Monthly Archives

May 2006

2006, Articles, Raiati

The Elevation of the Soul to God / 28.05.2006

The soul cannot elevate by itself to God unless the Holy Spirit dwelled in it. He is in you and talks to himself with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Praying is a movement of Divine descending to you and then another ascending movement. This is what the Son did when he descended and then ascended.

God descends to you directly through the Holy Spirit but He descended to the whole humanity through the Gospel. The Gospel is Christ’s thought and contains everything that you could know about God’s secrets that were revealed to us. The Gospel reaches you if you read, studied and sifted it. In addition to hearing it in Church, the Gospel comes to you through different prayers and chants that express the Gospel. You are always with this Book whether you prayed with a community or alone because if you stood up in your home, street or car you would be reading prayers from the Church that were printed in the Horologion (book of hours). Even If you prayed alone, you would be spiritually present with the community.

However, you might say a simple prayer and not a complete one. You could say for example: “Lord have mercy” or “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner”. Even if you said such small prayers you will still be standing, through the Spirit, with the community.

However, the important thing is to be standing in Christ’s presence whether you were participating in a divine service or praying individually. Sometimes, you might be taken by the performance of our rituals which are essential for us. But sometimes tunes dominate words and words stop being understandable. The believer needs a lot of attention to stay focused on the meanings because those meanings put us in Christ’s presence. Ritual worships are meant to be manifestations of the Lord. Beware not to make them obscure his presence.

Excessive beautifying of the voice and competition between chanters distract people from Christ. If we really were calling Him, He could reach us with a tuneful voice and with an ugly one. We must become independent from the dominance of expression in order to stick to the essence. There is no encounter in temples or in individual prayer except with Christ.

In Church, you do not stare at the faithful that are in front of you or next to you. Every one of us is connected to his Lord. Yes, we are in communion with the brothers through one prayer and one Holy Communion, but this communion doesn’t mean that we are a cluster in which we are all molten. You are attached only to the Lord and He is the place where you encounter the brothers.

You must understand that prayer- whether it was collective or individual- requires great anchorage, and a lot of time to understand every Sunday what you missed in the past ones. In every Liturgy, you discover the Master and you find his visage more glorious. A lot of phrases pass without any influence on you. Then, this phrase suddenly glows after being turned off. Therefore, you cannot take full benefit if you didn’t persevere. Individual prayer falls under the same pattern. If you didn’t persevere daily you won’t be able to pray it with the same warmth. Yearning for Jesus cannot be strong if your prayer is cut. You cannot find Christ when your system is based on negligence.

If you sinned, don’t leave your prayer for being disgusted from yourself. On the contrary, the situation of a sin is a situation to come back to God. And you cannot come back to him except by talking to him through the words that you know or the words that you compose. Prayer is a relation between the believer and his lord. He always loves you and wants you to talk to him because you benefit from this conversation. Prayer is the only way not to forget the Lord.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “ارتفاع النفس إلى الله” –Raiati 22 – 28.05.2006

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2006, Articles, Raiati

The Committed Christian / 14.05.2006

Sixty or Seventy years ago, some Orthodox people used to severely criticize Clergymen in their councils, and I didn’t use to hear anyone blaming himself. This phenomenon, even though it became silent, still exists because man tends to believe that dereliction in our ecclesiastic life comes from others only and that the improvement of the ecclesiastic condition comes when others reform themselves. Then, some youth started to say that ‘I should try to fix myself and understand more, I should study the Orthodox dogma and teach it to others, and if people improved for Christ, they shall transfer their enthusiasm to others. These youth said: “I request things from myself, and the spiritual magnificence that descends over me will be transferred by being a model”. And if some had a great feeling for Christ, they will become priests, bishops and monks.

This is how every correct renaissance starts. However, those who you have raised might fall or become lukewarm and their enthusiasm might be turned off by the worries of life and therefore they won’t stay active disciples for Jesus Christ. Therefore, you have to continue the road and give the lukewarm the enthusiasm that he lost and transmit in the lazy a new energy.

Renewal or revival in Church is a continuous process, and you cannot secure that those who you called with eagerness and warmth would still have the same eagerness and warmth. Some of them might become a priest or have a higher position and become lukewarm or carless and impatient towards struggle or become impure through the temptation of money or other things. None of us is secured until the end of his life; and no human group could stay coherent forever through the beauties that were revealed to it. One might leave, the other might stay and the necklace falls apart. Therefore, the writer of the Psalms said: “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save”.

You might have put hope in a friend of yours and then you noticed that he retreated or fell and didn’t carry anymore the first flame. You cannot put all your hope in any man. You can be ready for a fall that might happen to a person that struggled with you in Church and was a great giver. You can cry and sigh by you cannot become desperate because the success of the Gospel is neither based on one person in this world nor related to a group of friends that became soldiers together and then a person of them went away.

Your loyalty is for Christ and for every person that is not dependant on a group of people. Therefore, you should consider that the Church is based on you only and that Jesus puts his hope in you even if everyone was dispersed.

“On this rock I will build my Church”. These words are directed to you. You, who has a full faith in Jesus and who is completely submitted to his word became the rock of the whole Church. However, you will not remain a rock unless you studied the Gospel sufficiently, and unless you read a lot about Christianity, you worshiped in Churches, loved, became purified, forgave, and spread the message around you daily.

Then, the lukewarm will boil and the fallen will rise and you will be gathered again in Jesus’ love and your vertexes will be crowned after being relaxed. Renaissance is a permanent project. It might be cracked sometimes. But you, the person that wasn’t away from God’s word, have to renew the construction.

