An-Nahar

Symbolism for us is not plain imagination. Spiritual truth does not descend as mere words. It comes in form of images as well. The image of the truth is its symbol. They are not two different things. When the author of the Hebrews speaks of Christ says that He is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” [Heb.1: 3; NIB translation]. The glory is in His splendor and He is the representation of [God’s] being.

Whenever you are pigmented by the water of baptism, it does not [merely] signify that you have received salvation. But you receive it in truth. Water does not signify something which it does not have. It gives you what it has, i.e. the reality of salvation which was transferred to it. Material moves from the sensible world to the world of perception. That is why, in communion, whatever seems to you as bread has become in its essence the Lord’s body. Not [merely] signifying the body. It has become a body, i.e. it has moved from the sensible world to the world of perception. We do not say that the body of the Lord is in the bread, or with it, or under it. We say that the bread has become body, and we do not speak about the how.

The mystery in this is that whatever might seem to you as a symbol of something else, it is no longer that. There is not something else. Symbol, in its common use, refers to the symbolized, and there is nothing between the two other than the relationship of imagination. However, in the Christian use of the term the symbol and the symbolized are one. The symbolized is manifested through the symbol, and it is not possible for you to differentiate between the two on the level of existence.

Is it the hand to the hand at the handshake, or it is the heart to the heart, whenever we were honest? When Paul says, “Greet one another with a holy kiss”, what does he mean, other than to say that the kiss should be without deception, or lie? Is the meeting in marital love a symbol or a truth? In the Orthodox Church, when “let’s love one another” is sung, the priest kisses another priest. However, in the past all the congregation used to perform this kiss, denoting that the Church is formed through love. The body carries the soul, which communicates with the other soul, and there should be a bridge between the two, and the body is this stanchion which consists of flesh, blood and bones.

In the same vein it is possible to speak of the constructed church, its music and its paintings. It would have been possible not to have sanctuaries, and to be satisfied by reading the divine Word. However, the large number of believers demanded a vast place for prayer, and it was necessary to perform the liturgies, which are congruous symbols in their meaning and forms. By performing the liturgy, it pours a meaning upon you, and the meaning brings you to its image. And the prayers are words, and the word is at once an image and a meaning.

If you take the Bible, it consists of words, namely the words of a particular language, i.e. you enter into the Bible through the language and the language is [a kind of] illustration. And the Bible is not in one language. It is in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. These languages are symbols, like other symbols, and through them you search for the truth and the truth is in its words. Whenever the interpreters expose a text of the divine book to interpretation, they expose it to the languages, i.e., to the symbols of truth, yet, they aim at the truth. Thus, truth and its images are together, until, on the Last Day, God becomes our only Truth, without images. The great ones in prayer, in my church, reach at a day when they do not speak words. Then, we call their prayers inner prayers. Those have allowed the supplication through Jesus’ name to enter their hearts, and His name would have resided within them. Then, they would not utter a name or a word. They would be in the Presence. Before the Presence, the problem of the relationship between the symbol and the symbolized vanishes.

If we take the Mystery of Holy Unction, we ask: why should the sick person be anointed with oil? Was the oil the origin of some medications or because the root of its name in Greek is of the same root of mercy? What remains from this question is that we are in a holy endeavor, which brings the symbol together with the symbolized. In this, we are not deviating from the human nature.

Further, the talk about the symbols in the church should be concluded by mentioning the icon. What are you doing when you place your lips on it? Is this a kiss to the picture or to the master of the picture? After Yazid had destroyed our icons, John of Damascus wrote that whenever we honor the image (honor and not worship) we honor Christ, or Mary, or the Saint who is pictured, and that is because of the incarnation, namely that the only Son of God has taken a human image, body and blood. Thus, whenever we conjoin the icon we are conjoining Him.

Maybe, to some extent, every one of us is an icon of God, and by our flesh we transcend to God, and nothing remains other than the face of God, which has no symbol. Whenever you can perceive God in this way, without expression, you would have been perceiving perfection.

This would occur on the Last Day (in our expression), or at the Hereafter, in the expression of our brothers and friends. Every community has its expression, whether by images or a book, and the book is an image. After resurrection you would not have a human face, by which you perceive God. You would have a different body and an unwritten prayer, and in your heart, you would not have any imagination, since imagination is an image. Your heart, then, would not differ from the heart of God, in its purport and glory.

We rely now, necessarily, on words, which are imagination, we rely on signs, signals and arts, until the form of this world fades away, and God seizes us by the wings of God’s love to God’s face, about which it is not admissible to speak.

If we can love one another here, that would mean that we can see faces, which are beyond portrayal, since portrayal needs images, and we would have been surpassed those images by the contiguousness of love.

Between the eighth and the ninth centuries, was not the knowledge of those who destroyed the icon revealing to them that the Bible was also an icon, since it leads [the reader] to God through words, which are images? Sheer truth is in your heart whenever your heart imitates the heart of God, and whenever its content transcends to the vision of God.

What matters is that divinity and humanity unites within you, with your subsisting as a human existent. God does not eliminate you. Transcend to God by your words and worship God with all your body, which is held by God.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “الرموز والحقيقة” –An Nahar- 11.08.2012

How does the unity between two people take place? Is it by passion? That is by human love in its fervor or by the love that Jesus of Nazareth has shown – the love that is founded on a Divine covenant? And the Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard tells us that the commandment saying “Love thy neighbor as yourself” means that you must love your neighbor as yourself. In that we are in the realm of religious duty thus transcending that of desire. So marital unity is not accordingly an “ipso facto” (just a fact); it is a commitment before God.

The first mention of marriage in the course of the Scriptural Texts is what came in Genesis: “God created Man in His image. In the image of God He created them. Male and female He created them”. In this account of the creation, there is a negation of the legitimization or sanctification of the relationship within the single gender or what is called in some countries of the West “same sex marriage”; especially that that Divine word ends by saying: “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth” not meaning that the purpose of marriage is getting children but multiplying as a fruit of that relationship.

In another account in a later chapter of Genesis, it says that God made of the rib that He took from Adam a woman and He brought her to Adam; so Adam said “this now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”; and then it says in the chapter: “Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one body.

