Aziz Matta

Tomorrow, Monday, we hope that God would let us enter the Lent with his grace because no person can fast without the power of this grace. Apostle Paul reminds us saying: “The night is nearly over; the day is almost here”. The light in the coming weeks of spiritual fight will be poured over us and we shall walk step by step towards the brightness of Pascha and to satisfaction in God’s eyes. In the epistle, Paul invites us to fight the harmful desires, and in the Gospel we have a part that speaks about forgiveness and a second one that speaks about fighting the evil lust for money.

What is the reason behind the words about forgiveness? The reason is that you fast with others and for others. Fasting is not a matter of eating or not eating, it is a matter of love. You should put the other always before you, you are purified for him. If you forgave him for what he has done to you, this shall push him into the Lord’s love and might make him accept you in a similar forgiveness. Your goal is to heal the person that offended you and not take revenge.

If your brother has done wrong towards you, this could be his revenge for something bad done to him. He would feel that he is paying for the wounds he has been through. When you don’t forgive, you would be keeping the other in his evil and adhering to your shocked pride. While if you forgave, you’d have gotten over this shock. Leave everything for God and he shall heal you and the other.

This way, you will be free from yourself and from hatred’s control over you. You are also free from your fasting: you shouldn’t feel that you have gained a merit in God’s notebook. This is why the Lord tells you: “when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you”. The whole relationship between God and you exists in the heart and on heaven’s edge, while the outside shallow world has no value. Fasting is an exercise for a soul that asks its unity with the Lord.

The deep unity with the Lord, according to the Gospel of Matthew, is the freedom from money’s control over us: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth …But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven”. Nothing can to deprive us from our internal freedom as money can: Food can also control and lead us into slavery. What benefit does fasting give you if you were captured by this desire?

The chapter ends with Jesus’ saying: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. God’s authority over the heart isn’t compatible with money’s authority. Therefore, try not to make your treasure from money because it will then become a master over your heart.

Go into your fasting and do not reach satiety because food- even if it was Lenten food- is not your whole life. Chastity is when you are convinced that you should abandon everything. Getting liberated from everything you thought was necessary is the first step of your ascension on the ladder of divine ascent. When you do so, you’d have accepted God’s authority over you. Pray a lot so that nothing can have control over you; this is your first exercise in this Great Lent.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “أحد الغفران” – 06.03.2011

Before entering the Lent we should examine our hearts and see if they were contaminated, because in that case fasting will not benefit us. We will be in front of the judgment that today’s Gospel talks about where Jesus reveals himself as a judge. The image of the judgment is that there is a differentiation between those who have done good deeds and those who haven’t. The Lord called the good ones “blessed”, and when he knew that they will do good deeds he prepared for them the kingdom since the creation of the world, this means that they will reign with Christ. These people knew him in their lives here; but how could that be and they haven’t seen him? The evil didn’t know him in their lives here; also how could that be and they haven’t seen him?

Lord Jesus says to the good “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink”, then he mentions other situations where he says that he was in although he didn’t personally pass in any of these situations. They reply and say: “when did we see you hungry or needing clothes or in prison, and did not help you?” The Lord replies: “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”. This means that he was hungry through the hungry person, a stranger through strangers, and sick through the sick people; i.e. he united himself with every person in need. “No one has ever seen God”, you see him through the hungry, the prisoner and the sick.

If you didn’t love a brother in need, you can’t love Christ, while if you did love him then you have truly loved Christ. Principally, if you gave the hungry and visited the sick and the imprisoned you would have also done this to Christ.

The opposite of taking care of people, is the act of overlooking and ignoring the other and being stingy with your compassion. Stinginess isn’t only found when you don’t give money to the needy, but also when you don’t give him love, and when you leave the sick and the imprisoned in their solitude. You know that the lonely or the left alone person recovers when others accept him; he feels that he does exist. Sickness is not only pain or fever, but it is the feeling of separation from others.

Christ calls all these ignored people the least of his brothers and sisters, and the word least comes from the way people look unto them. If we neglected compassion, the act of being close to the weak and making them ascend to a higher status through our humility, we would have neglected the Lord himself and went away from him. Therefore, we shall go to an eternal suffering.

The meaning aimed here is not only hell that waits for us after resurrection, but the fact that we would be thrown into a conscience suffering in this world. We would be neglected from Christ. While if we came close to the people who are in need, we would feel that Lord Jesus has also come close to us.