Sixty or Seventy years ago, some Orthodox people used to severely criticize Clergymen in their councils, and I didn’t use to hear anyone blaming himself. This phenomenon, even though it became silent, still exists because man tends to believe that dereliction in our ecclesiastic life comes from others only and that the improvement of the ecclesiastic condition comes when others reform themselves. Then, some youth started to say that ‘I should try to fix myself and understand more, I should study the Orthodox dogma and teach it to others, and if people improved for Christ, they shall transfer their enthusiasm to others. These youth said: “I request things from myself, and the spiritual magnificence that descends over me will be transferred by being a model”. And if some had a great feeling for Christ, they will become priests, bishops and monks.

This is how every correct renaissance starts. However, those who you have raised might fall or become lukewarm and their enthusiasm might be turned off by the worries of life and therefore they won’t stay active disciples for Jesus Christ. Therefore, you have to continue the road and give the lukewarm the enthusiasm that he lost and transmit in the lazy a new energy.

Renewal or revival in Church is a continuous process, and you cannot secure that those who you called with eagerness and warmth would still have the same eagerness and warmth. Some of them might become a priest or have a higher position and become lukewarm or carless and impatient towards struggle or become impure through the temptation of money or other things. None of us is secured until the end of his life; and no human group could stay coherent forever through the beauties that were revealed to it. One might leave, the other might stay and the necklace falls apart. Therefore, the writer of the Psalms said: “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save”.

You might have put hope in a friend of yours and then you noticed that he retreated or fell and didn’t carry anymore the first flame. You cannot put all your hope in any man. You can be ready for a fall that might happen to a person that struggled with you in Church and was a great giver. You can cry and sigh by you cannot become desperate because the success of the Gospel is neither based on one person in this world nor related to a group of friends that became soldiers together and then a person of them went away.

Your loyalty is for Christ and for every person that is not dependant on a group of people. Therefore, you should consider that the Church is based on you only and that Jesus puts his hope in you even if everyone was dispersed.

“On this rock I will build my Church”. These words are directed to you. You, who has a full faith in Jesus and who is completely submitted to his word became the rock of the whole Church. However, you will not remain a rock unless you studied the Gospel sufficiently, and unless you read a lot about Christianity, you worshiped in Churches, loved, became purified, forgave, and spread the message around you daily.

Then, the lukewarm will boil and the fallen will rise and you will be gathered again in Jesus’ love and your vertexes will be crowned after being relaxed. Renaissance is a permanent project. It might be cracked sometimes. But you, the person that wasn’t away from God’s word, have to renew the construction.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “المسيحي الملتزم” –Raiati 20- 14.05.2006

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2006, Articles, Raiati

Miracles / 07.05.2006

The greatest miracle is the Lord’s triumph over death. Every healing is a repetition of Pascha because every sickness is a path towards death in a way. Every healing is a second presence of Christ in the body of the sick. The Lord has summarized his message through the following: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind”.

However, the Lord used to put the miracle in the second rank behind the divine word. In this sense, when He sent His disciples to the world, He told them: “Preach the Gospel to all creation”. He even said: “these signs will accompany those who believe. And when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well” (Mark 16: 15–18).

Two things are inseparable for the healer and the healed: Faith and the act of healing. This occurred a lot in the Gospel.

After resurrection, the disciples were healing; for example, Peter and John healing the crippled (Acts 3). We notice in the New Testament a continuation of Jesus’ work with the disciples. After their era, we noticed that the Church called some Saints “Miracle makers” such us Saints Nicolas and Spyridon for example. Our Church doesn’t state that every saint must make miracles after his death. The Lord gives that gift to some of them. This proves that we accept the effectiveness of resurrection.

Also in the Church there is a sacrament dedicated for healing called the “Anointing of the sick”. It is unfortunate that no one practices it in the Antiochian Church (Maybe because of its absence, the Church has decided to perform this sacrament, for the benefit of all, on Holy Wednesday).

In Christ’s thought, healing is a sign of the coming of the kingdom. Therefore, exaggerating pain was something with no real basis. As for the miracle or healing of an ordinary illness, we ask for the latter because we are afraid of being controlled by fear and also because, through health, we receive a sign of the kingdom.

In our Orthodox faith, we believe that what is called “the laws of nature” have come after the appearance of sin. For if God broke the law of nature He would take you back to the pre sin state.

In all cases, God is free and isn’t restricted by the laws of nature. He heals the blind in a way that medicine doesn’t recognize. He directly enters the journey of the life of the sick and lifts him from his sadness tenderly. Tenderness is what made Jesus heal the sick.

We never know why a person can heal and another one can’t. A priest says a prayer and another priest says the same prayer: A Person could be healed with the prayer of the first priest and couldn’t with the second. In all cases, the duty of the priest is to put his hand on the head of the sick.

However, praying isn’t limited to priests. A person committed to spiritual life can pray with a sick person or in front of him or could gather with some brothers to pray together.

The important thing is to console the sick and guide him through the words of Jesus and prepare him to endure his pain through the Savior’s words and reading the Gospel. This is what we should care about because a person that becomes healthy through the Lord’s word can become a great pious person.

The sick must accept his situation and submit his case to God that knows what benefits the sick person. In all cases, his prayers would always benefit him and will always lead to what is good whether this was visible or invisible.

Remember the words of the Lord: “I was sick and you visited me”. Christ dwells in the body of the sick that is lying on his bed. We should wake him up and let the sick embrace Him consciously when we mention Christ’s name or read His words or sing the chants of triumph. The sick awaits his resurrection.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “العجائب” –Raiati 19- 07.05.2006

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