What is the one body? It does not mean the body as the visible expression of the human being since that is impossible. The “body” in Hebrew thought means the “person” or the “entity” itself since the Hebrews had no duality between the soul and the body. In our modern days we say that the male and female are in a unity of two souls or two hearts; an expression used not denoting any desire but emphasizing the realization of a “pure wedding” as the Orthodox say in their wedding ceremony.

The New Testament speaks of marriage as a perennial relationship for life; thus in principle, it denies separation of husband and wife. And Matthew adds to the Old Testament, the phrase “what God has brought together, no man shall put asunder”. The phrase “except in the case of adultery” is not found in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. Maybe it is good to mention here that the Church of Old, gave permission for a second marriage to the less-guilty partner but not to the guilty.

In the Eastern Church of nowadays, there is a certain economia of a practical nature that allows divorce for the two partners but that does not mean that the Church has changed Her doctrinal position concerning the perennialness of marriage. Legal permission for divorce in certain cases does not mean that She has opened the door for the dissolution of the tie of marriage. But in the case of looseness among them the loose partner gets the sanctions or penalty. But we will say nothing further concerning this subsidiary topic.

What makes the marriage bed honorable and clean as St. Paul says is an assertion on Paul’s part that the marriage relationship is from the Lord and is rooted in Him. The epitome of what Paul says is in his letter to the Ephesians: “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church giving Himself for Her”. In fact this is a reciprocal relationship of love between the husband and wife, the content of which is clearly love. It is the love of Christ through His death. Thus there are no limits to marital love; there are no conditions of behavior one puts on the other in order to love him. Both the husband and wife are of the flesh of Christ and His bones (Eph. 5: 30). Paul ascertains that both of them are one flesh but he had said before that each one of them is in Christ and says it later more clearly that both of them together are also in Christ.

This drives me to say that if the above vision of marriage does not come down on the spouses from Above, then their marriage is carnal, in this world and of this world. I say this in the light of what I have experienced with the cases of divorce we have in the region I live in; I have found that the spouses who live in the love of the Lord do not resort to our court of law. They understand that the tie between them has come down on them from Above.

I am not a child to think that families do not go through times of crises of disagreement. You do not get to know your wife before she started living with you. You get to know some of her qualities during the period of engagement when it is long enough. Yet each one of you has “things” that do not show before marriage; or that new defects show in you or in your spouse after the marriage. In orher words, relations get worse due to one discovering the other after marriage. Or the one who seemed innocent before is not so any more and you find it hard to have known all his tendencies before marriage.

That is why homogeneity is difficult sometimes, or if fact what is difficult is the dramatized overemphasis on this homogeneity. That is also due to weakness in temperament, little patience and the conviction as to whether to go on with life of one’s family or not. Recently we hear much of this: “I do not love him” or “I do not love her”. And that is a terrible aggrandizement of desire; and desire does not last long with the same intensity; and alone on that we cannot build marriage after we have built it on both desire and God’s love. And that is mercy from God.

I know that among the psychologists there are marriage counselors. Some of them have helped much; and science is great when it is successful. We do not avoid Science, but our approach to married life is a Divine approach based on the word of the Lord and continuous prayer. Thus the family subsists in its prayer.

When I was a kid, we used to gather around my father and he would tell us about his memories during World War I. And he used to say: “So and so married in the year 1916”. And I used to know that that was a period of famine. So I gathered from the stories of my father that difficult circumstances do not do away with the coming together of a man and a woman in one life. But during the times of those stories, in the 1930’s, my father never told us that people would divorce. And we used to understand that the bride would come “adorned with chastity” to her bridegroom. And It never occurred to her mind to sin against chastity; as if people used to mutually preserve the virtues of each other and their commitments.

We have changed much since the times of my father. And now there is no room to talk about the reasons why that happened. And the reasons are many. But we can refuse to take lightly the sanctity of marriage which is accomplished in the Lord. And we can affirm that it is the pattern for spiritual wholeness and that what the Lord has said before, He has said for all times.

“Male and female He created them” to make the good and blessed human togetherness so that each gender will be made holy through the other. That is the steadfast will of God and His final word.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الوحدة الزوجية” – An Nahar – 04,08,2012

You cannot speak of the ‘I’ unless you speak of the ‘you’, since you are delimited by encounter, i.e. meeting face to face. One meets the other, thus both are defined. You are formed by relationship, and if you are frantically egocentric, you perceive the other as a mirror of you. Whenever you do not have pathological preference for yourself you accept the other to a certain extent, though you might not embrace him/her, however the other makes you in your depth and makes himself [/herself] at the same time through you. And whenever the other welcomes you in truth, you both transcend to above. Then God would be [truly] the maker of [both of] you, while each of you is formed through perceiving God, thus you see God in the other or you see something divine in him/[her].

You cannot relate to God unless you bring the other near God as if you are offering a sacrifice, i.e. you draw the other to God in order that you receive him/[her] from God. Thus both of you become like “the day when it lights up”. (Sūrat Al-Layl [The Night]: 2)

The others are not a dark mass. Every person in the others’ group becomes lighted whenever he/[she] knows the others as persons interlaced through love, or at the least through the vigilance of each soul, as the Orthodox say in their liturgy. Thus, everyone is in the heart of the other and therefore is distinguished from the congestion of the mass in order to perceive each person of the group as unique. This is the difference between a group of people and the flock of sheep. You count every animal in the flock and then you add the one to the other and that would be a matter of calculation. None of the flock differs from the other and in case you want to distinguish any of them you need to stamp it on the skin. As for human beings, each is unique and there is not another identical person to anyone. Seven billion people are today and none of them is identical with another. Uniqueness is a human attribute and God sees everyone as unique not only in the face but also in the heart. God does not have patterns for human souls, and it is not the case that the one soul dissolves in the other in order to unite with it.

This was a heresy that the church considered infidel in order to safeguard the unique person. In the Kingdom, we remain in encounter and in love, but we do not dissolve in one another since love sustains the other and it does not dissolve him/[her].

There is no aversion in your independence from the other. Independence consolidates the self and the other. Human souls are not compiled corpses like the bodies. They are always in encounter because of the grace poured upon each of them. God embraces them in God’s life-giving tenderness without overlooking any of them lest it dies.