Heaven is a communion not only with God, but also with those that we loved and made them ascend to their Lord through love. Heaven is the communion of saints. In the Kingdom sadness vanishes, we dwell in happiness and each one of us dwells with the other and sees his face full of happiness. While in hell, our Fathers say that no one sees the face of others but everyone is tied to the back of the other.

This image indicates that there is no communion in hell, and that no one is a brother to anyone. In the feelings of brotherhood, we shall enter the doors of the Great Lent where we deprive ourselves for the sake of the poor and as a support for them until Pascha comes for all of us in happiness and the power of communion.

Before entering the Lent we should examine our hearts and see if they were contaminated, because in that case fasting will not benefit us. We will be in front of the judgment that today’s Gospel talks about where Jesus reveals himself as a judge. The image of the judgment is that there is a differentiation between those who have done good deeds and those who haven’t. The Lord called the good ones “blessed”, and when he knew that they will do good deeds he prepared for them the kingdom since the creation of the world, this means that they will reign with Christ. These people knew him in their lives here; but how could that be and they haven’t seen him? The evil didn’t know him in their lives here; also how could that be and they haven’t seen him?

Lord Jesus says to the good “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink”, then he mentions other situations where he says that he was in although he didn’t personally pass in any of these situations. They reply and say: “when did we see you hungry or needing clothes or in prison, and did not help you?” The Lord replies: “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”. This means that he was hungry through the hungry person, a stranger through strangers, and sick through the sick people; i.e. he united himself with every person in need. “No one has ever seen God”, you see him through the hungry, the prisoner and the sick.

If you didn’t love a brother in need, you can’t love Christ, while if you did love him then you have truly loved Christ. Principally, if you gave the hungry and visited the sick and the imprisoned you would have also done this to Christ.

The opposite of taking care of people, is the act of overlooking and ignoring the other and being stingy with your compassion. Stinginess isn’t only found when you don’t give money to the needy, but also when you don’t give him love, and when you leave the sick and the imprisoned in their solitude. You know that the lonely or the left alone person recovers when others accept him; he feels that he does exist. Sickness is not only pain or fever, but it is the feeling of separation from others.

Christ calls all these ignored people the least of his brothers and sisters, and the word least comes from the way people look unto them. If we neglected compassion, the act of being close to the weak and making them ascend to a higher status through our humility, we would have neglected the Lord himself and went away from him. Therefore, we shall go to an eternal suffering.

The meaning aimed here is not only hell that waits for us after resurrection, but the fact that we would be thrown into a conscience suffering in this world. We would be neglected from Christ. While if we came close to the people who are in need, we would feel that Lord Jesus has also come close to us.

Heaven is a communion not only with God, but also with those that we loved and made them ascend to their Lord through love. Heaven is the communion of saints. In the Kingdom sadness vanishes, we dwell in happiness and each one of us dwells with the other and sees his face full of happiness. While in hell, our Fathers say that no one sees the face of others but everyone is tied to the back of the other.

This image indicates that there is no communion in hell, and that no one is a brother to anyone. In the feelings of brotherhood, we shall enter the doors of the Great Lent where we deprive ourselves for the sake of the poor and as a support for them until Pascha comes for all of us in happiness and the power of communion.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “أحد الدينونة” – 27.02.2011

Jesus spoke a lot about repentance, and here he makes a story that reflects this teaching. The parable or story is the following: A man had two sons; the young one asked to take his share of the inheritance and leave his parental house, while the other didn’t want his share but wanted to stay in the house. The young son took all his belongings and lived in a far country in profligacy. He spent all his money as a famine happened in the county so he tried to live with some money he makes from his job but his earning wasn’t enough.

He thought about returning to the family house and telling his father that he is his son, which means confessing his sins. When he became close to the house his father saw him. Was he on a balcony or on a high roof at the end of the road? Was he still not hopeless concerning the return of his son? Did he expect that the son will fall into an economical loss since he went to spend and not to make a fortune?

“His father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him”. He did not reprove him, or blame him, or tell him that the good behavior is better than the bad one. He only hugged him and gave him the best robe to wear since his clothes were torn apart like every hungry person as he won’t have money to buy clothes. He butchered the fatted Calf for him and told the servants: “for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found”. He called him his son, i.e. he didn’t cut the relationship between them.

