indicates the process of the sanctification of a work that’s related to Sacraments and is not a simple blessing. Assigning a person to take care of the widows’ aids does not require the laying of hands. It is significant that in this selection the first one named was Stephen who was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”, and this means that he was not ignorant in the knowledge of faith and this is obvious from his speech to the Jews who killed him by stoning.

After that, the epistle says: “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples (i.e. number of Christians) in Jerusalem increased rapidly”. Later, the word “disciples” was replaced by the word “Christians” in Antioch. Then the epistle says: “and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith”. This refers to the Jewish priests that started believing in Jesus, and this explains that the Jewish community persecuted them because of that and that’s what made one of the great Christians to write an epistle to the Hebrews to strengthen through faith the priests that converted into Christ and the Jews that were under oppression.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “السبعة” –Raiati n^o19- 08.05.2011

The Evangelists wanted, as Paul did before them, to confirm the Resurrection not only through mentioning it for the reader of the New Testament but also through showing concrete things that are the appearances of the Lord that happened eleven times. The first appearance occurred when the Lord entered to the disciples on the eve of Resurrection when they were together and afraid of the Jews since they were at risk of death, imprisonment, and suffering because they followed that who the Jews put up on the cross.

After greeting them with peace “he showed them his hands and side” so that they don’t think he’s an illusion, i.e. so that they become sure that the person who entered to them is the same one they knew and saw crucified. For the redemption to happen it was very important for the body that the Jews crucified to be the same one that resurrected from the dead.

Immediately after his greeting he told them: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”. It is obvious that he called them at the beginning of his gospel, but now he stabilized them in the mission because sending them is related to the power of Resurrection. After fifty days, he sent them the Holy Spirit so that they get filled with the power of Resurrection and give people this power.

In this first meeting, Thomas was not with them so they told him what they saw, but he wanted a proof so he said: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe”. How did Thomas live with his friends after that? Did they discuss the Resurrection? They did surely pray together until the Sunday after Resurrection came; this is the Sunday that we mention today and call Thomas Sunday or New Sunday which is the eighth day after Pascha.

In this day, Jesus came while the doors were locked. This means that walls couldn’t prevent Jesus from entering the hall where the disciples were. The book didn’t say that the Lord penetrated the walls. Jesus appeared through his power and became between them; the Gospel doesn’t explain how that happened. He greeted them and went directly to Thomas saying to him: “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe”.

We don’t really know if Thomas got over his doubt by putting his hand on Jesus’ side and the marks of the nails. The important thing is that he told him: “My Lord and my God”. The word “Lord” in the Greek text is definite, therefore it means: You are the Lord and you are my Lord. This is a confession from Thomas that Jesus is the only Lord. And in order not to let someone think that he is calling him a lord in the sense of a “master” like any other master, Thomas added the phrase “My God”. This is a confession that Jesus of Nazareth is the complete true God.

Thomas’ doubt was beneficial for us to recognize that Jesus rose from the dead and that through this resurrection his disciples recognized that he is the Lord and the God. Thomas’ testimony is one of the strong ones, if not the strongest, to say that Jesus rose alive and triumphant over death.

Thomas helped us to believe without seeing and to deserve the Lord’s delight in us as he has said: “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”. Make us worthy, Lord, to be among these.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “توما” –Raiati n^o18- 01.05.2011

Resurrection is an event and a meaning. The event is the emission of Christ from death with his power, and has happened on Sunday’s dawn or morning. It is the spiritual and glorified emission of the same body that was crucified, and the important thing is to assure that we don’t have here in front of us a new form of Jesus of Nazareth because this would mean that there is no salvation. We are in front of a continuation of this body, human mind, and the same human soul. However, it is a body from which the light that was hidden in it has brightened. This is why we say that it is a glorified body.

This was the event; as for its meaning and impact, it is Christ’s triumph over death since he has “trampled upon death by death” as the troparion of the feast says and as Apostle Paul clarified while talking about Baptism when he said: “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death (i.e. to reach his death)? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death (for the death of the sin) in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his (Romans 6: 3–5).

The impact that the Resurrection left in Christ is that “since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him” (Romans 6: 9).

The event is proved through two things. The first is that the disciples and the women that went to the tomb found it empty with the stone removed and saw the appearances of the Lord that are counted and described in the Gospel. These appearances showed that the person they knew before his death is the same that they saw after it. As for the triumph over death as soon as death happened, i.e. the non-dominance of death over him, this has filled the three-day period between Friday and Sunday morning as we cannot say that death defeated Christ for three days and only at the end of this period Christ prevailed. As soon as his humanly soul left his body, Christ was victorious; therefore, we don’t say in the chants of this period the expressions “Christ’s dead body” or “corpse” but we insist on using the expression “Christ’s body”.