Minds are different and they disagree most of the times, since the mind is subject of both confounding and perturbation and it gets harmed by other minds, which renounce it. Humanity is grounded on opposing or contradictory variations. Thus, the mind gets weakened, in addition to the lack of its initial absolute, and this is explained by the dissimilarity of minds.

However, the human being is not ‘other’ because of his/[her] mind. In his/[her] general formation the other is different than you. He/[she] might be your neighbor [or friend] even when you disagree in opinion and you do not despise him/[her] because of his/[her] being different. Little minds do this. For the wise, intellect is not a reason for sentimental or existential collision since existence, in its depth, is about the heart. This was true for the Biblical aspect, in its two testaments, and also for our Fathers. You recognize the encountering self as the other since it differs from you to the extent of love. Nevertheless, your self embraces the other’s self whenever you can give freely, without assuming control over the others in your depth. “So, exhort, you are a mere exhorter; you are not supposed to dominate them” (Sūrat Al-Ghāshiyah [The Overwhelming Day]: 21-22)

This is the meaning of dialogue, which is founded on the recognition that the other exists, for he/[she] is a talking creature, and because the other loves you at the times of need. The other acknowledges you and you acknowledge him/[her] in order that the light might be manifested through the encounter. Intellect is not about prescription. It is an encounter. The other serves the truth that you carry, and the truth flourishes through the other. The truth is manifested through the affiliation of the different consciences whether intentionally or unintentionally through love, and both help in interconnecting the truths, one to the other.

Love presumes your belief that God has entrusted you some things (from Him) and has entrusted your dialogue partner also some things (from Him) and these things could have been convergent. Love, in this sense, is a bridge between a depth and another though views might differ. Whenever we approach [the other] in wisdom and great purity, diversity does not cause enmity since you know that the other is God’s beloved one like you are and that the other may be the means that brings a great heart and a limited mind together. Thus, you embrace the other with supplication and set him/[her] in the amplitude that God has bestowed upon you.

Here a reference to the so-called enemy comes. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven”. (Mat.5: 43-45)

Most people have problem with loving the enemies because of their concentration on the solitary ego, in which there is no space for the other. The ego is proprietor of existence. It drives the opponents away from existence, thus it kills them mentally. As long as they are out of my sight, they are out of the whole world.

As one might doubt in the commandment, forgiveness seems to be grounded on the words of Jesus of Nazareth: “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven”. You cannot accept your enemy as you accept your brother unless you admit that the enemy is a son [/daughter] of the One who is in heaven and that he/[she], is forgiven by God and has an equal value to God as you have and as you also live in divine forgiveness. Whoever is a son [/daughter] of God is necessarily a brother [/daughter] to you. Then, you do not see the enmity of the other; rather you see him/[her] within the sphere of divine forgiveness, within which you likewise are, as forgiven.

Through love, the enemy is a friend to you and his/[her] face is covered by divine light. The other is not only the one who loves you but also the one who hates you. Each of them is a brother [/sister] to you, since brotherhood descends from heaven, no matter he/[she] or you feel. You and the other are in the family of the Father, in which all turbulence vanishes, and the soul faces the soul, since each is the mirror of that loving God.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “الآخرون” –An Nahar- 28-07-2012

Today when you read these lines, you encounter a writer brought by His Lord to the threshold of Ninety years so he can thank and learn a lesson and try not to distance himself from God’s face; God who wants him to have that human face which is receptive to the Divine love and unreconciled with his sins. Why the Creator gives in abundance and the Savior shows tenderness in abundance, why that is a Mystery He reveals to no one. That is related to His Fatherhood which descends on us as grace placing us in the hand of the Lord that holds us with great compassion and safeguards us from all evil and all corruption.

I have accompanied you some decades of years in this column, writing out of love in joy and explaining to you some thought that has descended upon me; and my wish is that there should not be in your minds any mixing of what has descended on me and what is of my own weakness. My sincere wish is that same grace be poured in your hearts, not in order to read me, but in order that you may read that grace, and as such I, for any reason of my humanness, would not be an obstacle between you and that grace. “I am your servant oh Lord; your servant and the son of your handmaid”. And while I wanted my words to be anointed by Jesus of Nazareth, I get word through various sources that most of them (my words) have moved your hearts whether you are of His (Jesus) faith or not. I used to feel that being with you is a one deified togetherness, we having gathered together around a word that, though at times came from sorrow, but a word of the truth which I desired to contribute in the healing of you and me.

So every Saturday morning, we used to share a breakfast of love and sincerity, a love of That One whose message I tried to convey to you whether I got my reasoning and thought from His book or from my yearning for you; and perhaps both sources are one and the same. I will remain with you as long as “my pen” and my body remain and as long as you desire this meeting, with pure hearts, on Saturday morning.

These “letters” of mine would not have been had not Ghassan Tueni wanted them to be. In many of those (letters) we (the author and Ghassan Tueni) come from the same source. It pleased me to “live” in An-Nahar so that I can peer at you though the task of producing these lines was difficult at times.

Perhaps I was not always up to the standard of its spirit. But I have sought humbly to speak to you the truth He honored me with, as a messenger from Him to you.

Not all of my words were a direct talk about God. But I know that God permeates this talk or the other, since He ordained to touch my tongue to speak of Him. As such God is the One who initiates and the One who ends. And I wanted to receive Him as such; and I hope He has not let me down.

When I used to write to you, I in fact wanted to have had conversed with Him before hand so that I would be able to come to you at the end of every week, with what He had revealed to me; and had I spoken of something else I would have inadvertently betrayed Him. “Your servant am I oh Lord and the son of your handmaid”.

In the course of conversing about Him together, we had come across some “words” about the Orient and about our country. And I never intended to write about politics directly, since my goal was always to write about what is Divine concerning politics hoping that those immersed in it would look through it to behold God’s face; “all talk apart from God is idle talk”. I hope I have not mingled between this world and the coming one. “The coming world is better for you than this current one”. At times I used to hear Him whispering that “Politics is not your field. It is a situation where I am Lord if those concerned want my Lordship.” All else is the vanity of vanities. Yet in my discourse with you, I could not but behold those that are wounded by the matters of this world. And my words would have been of benefit when their wounds were soothed by those words.