There was in the house dancing and singing, so the son that remained free was surprised and got mad because he considered that his father was unjust, so he separated his self spiritually from the family and did not want to enter, and he started to blame his father and consider himself righteous. How is the bad person treated as the pure one? How could he prefer the son the fell over the one who didn’t? This is what he was thinking about. Is the punishment of the adulterer to be treated just like the one who remained pure?

The Father had another logic: I treat the righteous as the owner of the house. He eats, drinks and enjoys everything in the house. He can enjoy everything to the maximum, but he isn’t allowed to punish his brother. The money belongs to the father and he is free to do what he wants with it. The father didn’t prevent anything from the old son. He didn’t deny anything from him. The fatted Cult is for him, the ring and the sandals also, and he has the right to give these to whoever has deviated or gone away.

The father’s heart wanted to save his rebellious son and tell him that he still loves him. The father felt that his little son was like a dead person and the Gospel did call him dead.

This parable that was named “the prodigal son” in our tradition should be named -taking into consideration both sons- the parable of “the compassionate father” that forgave the son that has rebelled and treated the old son justly. He treated each one in a way but in one love. Jesus came to save sinners, and he distinguished them only for them to feel and repent and return to the face of the heavenly Father.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الابن الشاطر” – 20.02.2011

When this Sunday comes, we feel that we became close to the Lent. This day starts the period of “Triodon”, which is the book that contains the biblical texts that precede the lent and ends when by entering Pascha.

The scene talks about two people that went up to the temple in Jerusalem to pray, one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. We have mentioned previously that the Pharisees were from a very strict religious party concerning the issue of keeping the Law; they even added new restrictions that weren’t found in the Law. Jesus had several confrontations with these people because they were hypocrites. The Savior was not against their theological problems especially that they agree with Jesus since they teach about resurrection, while other Jews didn’t believe in resurrection. The Lord was against their behavior and pride.

The other person was a tax collector to the Romans; it was known that tax collectors used to steal from the taxes and don’t pay all the money to the authorities.

The Pharisee was bragging in front of the tax collector and accusing him with corruption and injustice. He was bragging that he fasts twice a week although Moses’ Law didn’t ask for this, and also that he gives tithes of what he owns although it was also not asked to give tithes of simple material such us vegetables and fruits.

On the other side, the sinner tax collector stands with his eyes upon the ground, asking for forgiveness as he says: “God, be merciful to me a sinner”.

This is a biblical parable, i.e. a story that Jesus told in order to give the Jews a lesson, and this is what he does by saying that the tax collector went down to his house justified rather than the other, and he continues: “for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”.

Therefore, we start in this Sunday that prepares for the Lent with a lesson about humility. Fasting has no value without humility. No one can be proud about his fasting. A person can be proud about the mercy that descends on him from God and forgives his sins. Do not boast about anything you have done because, as St. Basil the great says in his liturgy, “we haven’t done any good in front of God”.

Apostle Paul has said that when a person considers himself something, therefore he is nothing. Only God could exalt us while being on earth. He exalts us through his love and forgiveness. He who considers himself “nothing”, his Lord will make him “something”. The Savior taught us this with insistence when he said: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart”. It is asked to have smoothness in relations with people, kindness in treating others by trying not to hurt anyone or make a person sad, and make, through love, others happy at all times.

Let us consider the coming Lent a season of returning to God, a deep return coming from the depth of our hearts so that no one dwells in this heart except the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; through this we shall see the trinity dwelling in our hearts in the Holy Week and Pascha.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الفريسي والعشار” – 13.02.11

Paul goes beyond the physical temple of Jerusalem, as the Lord did, and teaches the Corinthians that they (through Baptism, sacraments, faith, and everything given in the New Testament) are a living temple of God. His words were not weird from the Old Testament, but were built on it through our Lord Jesus Christ (See for example Ezekiel 37: 27 and Jeremiah 25: 11).

“I will dwell in them and walk among them”; this phrase refers to the exodus from Egypt under Moses’ leadership. However, the true leader is God that made his people cross the wilderness of Sinai into the land of Canaanites (Palestine). This phrase is also in the future tense; but, God’s true dwelling in us and walking among us is not a transition from a place to another but from a state of sin slavery into another of salvation through Jesus Christ.

