February 2012

Repentance, being a coming back to God, to His being and His life, takes place in the coming down of His life on you. You suffer at the beginning because you have veiled His face from you to give yourself the right to see what He does not want you to see, and to give your hands the right to touch what He does not want you to touch and to give your feet the right to tread where He is not. In other words, you come back to Him from an estrangement because God is not where you have set yourself (in the estrangement) thinking you will have happiness there flying away from toiling in this life; yet one cannot enter the Kingdom of God without striving.

And you have forgotten that you would be yourself only when you open your heart to receive Him; and without Him being your guest, you would have serpents nesting in your heart and your heart would dwell in an unreal world. Through the Lord you would be able to behold yourself. And you will see some of His image in you in the midst of the delusion you are in; and that would put in you a longing for Him. And when you remember His ancient splendor in you, you would set forth anew towards Him. The point of encounter between Him and you is a mystery. And the meeting takes place in His pleasure and in His ongoing care for you but you prefer yourself to His visitations because sin has made you shallow and deceived you into think that it is “real being”; you think that it is existence, yet it never was so.

I am not one of those who say that there are people who are wholly pure. Our Fathers desired that but they considered themselves sinners. Such consideration has brought them to Heaven. The human heart, for those great Fathers, is in a tension between the “residues” of sin and the virtues they aspire for. And so the heart is the arena where that strife takes place until the human being is put to rest through death. The remembrance of death purifies us if we love God. Remembrance of death is a seeking after Heaven until God receives us in it through His mercy. Until repentance starts springing from our heart, we would be only in a longing for it. Repentance is in changing the longing to a decision which God would receive you for, when He knows it is authentic. Then the “latter” longing will descend on you, the longing to behold the Divine Glory.

Repentance is the fruit of faith; if you believe that sin is a stain and that repentance is a new baptism, then the journey of repentance has started. But if your longing for the good is only emotional and aesthetic, then that is a type of a poetic move. If one longs for the good to adorn himself with it, then that is not repentance. Repentance is the longing for God’s face (person). It involves exchanging everything else in one’s life with the Lord. And so though we weep and ask for mercy, the human soul has the residues of sin there.

Those we consider perfect do not get to complete purity while they are still in the body in the realm of space and time; which means that it is imperative for us to strive continuously. We would be truly virtuous, if after we accomplish a loving deed we still regard the corruption that is in us amidst that loving act. You are pleased when many speak well of you, and that is a type of pride; any bragging after doing good is a stain on that good act. If you are not convinced that you are nothing, all what appears good to you in you is an attack of that pretentiousness and boastfulness in you. That is why the Church finds it important that one should examine one’s heart always so the “serpents” would have no access to it.

You examine yourself in the light of the commandment: Love the Lord… Love thy neighbor as thyself. In the first part of the commandment, one might get deluded since you might consider yourself pious because you fast and pray while your prayers might be a repetition of words only and your fasting might be a food diet in which there is no compunction or brokenness. In this you are in need of a spiritual guide who can tell you what it is that makes your prayers and fasting of no spiritual value. Yet it remains that the “great” test is the love for others. And in this, one can also be deluded. The issue is not whether you have forgiven him or not, the main issue is that you have to have your heart “filled with him” so that you would always be in his service. And another question comes up here; do you show preferences in your service caring for one and neglecting the other? Or does the Divine Generosity in you cause you to give to everybody alike so that they can see the tenderness of God through your love thus they “repent to Him through your repentance” and with that the Church obtains?

From where do we get the power of repentance or the power of its continuity? We get that from hope; that is from the trust in Go, from our belief that He keeps us from temptations. That’s why despair is considered to be the enemy of repentance; same is true of despondency and lethargy when we fall repetitively.

The great mystery is in the fact that a quick passing prayer is not going to save us but there should be a striving to see the Divine Glory. If yearning for Him is not enkindled in such a way to make us more attached to Him, we will not go back to virtue.

Repentance is a flame in the soul; it is love and passion for Christ. This does not mean a senseless dependence on His love. You always need to have reverence for Him; we need to fear getting back to sin. Reverence and fear keep us and educate us (spiritually) and if they remain with us, they would lead us towards loving God which itself is repentance. Lent is the time for repentance because it surrounds us with the Divine Word and makes us absorb it so fully that what remains is only the presence of the Word and its action in us. And if we do not fall in despair, then the countenance of the Resurrection looms before us.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “التوبة” –An Nahar- 25.02.2012

I have read about Wilayat al Faqih (The State of the Jurist – A Muslim religious government) in the 299 pages of a Persian book that was translated to Arabic. And discussing that view is not my aim in this article. But I noticed that on page 162, it says that he who presides is he who does not commit iniquity, and is just and is not capricious going after the passions of one’s soul.  It also states something to the effect that the above qualifications are found universally. I understand by that that the presidents of non-Muslim nations could have the same virtues that are bestowed on the Faqih and as such we do not have to consider that the presidents of the nations of the world are immoral.