Ghassan Tueni the believer used to know that my contribution has in it a testimony to the Lord who has brought us (Ghassan and me) together. But now Ghassan (after his departure) reads what is more eloquent and beautiful in the Kingdom of Love.

What is it that remains after this long life? No one should avoid asking himself that question. The sole question that befits an author, who sees himself a servant, is not in reality a question; it is a prayer. “O my Lord, grant me to obey You with a greater obedience than the one I have lived, and with unadulterated faithfulness to You. That I hold no other being besides You, nor any thought besides Yours. And I pray that You alone dwell in my heart; and that my heart would be like a church the East side of which written with Icons – meaning that I would be in the presence of Your saints.

Other than that it is not important whether I can peer at you in this column. When would “the pen be broken”? The important thing is that the Savior’s image He wanted me to convey to you would remain with you. What your Lord wants is that you always accept the words that have come from Him before and still come to the hearts of many of you. In this way my heart would be at ease concerning you and in this you will dwell with the Spirit of the Lord until the morning of the Life of the Kingdom dawns on us all”.

These lines are not a farewell on my part and there is no trace of fear in them. With these lines I seek your prayers for me so that we remain in this holy togetherness which was vouchsafed between you and me by the An-Nahar newspaper; and I know that the Lord does not leave a people without a witness to Him.

Do not get attached to any type of affectional writing, be it spiritual or not, except what God wants for you and our country, so that we remain always brightened with the Light of the Resurrection.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “تسعون” – An Nahar- 14.07.2012

It has always dismayed me to know that half of the humanity is illiterate, and the quarter of it is semi-illiterate, while all kinds of scholarship have appeared in order to evolve the mind. Production for the sake of a descent life is a service for others. Tilling the soil, in its general sense, agriculture, industry, all these are brought about by sciences, add to them the joy that sciences bring to one’s heart and strengthens one’s relations with others.

With no real knowledge, by which you encounter the minds of your fellow human beings, agitation and anger will prevail your behavior and control you. But education is in principle your serenity. It supplies you with energy to solve your problems and it is also your way to peace. Thus act, if you can, to become the lord of your paths and the blessings of the Lord will be with you. Yes, some of the illiterates have great wisdom. However, the rule is that you acquire some wisdom through knowledge and you receive the grace of God upon you.

To this it has also dismayed me [to know] that the considerable educated ones, who are in the phase of private university, are the children of rich people since there are much expenses at this stage. Higher education is synonymous to prosperity, and there is injustice in this toward the one whose parents are unable to spend whatever universities or institutions of higher education require. It is not impossible to solve this question whenever the state arranges its budget in a way that it educates the outstanding ones, as it is unable to educate all. How much the country was deprived of the talents of many of its sons and daughters because of associating study with money?

The world is a lasting workshop for learning, especially when we aspire a high standing for the country and a contribution to the world civilization. One of our great scholars, who resides in USA, had told me that most of the top ones in all sectors of specialization are Lebanese. Those would not need to immigrate, had we the means of scientific or technological progress. And then their contributions would have appeared here and all our citizens would have benefited from these higher sciences.

Of course this necessitates that such a vision would be present to the different political groups. This reminds me with what the emperor Peter the Great has done in Russia when he decided to transform the country from its primitive situation to an advanced European country. He had the choice between establishing thousands of elementary schools and establishing few institutions of higher education. He gave priority to the second. He founded what he called academies in all areas of knowledge, and Russia could rapidly achieve the German level of knowledge.

We are capable of delving into all sciences and in some we are not falling behind. However, we should reach at all necessary areas of knowledge for the contemporary human being, and it should be made accessible to all talented ones.

Surely you may not be able to reach the highest level with all the different conditions of the country; however, it is not acceptable that numerous people of [different] classes remain with great ignorance. I know that there is some experience of joy which does not come from knowledge and that holiness descends upon you from above, but science is within the reach of your hands. It contributes greatly to your inner recreation and it is not permissible to you to dispel all the potentials of your human growth because of a lack in the state’s budget. Yes, this brings us to a political study concerning the budget, since it should adapt to the spiritual option which we encounter, namely that knowledge is prior to everything else.

More important than the worldly sciences is your knowledge of God and the divine concerns which are based on cognizance. In order to become deified, i.e. to be a recipient of your Lord in your heart, you need to know the religious text. I do not deny that our Lord brings up for Himself the loving ones and those who know Him, without them being acquainted with the texts. However, I do not doubt that needful understanding of what one should know about God comes to us from the Holy Books and how they inspired later writers, who have interpreted those Books or have constructed theology upon them. But I also do not doubt that those who are conversant are few throughout the ages. And if the purpose of inspiration was that people might know its content so that they might gain a taste of God, by contemplating God’s Word, then, ignorance is dreadful.

I will confine my word to reflect on the Christian situation so that I do not go astray in my perception, and I do not know who taught them [this group of Christians]. Last week I was holding the Divine Liturgy in one of the churches and I looked at the believers and I came to know, in the context of the sermon, that a big number of them have not read the New Testament since I referred to Gospel texts which they have not heard about. I told them that I do not doubt that their parents have bought a Gospel, which is covered by dust, so [I told them] to go and wipe the dust away and open the Book, and then to find the beginning the Gospel of Matthew, and to read it through, as it is placed, until they reach at the Book of Revelation, since it will give them what the rituals cannot give.

This text moves the hearts and you need all the elements that might burn your hearts and fill them with faith. Search for all that might revivify your hearts and purify them. The Liturgy is built on God’s Word, however the Word of God is the corner stone apart from which no other foundation could be established. God has been revealed in different manners. You do not have the right to be limited to one way that brings you to God. You do not decide in God’s place. When God chooses the way of the Book then you should take it, and if God chooses the way of chanting, then, go for it. And if God wills the church, then, gather in it. Other than this, it would be kind of resignation for fantasy and the passing inclinations. And know that it is not possible to understand God without great endeavor, and that the knowledge of God is not effortless. If you were a believer you should know that faith is about transmitting the proclamation to others and not only receiving it. “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one” (Col.4: 6).

This statement addresses all believers and not only the priests. In case there were those who are responsible to teach, this is not limited to them. Every one of you carries the word of God, and hence, it should be delivered in order that it does not remain captive of the books.