When we take the body and the blood of the Lord, we would be taking a living body, we would be united with him who has risen from the dead and sat on the right hand of the Father. Baptism and the Eucharist are both expressions of Christ’s life in us, i.e. the revival of our body and soul.

According to this, death doesn’t scare us after we have become alive in Jesus Christ. Through this victory that happened once, we have become “alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6: 11), and invited to the renewal of our life through the Holy Spirit.

When we answer the greeting “Christ is risen” by “Indeed, he is risen”, we do not only mean to talk about the event that happened in the person of the Savior, but also to declare that his Resurrection gives us a new life.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “القيامة” –Raiati n^o17- 24.04.2011

Palm Sunday’s Gospel starts with Mary washing Jesus’ feet and continues with the Jews making plans to kill Lazarus her brother because his existence shows Jesus’ power and that is harmful for the Jewish cause. Let then Jesus’ friend be killed: This is something common in crimes.

After that, the Gospel narrates Jesus’ entrance to Jerusalem coming from Galilee and staying in Bethany, the village of Lazarus and his sister and a suburb of the holy city. Jesus enters knowing that he is going to die there as he has prophesied in the Gospel. Some people welcomed him and some of them saw him raising Lazarus from the dead. These started tending to believe in him. Did some of them favor the Chief Priests when they told Pilate “Crucify him, crucify him” as some claim? We don’t know. However, it is important for us to know that if we became his followers, it is a shame to deny him.

In the period between entering Jerusalem and crucifixion, a lot of events happened and Jesus spoke a lot. According to the Gospel of John, from which we took today’s reading, Jesus purifies the Temple on Monday. He teaches in the Temple on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the conspiracy against Jesus happens and on Thursday the Mystical Supper occurs with the farewell speech. After that, the Lord gets arrested and put under trial. Then, on Friday, there is his crucifixion, death and burial.

Jesus accepts death, the thing he came for. Through this, he was fulfilling the Father’s will and revealing his love for humans.

On Palm Sunday, we open our hearts so that the love of Christ would enter them and we respond to this love to be able to live once we take it through the Holy Spirit.

On the eve of Palm Sunday we have the service of the bridegroom and the same service on Holy Monday and Tuesday. In this service, every soul invites the blessed Christ to become its bridegroom or groom just as he is the groom of priests.

On all of the days (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) we take communion, the body of the Lord in the presanctified gifts’ liturgy so that we truly revive in Christ daily. On Thursday, we have the memory of the Mystical Supper in an ordinary liturgy which is a peak in the life of the Holy community. After that, we reach the service of the passions and the readings of its Gospels, and by that we put on Christ who is going for our redemption and love and we chant his passions throughout the day on Holy Friday getting ready for his Resurrection from Holy Saturday until the light of Resurrection appears to us.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “دخول أورشليم” –Raiati n^o16- 17.04.2011

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, showed that they loved power as they asked Jesus to make them “ministers” in his kingdom since they thought that it is a political kingdom. The Lord refused to fulfill their lust; he didn’t come to create a state on earth but to change everything through the bible. The disciple of Christ shouldn’t look for serving him through politics; we have another language and different methods.

After this fall from James and John, Jesus says to his disciples: “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them”. In the Church, no one can make himself a master and no one overpowers others. Power, in the sense of giving orders, commanding, arrogance and having a desire to give commands and to be obeyed, is not something from the New Testament. All of our life in the New Testament is service; you achieve your status through service. This is why the Lord continued his talk saying: “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant”. Your greatness is valued according to your service. Your relationship with people starts when you start serving them. After that, Jesus continued this sense saying: “whoever wants to be first must be slave of all”. A slave in ancient civilizations doesn’t have any will: His master’s will is his; he is nothing in front of his master.

In Church and society, you fulfill others’ wishes. You shall feel the needs of others and try to fulfill them according to your ability. “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I needed clothes and you clothed me”.

The Lord concludes this section by saying: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. This is an echo of what he said a little earlier when he spoke about his passions, death and Resurrection. You shall die in service and give your life through taking real care daily of everything God puts in your way.

This chapter from Mark suits the Lenten period that we are in because it is a dedicated service for the poor and for each other. One part of fasting is a food diet, but it is truly a service for others as we pray for them.