What did he mean by his old saying to the Hebrews: “Come out from among them”? Come out to where? This doesn’t mean, of course, to build a political kingdom by putting all foreigners out; this is practically impossible. It meant to leave their actions, and to build a faithful community which is the church that is spread all over the world as it was meant to do through the Lord’s saying: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations”. You shall be special through your love for people in the church and outside it. I said the word “special” because love is the only basis of Christian ethics. You are in a constant state of renewal.

The question here is the following: If the Savior said clearly that we are a living temple of God, then why do we still build temples? Historically, Christianity did not know any temples in the first two centuries because the faithful used to gather in one place of a village or in an alley of the city and have liturgy there. The first built church was in Tyr. The idea of consecration of churches also came late. The sacredness of the church comes from the Holy Book, which, when read in the church, makes the place a platform for God’s word. This is why Preaching becomes necessary in order to explain the word of God or deliver it to the faithful. Sacredness also comes from the Holy Liturgy and all the sacraments.

The reality of our churches is that they are huge halls that people had to build in order to be together. Being together means to gather on the day of resurrection, Sunday, and this is our purpose to become “Resurrectionists”.

After that, reality showed that every large street needs a church, as it is impossible for all the faithful to gather in the Cathedral. However, sometimes churches are not made due to this need but because of the piety of a rich person who wants to build a church and give it the name of his Patron saint. This is well known in our Archdiocese.

Our churches and their beauty should not make us forget that we, people, are the church of Christ before anything. Before the end of the Soviet Union, in 1920’s, the number of churches decreased to four and then became ten in the time of Khrushchev; however, Orthodox people were still there. Who of us really cares about being a living member in the body of Christ, carrying the Bible in his mind and heart and speaking about it? If we were not together and moving together through the Word, then we would only have physical stone temples and not Churches.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “المؤمن هيكل الله” – 06.02.11

He was the chief of tax collectors; he was responsible for the taxes paid for the Romans: The Roman authority assigns him and in exchange he pays a certain amount of money, he assigns assistants that help him in collecting taxes from people. These collectors used to choose the amount of taxes according to their will, this way they used to make huge personal extra profits. For example, the chief of tax collectors in Jericho could be assigned and asked for ten thousand Dinars, so he goes on, collects twenty thousand and keeps the difference in his pocket.

Zacchaeus the tax collector was the chief of collectors in Jericho. The Gospel says that he was a rich man, but doesn’t say that he was a thief like most tax collectors in the Roman authority.

Zacchaeus had the curiosity to see Jesus when he knew that the Lord was meant to pass through Jericho. Did he just have curiosity to see a personality that has become famous in the country, or was there more spiritual depth?

All that we know is that he made an effort as he climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus because he was of short stature. Did Luke purposely describe Zacchaeus as short and tell us that he climbed a sycamore in order to show us that we have to overcome all spiritual difficulties in us if we wanted to meet Jesus?

When Jesus saw Zacchaeus sitting on the tree branch, he told him: “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house”. The Lord wanted to go into a conversation with the man that would take hours of the night.

Here the Gospel said: “So he made haste and came down”, it didn’t simply say “he came down”. He did exactly what Jesus wanted him to do. Then it says: “he received him joyfully”. Zacchaeus knew that this new teacher had things from God to say, words for his repentance. After entering the house, the shocking word from Zacchaeus came: “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold”.

Who gives half of his goods to the poor? And why “fourfold”? Doesn’t this mean that he was afraid not to return everything he might have taken by false accusation through tax collecting?

After that, the saving verse comes from Lord Jesus: “Today salvation has come to this household”. Today, through the repentance of this man his old life is ended. Then the promise comes: “for the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost”. No person could be considered convicted or lost if he loved the Lord more than every humanly thing in him.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “زكا العشار” – 31.01.11

Who is this Timothy, the person that two letters were sent to? From the book of Acts we see that Paul met him in Lystra and made him his best helper. His father was Greek, which means Gentile, while his mother was a Jew that became Christian. Timothy studied the Holy Books (the Old Testament) since his childhood.

Timothy used to have health problems (malaises) so Paul took care of his health and circumcised him in order to avoid problems caused by Judaizers. He was ordained by church elders. This epistle is one of the Pastoral Epistles that reflect Paul’s theology.

In the first epistle to Timothy, his teacher Paul says that “This is a faithful word and worthy of all acceptance”; this word is the word that the apostle used to teach and he calls it his Gospel that he took directly from the Lord when he appeared to him on the “correct road“. The content of this Gospel is that Christ came to save sinners, each one of us, as Paul introduces himself as “the chief” of the sinners. This is the way every one of us should speak about himself since no one is allowed to compare himself with others saying that he’s better than them through this or that virtue; we have to consider ourselves the last between people because only Lord can condemn people according to “my gospel” – as Paul says – in Jesus Christ.