Yes, God is love but God is also knowledge, and the proof is that God made Godself known through words. If it is permissible for me to use an imaginative expression about God, I would say that every one of us has to ask: “What are the extents of my knowledge of God?” Is my knowledge [of God] in accordance to God’s will for humanity, or is it the case that God contents Godself with gathering up the ignorant and the wise ones? Do they all perceive God in the same density? The illiterate might love God more than the one who knows God’s words. However, this is not my concern. My concern is to say to my Lord: “By Your grace I have received the proclamation and if You enhance my knowledge I will transmit it [to others] in order that Your word would not remain thrown in a desert.

Published books are not Your concern. You came in order to dwell in the hearts through the words spoken by the prophets and the apostles of Your only Son. And You want that Your words come back to You carrying the hope of the people, who have enriched the grace which You have descended upon them, so that they might feel that they have started climbing the ladder which brings them to You, and have known that You are blessed in them. The only reason that You have endowed them with children is that those children might know You and might inaugurate the Kingdom here.”

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “الله معرفة” –An Nahar- 07.07.2012

Last Thursday is called [in our liturgy] the Ascension Day, and that is from the Biblical statement in Luke that Christ, after resurrection, blessed his disciples, then “he parted from them and was carried up into heaven”. While in the book of Acts and its author is again Luke, we read, “he was lifted up”. This took place forty days after resurrection, as it appears in the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles.

What does it mean that he “was carried up into heaven”? What is heaven? Heaven is not a place. We have seen in the Lord’s appearances, narrated in the Gospels, that after resurrection Jesus was not bound to a place, rather he was entering the place or he was seen in a place. In the course of narrating the ascension, it is said, “a cloud took him out of their sight.” The ‘cloud’ must be taken metaphorically. In the Old Testament, the cloud accompanies the divine presence and reveals it. The idea is then that the body of Christ was carried up to the Father or it was seated on the Father’s throne. (Acts 2: 30) The meaning is of course that the seated one is Jesus, the one resurrected from the dead by his body. This is what the Confession of faith in the fourth century affirmed, he “is seated at the right hand of the Father”.

When the head of a folk seats you on his right hand it indicates that he admits to you the same dignity he has, and if he seats you somewhere else, that does not say anything about your dignity or your being equal to him. The whole New Testament speaks about the equality of the Son with the Father and that the Son did not leave the bosom of his Father when he descended to this earth.

Ascension is meaningless if we consider that Christ’s divinity is equal to the Father’s because of their being identical. Rather, there is some other aspect in Christ’s divinity, and that is his humanity, which was fulfilled through his sufferings and was declared one with the divinity of the Father. Christ is not less than the Father. In the First Ecumenical Council (325), Arius was declared a heretic, since he claimed Christ to be less than his Father and a created being. The claim about Christ being created invalidates the whole mystery of salvation and abolishes the efficacy of the cross. Without the divinity of the Master the whole redemption turns to be a literal thing, void of meaning.

Christianity, as belief, is about the only Son of God, who shares in the eternity of God, who incarnated yet remained God throughout his life on earth. His divinity accompanied him on the cross, though death did not befall on it, and also in the grave and after it, in the sense that the flesh did not limit his divinity. At the Son’s incarnation, his body did not confine his divinity. Divinity has continued to fill the heavens and the earth. Similarly, at his burial it has continued to fill the heavens and the earth.

Whenever Christ enters a human entity, through eating the precious flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, the human being does not confine Christ, rather Christ continues to fill the heaven and the earth. Similarly, the heaven does not confine Christ, since it is not a space.

The heavens are known by Him, and not the other way around. Whenever we say that the saints are in heaven, we do not suggest that they are in a place; rather they are with God or in God. Their ‘being-with’, that is their being united with God, is itself their heaven which is a term denoting their joining the Lord or their entry into the Lord. This is the meaning of the statement “in Christ”, which Paul repeats several times.

God, as God is in Godself, does neither ascend nor descend, rather the human being ascends to God through grace and departs God by sin. Thus, ascension is one’s heaven and the descent is one’s hell, unless one’s Lord saves him/[her] through compassion. There is neither above nor below, since God is in you and you are in God. This is a long topic. You might not truly be unless you are in God, after you were behind God. In any case you remain in your createdness, but it can be luminous or darkened. If your soul is darkened, then as if it is nothing. In its essence, as your soul is created, it exists and it remains beloved whether in luminosity or darkness, until darkness is dispelled through repentance. Then, the Holy Spirit dwells in your soul as light and it would be as if it is created from the beginning of Genesis, in accordance to the Word of God,  “’Let there be light’; and there was light”.

Here I must refer to the Qur’an, without being exhaustive. After saying: “they did not kill him for certain; rather Allah raised him unto Him.” (Sūrat al-Nisā’ [Women]: 158) After this directly he speaks of his death and that was confirmed in Sūrat Mariam: “Peace be upon me the day I was born, the day I die and the day I rise from the dead.” (Sūrat Mariam [Mary]: 33) Did God raise Christ before his death, as it is implied in Sūrat al-Nisā’? In this case, why had he to die, since God has confirmed his death? There is no possibility in this limited space to expose the different interpretations of his death. Mainly, I wanted to reveal that the Qur’an refers to God raising Christ to Godself.

Divinity and humanity are consorted [are one] in the Savior without division, without separation and without confusion, since whenever divinity has descended upon Mary it has put up humanity. This is not a ‘becoming’, since divinity does not become. It is an indwelling. This does not assume the charge of pantheism, as one of my great friends wanted to accuse me. I told him that divinity does become human. Rather it accompanies humanity, it intervenes in it and unites itself with it, yet the two natures remain without any of them losing its characteristics, even when they meet with the other’s characteristics. Christ is in the cosmos and out of it, in the space where he was and beyond it where he came to be through his ascension. He is a humanized God in a divinized embodiment.

All this is reflected in us according to what our humanity is capable of. This is why the great St. Athanasius said: “He assumed humanity that we might become God.” There is much explanation about this in Orthodox Theology, since what is meant by it is not that you gain the essence of God, the Creator, rather the meaning is that you participate in divine eternal powers, as we claim the eternity of grace.

Thus, you might have (within you) some non-created-thing; otherwise, you would not be able to ascend. No highness is achievable for you by your human self; rather highness is possible to you from a divinity indwelt in you in an unknown manner.