And according with a great Shiite master in this country, I further say that there cannot be a “religious nation”. Logically, the term has no real meaning since it is the individual who is the one to believe in a religion and not a nation.  It is the individual who is clad with a heart and a mind while the nation is not a being and as such, it is impossible to say that “a nation ‘believes’ in a religion”.

I understand that a religious group can take over the government in a certain country and would get inspired by their religion to govern the nation. Even secular governments use the teachings of the religion to which most of the people belong to in order to explain its policies and laws. For example, France, which is the most secular country, considers three Catholic feasts as official holidays; moreover, the official day-off of the week is Sunday.  And if you read the French civil law you will find that much of it is based on the Catholic Church Canon Law. The governor of a country comes from a certain background. No one comes from nothing (no background). I understand through the said statement above, that in a country where Muslims are the majority the people come from Islam in their juridical mentality.

People come from several denominations, including those who are atheists. They seek to enact laws that apply to their life situations which are in constant change. The question posed to the nation that considers itself Islamic is how to reconcile between the divine absolute and the vicissitudes of human experience resulting from changes in one’s circumstances, changes that are relative and have nothing to do with what is absolute. Every divine law, or what is thought to be so, comes down on people in a way to suit the times they are in; and whatever is the product of a certain period of history is conditioned by its times. And if you know some psychology and anthropology and sociology and history, you realize that Man is in constant change, change that is always a challenge to his mind and thought. I do not intend to distort the holy books, but I want to understand what they say in the scope of their times and the extent of its absoluteness. If you take them literally in a universal way, you would be unaware of the reality of time and its place in the divine economy concerning the matters of this world. Time is also the book of God.

The Europeans did not go back to the Gospel to launch its industrial revolution inventing the train, the car, the airplane and the study of the human body. As such scientific research has its own independent realm.

I find the modern trend of seeking to place scientific discoveries in texts that do not have a reference in them to such discoveries strange; so it is not appropriate also to “insert” the perfect eternal God in matters that belong to the human mind in its endeavors. People question why God does not say of things by name as if He has to assign names for things before those things come into existence.

It is high time we separate scientific research from what we presume is linked to it in the holy books. It is high time we believe that the mind is free. There remain behaviors that science has realized are of an ethical stance. Here the argument as to whether it is alright to experiment with the embryo and the fetus arises. The researcher does what he can. But not all discoveries violate morality.

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Going back to confessional nations, I know that all of them do have secularists or liberals. I do not believe those who do not accept the term “secular” just because they consider it to be anti-religion; I also do not excuse them for not putting an effort to get acquainted with its denotation. Except that I would like to ask Islamists whether they count on their large number for imposing their jurisprudence on the rest of the nation; and by “nation” I mean, here, a group of citizens. Do we legislate and govern together, or the minorities are considered as “Ahl Dhimma” (Koranic term referring to non-muslim protégés under Islamic law)? In situations like the above, minorities have to emigrate.

But I see things differently; I as a Christian, am the “protégé” of God alone, and as a citizen, I participate equally with all citizens, together enacting the laws of the nation. I am under the supervision of God alone, and in my free mind I am constantly seeking the political reality that draws my existence with other free minds (citizens of other Confessions).

In this admixture of people, my love for the freedom of others implies on me not to impose laws in the name of my confession or religion. I do not have a problem with that because my religion has no laws governing civil life. Spiritually and culturally, I come from one situation and the other comes from another situation, yet we dialogue and associate together. I am guided by the doctrine I want and he the same, by the doctrine he wants.

There remains certain matters concerning the personal status of the citizen, like the law governing inheritance which is not a matter of conscience in my case; my parents lived under that law for years until another law was issued for the non-Muslims. The Christians had nothing to do with the law of having four wives; yet Muslim countries like Tunis, canceled it. The Christians have been quiet about the Muslim law of cutting off the hands of thieves. It is not civic thinking for one group of citizens to say for example: “Marriage laws of those of other confessions are their business”. No group has a “business” independent of the other citizens in a unified nation.

What does the Civil Nation mean then after the “Arab Spring”? Until now I do not have the slightest idea. The “democracy” which the Arabs speak of is precisely the system of dialogue that the British philosophers and French Revolution leaders spoke of long ago. For those, “democracy” refers to the people with no consideration of the problem of confessions. The Jew became a Prime Minister in France as well as the Protestant. How can democracy be the order or government for both the majority and the minority while the minority has no say in anything?