In this Sunday, the giving of St. Mary the Egyptian’s life to Jesus is reflected. She served Him and also serves all of us when we look at her repentance. Others are everything: If they took what you gave them, they would feel that Christ is giving them and that they are becoming great in his grace, and once they grow through it this shall be passed into their brothers. In this blessed season, commit to prayers and helping the poor through giving and praying. When all of these meet together, this shall become a journey of humility and a path towards the Kingdom.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “شغف السلطة” –Raiati n^o15- 10.04.2011

The father of a sick boy asked the Lord to heal his son saying “My son is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech”, which means that it is a spirit that made him tongue-tied and have other symptoms that indicate epilepsy. The father asks for healing “if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us”. His faith in Jesus is not clear; however, he did hear that the Nazarene is a wonder maker, so he said why not ask him for a miracle. Christ faces this troubled soul. He encounters this man through his doubt so he tells him: “Everything is possible for one who believes”. The Lord goes down to him perhaps he is moved, perhaps he believes. This man cries as if he saw in Jesus’ question to him an invitation to a faith that’s shaky for him.

At this point, the man says: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief”, and in better words this means: Strengthen my desire to believe and my wish for my son to be healed.

When the disciples asked the Master: “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” he said that “an evil spirit of this kind can come out only by prayer and fasting”. Perhaps the Church wanted to read this section from Mark in this Lenten season because the text has combined between praying and fasting, the two pillars of this Lenten period.

Fasting indicates that emptying our stomachs from food is a will to fill our internal personality from the Word of God, and from this aspect, fasting and praying are one. Praying, here, doesn’t mean a collection of prayers organized in daily rituals, but means a communion with God, a unity with him in a way that if you asked for the healing of a patient for example, God would do this healing through you. You and your Lord would be doing the same job.

Back then, the disciples didn’t have this ability because the Holy Spirit didn’t descend on them yet and didn’t fill them with his grace that we see in them in the book of Acts. Disease was often a fall of the entity, a kind of falling behind, a crisis… while safety was what God wants, it was often a rising and a facilitator of our journey towards God and a sign of spiritual perfection. This is why God wants it and prepares for it through those who deserve to have it from God. He prepares for it through the faith of the healed and the in-need for safety. This is why God put the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick which expresses the tenderness of the Lord and an invitation to thank and praise him.

God is found in the believer, and this believer can Give God for any person that needs him. In the same way that you push a person into repentance towards the God that you repent to, you can also ask the mighty God in you to become on the sick person so that he rises from his collapse and sticks to his Lord healthily.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “شفاء الإيمان” –Raiati n^o14- 03.04.2011

The expression means bowing down before the crucified. This produces a relationship between Jesus and the believer, and this relationship starts by following the Lord. How can this be? Who wants to be this person? He who wants to follow the master must deny himself, get rid of his ego, and from his self-worshiping and then he should carry his cross and passions, endure the difficulties of his life and follow him wherever he wants. After that, the Lord explains these words in a clearer way: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it”: There is no salvation without fatigue and effort.

“But whoever loses their life (i.e. through fighting and fatigue) for me and for the gospel will save it”.

Then, we reach the peak: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” The salvation of your soul through the love of Jesus and the acquisition of biblical virtues is worth the whole world (Money, power, and pleasures). You should throw away everything that harms you and have power over all your desires.

Jesus summarizes these words by saying: “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels”. This is a sign of the judgment. Jesus won’t acknowledge you if you didn’t acknowledge him: Judgment is not a joke.

When you meet Jesus here and after your death, your words and behavior in this world shouldn’t have had any blemish. If you have agreed Jesus in everything, he shall give you his glory.

At the end of this reading, Jesus says to those who love him: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power”. The probable meaning intended by the Lord is that some of those who were hearing him will not die until they see the Savior’s resurrection. Glory will be poured on them.

This Gospel that is read on the third Sunday of the Lent, which is the Sunday that opens the mid-lent, invites us to the austerity that we taste in this season that raises the level of asceticism and strictness in the love of Christ and makes us sense the beginnings of joy.

Today’s epistle also speaks about the crucified as it names the Son of God a High Priest. Jesus has achieved this (i.e. being the high priest) in his death on a piece of wood where he was tempted in every way except sin.

After that, the writer says that he “did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest”, but God has glorified him when he said: “You are my Son; today I have become your Father”.

This means that Christ, who is the Son of God in his eternal essence, was also declared a son in his humanity when he was elevated on the cross as a confirmation to what the Father told him: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek”.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “السجود للصليب” – 27.03.2011