Any claim other than this means that there is no adherence between you and God and that God has not bridged the chasm between heaven and earth. Any other claim would mean that God is above and you are below and that God rules over you by the Word, that which cannot enter you without it becoming love [for you]. The Word would not become love simply because God has uttered it. The Word was in the beginning and had to descend to our flesh and bones.

The ascension of the Lord Jesus to the heavens is the reason of our transformation into Him. He “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body”. (Philippians 3: 21) Since through his raising he made us resurrectionists, we can yearn for the glory where we shall indwell at the Last Day.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “البشرية والألوهية معًا” –An Nahar- 26-05-2012

Resurrection is an event and a thought that is it occurred in the journey of Jesus of Nazareth; however, it was an implication. This is articulated in the Paschal hymn, which says: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death.” What is meant by these words is that when death approached Christ, it did not have control over him.  As though there was something beyond the vehemence of the death-event, declaring the triumph of the Savior within the reality of death.

Death is an event explicated in several chapters of the four gospels and similarly Paul emphasized it. In Luke’s narrative: “And there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him.” (Luke 23: 27) And after he was crucified “he breathed his last.” (Luke 23: 27) The statement “he breathed his last” appears literally in the other gospels with reference to the witnesses and their names. Crucifixion has occurred physically [historically], as if the gospels made use of the journalism of those days [in telling it], regardless whether they believed in salvation or not. The narratives tell about the death of Jesus of Nazareth in agreement proving the accuracy of the present Gospel-text, which had been testified by the people of the first century and they confirmed the event before the completion of the Gospels’ writing.

Jesus of Nazareth had been killed by a provocation of Jewish multitudes and a main Roman juridical sentence so as we could speak of another event and that is resurrection. This event discloses the primary meaning of the death of the Nazarene to his followers. The remaining question is whether resurrection is an event that you could sense. A preliminary answer is that Jesus had been buried in a cave, i.e. above it there was its rooftop, there was no soil above it, and further this vast tomb was seen empty on Sunday morning. According to Matthew’s narrative, the angel said to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, who went to see the sepulcher: “Come, see the place where he lay.” Then he said, “He has risen.” Thus, it seems that there is a sensible proof of resurrection based on the non-presence of a corpse in the sepulcher. In the Gospel of Mark, there was a young man in the tomb sitting, who said to the women, “He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him.” Here is again a confirmation of the emptiness.

Luke expresses the emptiness of the tomb by saying that Peter was there, “he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves,” hence without a corpse. This is the same testimony given by John.

The Gospels do not claim that Jesus’ body had moved on the third day and went out [of the tomb]; rather they all say that he appeared to his followers. Resurrection is not a sensible [physical] event like crucifixion, in the sense that it is not described physically [historically], however it is an event that we have scrutinized or perceived from the appearances of the teacher to the disciples and to Mary Magdalene in the garden. Thus, it is a different kind of an incident, i.e. a different physical reality. It was a real liberation from a real death. We accept it from the testimony of the witnesses, namely the apostles and the companions, who said that they saw him.

We understand the meaning of His death from resurrection. Crucifixion is an event; however, you need someone to explain it to you. That is to say you need someone to move you from reality to the reason about which was the goal of the cross, namely that we might live through resurrection as Christ lived. In different terms, we are the purpose of resurrection. Nevertheless, this would not be possible without Christ condemning sin in his body, as Basil says. Thus, the Paschal feast has come to tell us that after having new life through Christ, we do not expect anything else since “the time had fully come”, as Paul said. Through the cross we have become the children of God. The earth has turned into heaven and we have been invited to the throne of glory.

No one interpreted the meaning of resurrection and of our receiving its extension, as did Paul. He said, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rom. 6: 3-4) Thus, if we do not want to live a new life that would mean that the savior’s resurrection had not concerned us, and we had not received it, rather we have remained in our sins.

For this great apostle, resurrection was not an event that had passed and could be praised. It became a presence in the lives of the believers, so that they might come from its light, its warmth and its endurance. That is why St. Seraphim, the Russian saint, worked out a daily greeting: “O my joy, Christ is risen”. This reminds me with Saint Merdarius, who was a Roman noble. Once, when he was walking in the upper floor in his palace, he heard songs coming up from the street. He looked out from the terrace and saw people singing. He asked the servants about the people and the reason of their singing. The servants told him that those are people from the East, driven to execution, and that they are singing for their belief that through their death they would be united with their savior, who is called Jesus. Merdarius thought in his heart: A religion that makes people rejoice on their way to death, must be a true religion. Therefore, he came down and joined them. Thus, he was baptized by his blood, and we celebrate the feast day of this saint as a martyr.

Whoever shines with spiritual splendor has been risen from sin, as has Jesus been risen. Whenever we look at an icon, in our church, and we rejoice in it, we come at that moment from resurrection. The remembrance of resurrection is the start of the week since every liturgy is a Paschal Liturgy.

First Christians used to put on white clothes whenever a dear person had departed life. That was because of the belief that the person had moved to resurrection and that he/she at death would have a discourse with the Father, as Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, had said.

However, God does not care only for individuals. God desires that resurrection pervades the cosmos, thus, on the last day the cosmos will turn into light. Our teaching is that Jesus’ resurrection had inaugurated the new cosmos and that it would enlighten the matter in it on the last day. Thus, if my statement is true, the matter would not remain materialistic, rather it would enlighten through Christ’s light and each cosmic movement would be part of the Last Paschal.

Then, we comprehend the whole range of our chanting: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death. And to those in the graves He granted life!” To say that the dead will rise and to stop there does not quench our thirst. That must be further explained by saying that the cosmos shall be the clothing of Christ and Christ does not wear other than light.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “القيامة الكونية” –An Nahar- 28-04-2012

I wouldn’t have specified them with an article had they had not been unique. The uniqueness does not make them better or worse than others. I will talk about them as much as possible since they are unknown to the extent that they cannot, due to their few numbers, have ambitions on earth. But here they co-live with others without standing out and without blowing the trumpet.