I understand that things are not like that in Lebanon. This is a country governed equally by both Muslims and Christians. And that for me shows the magnanimity of the Muslims here. The citizen finds it hard to live under religious ideologies. Religion in for the individual as my friend, the great Shiite master, once said.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “طوائف ومذاهب وعلمانية” – 11.02.2012

My having no affinity to Hinduism and Buddhism explains my uneagerness to visit India as a tourist. Buddhism, which came after Brahmanism, does not acknowledge a God, something which is difficult for the people of our country to understand since religion here is founded on the God who has wrought that religion or even dwells in it. What is there in the religion of India then? The God of the Hindus is outspread universally, that is he is in all parts of this universe; that is called “pantheism” a school of religious thought in which one does not distinguish between the created and the creator or between what is visible and what is invisible. Thus, in Hinduism, there is a fusion, a melting and dissolution of the Deity and the Humanity in each other; there is no encounter between God and Man. There is no “I” and “You” because there is no “created” facing the Creator. There is no one “above” and another “below”. All existence is one great expanse; much as the Indian continent is.

This view of religion does not mean that Buddhists are not of the most moral and good people; that is so because religion, for them, is Ethics and they strive in asceticism and they purify themselves on their own without a god. The center is “one’s self”; and if they get to purify themselves, what need do they have for a god? That is how they think.

I think that the basic difference between them and us is that they begin in themselves and we begin in God; we come from our “contemplation of Him” and we feel that we grow morally in Him and that “in Him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17: 28). We examine ourselves checking as to whether He dwells in us by Grace as St. John says in his gospel. And what we call piety is only an expression of His indwelling in us. And what we call virtue and good is only a revelation of Him in us. This is so not in the sense that he is “contained” in us because He cannot be contained, but that we are His presence; in that He does not make His presence known in the world except through the grace that He has poured in us and the words He has spoken to us that have become a part of us.

Between us and Him there is a union. And union implies the presence of two persons since one does not unite with himself. And the Christians dare to call that union a participation in or communion in the Holy Spirit. The separation has been abolished when God proclaimed His love for us. And this union or communion comes from Him in His mercy as we accept it and receive it face to face according to what He says in Matthew 11: 27, “No one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him.” The Holy Trinity is the one who knows Himself in the sense that He exists in the Love that flows in Him; that love itself is His “oneness”. And He brings us to communion with Him through His “bending down” towards us. Union between us and God is a gift. And that reveals His independence from us but at the same time His love for us.

God has to be distinct from us as the Islamic philosophers say. Here I borrow their vocabulary only to emphasize the possibility of our union with God, something that is not found in Islam. Since if God is not willing to unite with me, then what do I have to do with Him. In that case His word would be above me but not in me. He, then, would be my supervisor who cares to be above me but not with me. In that, His words carry the power of uniting with Him only through having me understand them. At that, my communion is not with Him but with His words. But His words are not mine though mine can be the underwriter of His words.

He and I are face to face with each other; that is His “face” is His Divinity and mine is my humanity. And since Divinity and humanity do not annihilate one another, we remain two distinct beings but we are able to be together in His love.

And since the Son became human, I am able to meet other humans in the sense that I offer them my Lord through loving them; that is, our point of meeting is the Divine love that dwells in me and not my humanity. I must give them God himself so that each of them would become a “real” human being, thus leaving their sins which bring them to the destruction of their humanity. From that we see that God is essential in human communication.

The atheist does not understand that since his mind is not set on God, even though in the pureness of his humanity, he is not fully void of God. Yet the atheist does not offer humans “humanity”; he offers a certain divinity of himself though he does not realize that.

Communion among the believers is a divine one which, though corrupted by sin, yet is not canceled by it. Such communion is carried by the people of God who enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong.

After the only Son of God came to our world, God adopted us since before that we were the children of wrath; not only did He reveal His love for us, but He revealed that He loves us with the same measure He loves His Christ with. “Our adoption” is not a poetic phrase here, it is rather the essence of the relationship we have with the Lord as our Savior.

God then is not one who is “up there” for there is nothing “up there” except the atmosphere and what is beyond it. God is not in a place. God dwells “down here” in the hearts of those who love Him and those who do not love Him since through the “uncreated enenergies” that proceed eternally from Him, as the Orthodox Christians say, He cannot but have a dwelling. The human soul cannot be void of God even for a moment, or it will essentially die. Every atom in us exists due to the Divine compassion that surrounds it. Even our body holds well together due to the Grace that bends down on it. It will rise on the Last Day because it has put on the Grace that will not leave it. In the light of that, I understand what came in the Koran in Sura 39: 42 “Allah carries off the souls of men upon their death” meaning that God does not leave us on our own but gathers us to our bodies on the Last Day. After He has brought us back to Himself through death, He brings back our bodies to us.

Our life would be meaningless if we do not “know” God’s presence with us, and Christianity goes further in saying that He is in us, and that He is the source of our love for Him and the strength to obey Him. And our love comes from His tenderness. And our love is in contingent with His love; and His love is the “beginning” of love in us and its “end”. Such love is my religion wherever it is found; since the One Who gives such love in the gratuitouness of His compassion, is the Source of all things in us and all things in us end in Him.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الحب فينا” –An Nahar- 04.02.2012