No person can say about himself anything except that mercy descends to him and saves him from all his sins. If God gave him his mercy, this would be through his patience. Therefore, when people see God’s mercy on a person, they know that it could also come to them and they will gain eternal life that starts in Baptism and stays with us through all the Holy Sacraments and faith.

“Now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever”. This is the act (movement) of us being “caught up” to him through praise. The first movement towards God is request and asking. For if we obtained this request that would be for our salvation, we thank God, and this is the second movement towards him. After that, the only thing left is praise.

These three movements are prayer. We ask God what’s for our salvation. We can ask for health and means of living, but without forgetting that it should only be leading us to God. Health, food and drinking are not purposes; they are ways for the salvation and purification of the soul. Through this we dwell with God in this world and the coming one. Being in a daily relation with God is the salvation itself.

To live in the request of forgiveness and humility is a result to what the Lord said: “Men always ought to pray”. We cannot pray all the time, but we ask the Lord to raise our hearts to him all the time; and this is a speechless prayer. If we reached this level of relation with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we shall be in heaven from now, we become a home for God, free from all harmful lusts, and attracted to the face of the Father who is the beginning and the end.

This is not accomplished for anyone unless he considers himself like Paul did “last between people”, i.e. when he becomes humble and this is the virtue of all virtues. Humility qualifies us to say with Paul that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save the sinners, of whom I am chief”. Then, God will raise us to his throne.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الخطأة الذين أنا أولهم” –Raiati n^o4- 23.01.11

Christ’s appearance that was mentioned in this section of the epistle to the Colossians is his appearance in the last day. The apostle wishes that we appear with Christ in the glory produced from our purity. Therefore, Paul assures, immediately after this, that we should “put to death our members”. Of course, he doesn’t mean to destroy this or that member, but he uses this image of the member of the body metaphorically to speak about our sins that we have to put off as if they were parts of us.

He mentions five lusts and emphasizes on covetousness considering it idolatry; his words here are echoes from the Bible that forbids us from worshiping God and money together. After that, he mentions sins from another kind, sins that have the mouth as their tool (malice, blasphemy, lying).

Paul related all these to the “old man” in us, the man of sin that wasn’t renewed through grace. The contrary of this, is the “new man” who’s constantly renewed through grace, moves towards the knowledge of God through love and obedience, and the image of the creator is renewed in him since he has been created according to this image.

For if all of us reached this, there shall be no difference between Greek and Jew, i.e. between Christians coming from Paganism and others coming from Judaism; these were differences with racist backgrounds that were found in the ancient church. Jews were circumcised while Gentiles were not. Therefore, Paul wanted to confirm the symbol of the difference saying: “neither circumcised nor uncircumcised”.

Then he mentions another cultural difference denying the conflict between Barbarians and Scythians. Barbarians were the non-Greek people, and were uncivilized according to Greeks. Scythians, on the other side, were people that had little civilization living in southern Russia.

However, the big conflict (difference) in that time was between free people and slaves. Slaves did not have a legal personality and weren’t allowed to get married legally while they were allowed to cohabitate.

Post-Pauline Christianity, despite his words concerning this, wasn’t able to get rid of slavery. A Christian could be a slave according to the Roman law, but in the church he’s a brother of the free man sharing with him Holy Communion. In his epistle to Philemon, Paul raised the status of slaves.

If all of these differences vanish from church’s dealing with people, Christ shall appear as everything and in everything. The Church has revealed a new unity through Christ’s blood. 

Unfortunately, and despite the New Testament’s warnings concerning differences between people, we still see a big gap between man and woman, i.e. superiority, we also find a difference between a man and his servant or maid in addition to injustice towards servants including violence, oppression, and beating. We see a preference in the way the church treats the rich and the poor. The difference between classes has sometimes its effect on the faithful that share the Holy Grail. We also find a difference between the educated and the ignorant although they are one according to God, or we find contempt for the disabled and maybe a differentiation between people on the basis of beauty and age although people are equal according to God’s opinion and love for them.

If Christ was everything for you, people shall become all equal for you as they are for him.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “الانسان الجديد” – 16.1.2011