I was once visiting with the late Maronite Bishop of Beirut Mar Ignatius Ziade when he told me about the difference between the Orthodox Liturgy and the Maronite one. And after he explained the background of the Maronite Liturgy he told me: “You start your service saying ‘Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit’; and this royal proclamation came to you from your living with the Byzantine emperors’”. I did not show any disagreement with him though I know that he was magnifying us a little too much; yet I had realized the depth of what he said. In that course of talk I remember I had told Ghassan Twayni more than once “nous sommes d’empire” meaning that we blend with the existing “empire” in that it is a nation; and we have been through with the Roman Empire, then that of the Arabs, the Mamaleek, the Ottoman and the nation of the Mandate (France) and then we got ourselves in what we dreamt to be the nation of Lebanon.

The way I see things, I think that the Sunnis were right in saying openly that they do not accept the classification of our society according to the sects. And perhaps what made us meet at a certain point, was that we, like them, did not speak of confessionalism because we believe that we are the catholic universal Church or that we are from Her; and that we do not feel good about that “prison of sectarianism” that the constitution of 1926 got us into. But others would hear you at this only if you are allowed to have a trumpet. Perhaps our Liturgy, that transports us to Heaven, harms us making us see all people as heavenly while they themselves want to remain earthly. The problem is that you are not allowed in Lebanon to dream of a country the image of which has not yet descended from Above.

And when on Sunday, we sing “Christ has risen from the dead trampling down death by death”, we think that what is meant by that is that Christ has won victory over His own death and we get overtaken by the hymning that we do not see the deadness of Lebanon and its craftiness. But we insist on seeking the Kingdom ignoring what is around us of the earthliness of this world.

Some of us say “We are of this people and with this people (of the Lebanese people)”. It is good to say that. But isn’t it fair that we expect that they be with us also, and that a little of Heaven be on Earth so that we accept to say that we feel good about bringing in to us a little of this Earth so that we and the others can meet in some place of this world?

Is this world too small for Antoun Saade, Michel Aflak, Costantine Zrayk, Asad Rustom, George Habash and others and also the Evangelicals who presided over the Palestinian movement or their ancestors; these all came from our people. I know that it is useless sometimes to argue, but how much was the protest those people made, a product of the narrowness they sensed in the Lebanese religious identity? There is something wrong in the Lebanese fabric in that it renders some the children of the dame while others the children of the bondwoman. And you might be a prince, but there would be some who insist on making your mother a bondwoman.

Yet I do not intend to complain though I am allowed to express my pain on paper. Except that our Fathers have told us not to scream but advised us to speak quietly so that he who has ears would hear quiet voices. As such you get concerned for your unity with those who are of your religious sect and those who are not. Yet regardless of that even those among us who do not practice their faith will say on Sunday the “Christos Anesti” for forty days and would give each other a holy kiss as Paul says. And for many years I wondered what that quality “holy” (of the kiss) meant until I got to understand that whoever chanted that hymn, or had his mother chant it for him, knows that the other believer is his brother whether he prays every Sunday or neglects that; but still he calls to mind that between Pascha and Ascension Thursday, Jesus ascended in His body to Heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father; that is He gave our Humanity that has been glorified through Christ, the same honor that belongs to the Divinity. Then we are potentially, as the philosophers say, at the right hand of Majesty in the Heavens in the company of the righteous that have gone before us to the Face of the Father.

That is what our Fathers call “the attentive drunkenness”. When you see us on the morning of the resurrection after we have started Matins with “Christos Anesti” carrying the lighted candles kissing each other, you would say: ‘Where do these people come from? Why all this love?”. That is not only love. That is passion. And I would comment on him who asks that question saying: “What’s wrong with that passion? Come join us.

We humans have done nothing good on Earth as St. Basil used to say every Sunday during the Lent season. But our glory – and that is not from us but from God – is that we are always in the presence of God in a state of chanting until the Savior comes back again to this world. But I do not want to leave you dear ones with the impression that this world in not the Lord’s, while we draw this world to Him with His word and not with the provocations of politics. We never accepted to be called a sect. Maybe this comes in the official papers of the government. Since, in the eyes of the people you are placed in a category. But we know the place of those who are righteous among us and those who are sinful. But after that “attentive drunkenness” you move from sin to righteousness which teaches you to sing “Christos Anesti” in full.

St. Basil says in his Liturgy from the letter of Peter, “we are a special people, a royal priesthood and a holy nation.” This is so only because of the Holy Cup which we drink. The sinners are a chosen people not because of any privilege they have, but because the Lord has chosen to give them His mercy and tenderness. Same with the Holy Nation which is also sinful but the Lord sanctifies it with the blood of His Son. The Savior sees us in our brokenness; and when He is lifted up, He lifts us up with Him so that we, as His body, can sit on the throne.

The only witness we have is that, in the flesh, we are the least among the peoples, and that you become their “first” through His call for us. We are the crumbs of this earth, and being as such, we cannot elevate ourselves so that our witness does not get undone. “Flesh and blood do not inherit the Kingdom of God”. And God knows whom to break to make them humble. But if you behold the humility of Christ hanging on the Cross, you weep and kneel down; and that is what we tried to do during Lent. And after that we exalt in our chanting “Christ has risen from the dead trampling down death by death” until humanity rises from its somnolence and becomes one with Truth.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الأرثوذكسيون” – An Nahar – 14.04.2012

Islam is unmitigated, it is indescribable from without. “It is only a revelation being revealed” (Sura Al-Najm [The Star], 4). And it is not possible to add to revelation that which is not of its nature. Politics means governance, and the term governance has not appeared in the revealed [Book] in the sense of a state or an administrative organization. Rules of governance are not guaranteed in religion, as Sheikh Ali Abd Al-Razeq has showed that frankly and vigorously. And to me the whole revolt over the Sheikh was because his book has been published in the year 1925, namely one year after Moustafa Kamal’s abolition of caliphate. At that time it sounded as if the scholar Abd Al-Razeq has reinforced Ataturk’s position, and confirmed the abolition of caliphate, to which Muslims were attached. That has sounded as if a sheikh from Al-Azhar, like Abd Al-Razeq, has appeared to judge the delight of Muslims about a rule that had emerged just after the death of the Prophet.

Nothing indicates that the Prophet’s conduct incorporated governance, in its political sense. The people of Medina alone did not make the Umma [nation]. Muslims in the society of Yathrib [the earlier name of Medina] and out of it were God’s Umma. And there were no departments, or what resemble departments, for an administrative structure.  Muhammad, as a person, was the reference for everything in the Umma. The Islamic Umma was a society rather than a governed state. Thus, there is no sense in whatever some learned ones say that ‘Islam is religion and world’. It is a religion in its divine and behavioral senses.

With the death of the Prophet there was need for ordering, thus Abou Bakr was paid allegiance as caliph, and then the other Rashidin Caliphs [rightly guided caliphs], until Umayyads came and the organizational element has been strengthened. Then, the Arab Umma and Islam have emerged simultaneously, since Arabs before Muhammad were not a nation. Arabism as a characteristic has been strengthened as they were faced by the Persian and the Greek Empires. This has enhanced the Muslims’ feeling that they are a state, and the notion of the state was reinforced by the [Islamic] conquests. However, Muhammad’s Islam was not similar to this, since Muhammad has not transmitted other than the word of God, and God has not spoken about Muslims’ politics.

If we come to the modern era we see that the worldly feature, which Arab Muslims have assumed, has been Arabism. Thus, the Hashemite Family in Hejaz has revolted against the Muslim caliphate of the Ottoman Empire, which means that for them Muslims have no political unity secured by the caliph. While Ataturk had officially abolished caliphate, namely he considered that Turks remain Muslims without an international, political system and they believed that civil system, which they adopted, does not contradict Islam. Further, Turks had abrogated Sharia’s legalization of polygamy, without forgetting that Muslims seek inspiration from the welfare of the Umma.

Yet, what does political Islam mean? Muslim countries have known all [ruling] systems. There is the dynasty system [of one family], the monarchal system, the republican system, the parliamentary system and there is a republic which in its constitution does not mention that Islam is its religion. And nothing indicates that Muslims want to identify themselves with the governing systems.

As result, the regulation for Muslims in politics, as sometimes in other than politics, remains based on the welfare of the Umma. And the Islamic Umma [flourishes] through its creativeness, advancement, cultural and economic prosperity, the luminance of its civilization, its peace, safety and its cohesion with other nations or other segments without domination from its side upon it, also without confinement or chaos. The Islamic Umma flourishes through the strive for the emergence of those competent ones in every society, whether Muslims or others, since Muslims benefit from the competent ones regardless their [socio-religious] belonging. And this happens whenever Muslims acknowledge the concept of unity based on diversity.

The Qur᾿an is full of accounts about the human being and the people, since the Lord is aware of the existence of different coexisting worlds, which are productive in all fields for their benefit and the benefit of Muslims. This means the acceptance of Muslims to live truly with all humanity’s spectra. There is great interpretational flexibility in Islam, which has led an Iraqi scholar to recite to me gracious [Qur᾿anic] verses which signify that Christians are not infidels. In the modern era I know Indian religions that claim to be Unitarian, which means that there is no partner [beside God in their beliefs]. Whenever we move into an interpretational phase, which considers Tawhid [Monotheism] an essential element in most world religions, this would help Muslims to perceive themselves living in communities which accept them and wish them good. Then they would view in all people a kind of spiritual coherence. Calling [da῾wa] remains an issue based on freedom and peace. “Whoever wishes, let him believe; and whoever wishes, let him disbelieve” (Sura Al-Kahf [The Cave], 29).

People, from different religions, strive to perceive themselves as citizens who welcome unity and welcome the person who is competent in all areas of life. However, there are some principles which are essential for the modern person, namely that God does not support a religion in order that it rules all people of earth, regardless whether they accept or reject it. Also God has not made anyone in the custody of another; rather God has made every citizen in the care of the other citizen, so that we defend and care for each other and respect all. Human beings do exist regardless their thought, and their lives are precious and beneficial to all, also to those who do not hold the same faith.

These lines in societal thinking are about civil life, and in politics it is referred to as civilian rule. We may disagree since this is a human thing, and we might disagree about the one religion, however the nature of the human subject is freedom, though he/[she] might take council with the Other. We have called the society, which is based on disagreement, democratic and there is no alternative for it other than the system based on police [state] or a despotic regime.

In Great Britain, it took eight hundred years until freedom became the norm of social life and it is established in France only since two hundred years, and similarly in America. Whenever Arabs incorporate themselves in the thinking that has prevailed those countries, administratively and politically, they understand the civil society.

The Muslim scholars and those who strive politically take their religion with great understanding and with the spirit of love for Others, and they build the homeland with high spirituality. Thus, everyone of us might have complete confidence in the Other concerning his/[her] own freedom.

Political Islam is the invention of people. It is the mobilization of those who love power. It is plain that whenever Muslims attain the highest ranks of civilization their political language becomes civil, similar to those great ones of the earth. My Lord has made me one on earth with Muslims since I want to live. I want for them the highest ranks of ascendancy. This would help me to have a dignified life.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “هل من اسلام سياسي” –An Nahar- 07.04.2012

The Fathers of our Church have sensed that a feeling of drudgery and tiredness creeps into the believers at the mid-journey of Lent; so the Fathers got concerned that we complete the journey without joy; and such absence of joy is, in a way, an anticipation of death while our vision is one of the Resurrection.

While writing this, I would have wished everybody to realize that Christianity which speaks not only in words but also through symbols, has made the Cross its symbol only because the Cross is a transformation from death to Life.  Since the light of Christ is unquenchable, then the light of Pascha is all what there is proclaiming that Christianity is not a tragic religion which is shut off and closed but one in which the Lord, after the resurrection, appears to His disciples in a room though the doors are closed. And so even though one’s heart is closed, the Lord would still get in if the person wants so. He comes in to take away pain and sorrow; and whoever thinks that Christianity is a religion of inflicting pain and suffering on one’s self makes a mistake, even when that might bring some good. But the good is in not in the pain itself; but in being patient when enduring pain and suffering.

The stories of Christ in the Gospels are full of miracles He performed wanting to heal the sick; “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Matt. 11: 5). But no one should think that he can receive Divine comfort and grace in being lazy. Sin is inevitable, but only through repentance can one come out of it and we cannot ascend (to God) on the ladder of repentance except through prayer.

Christ did not invent the cross. It was used as a punishment in Roman law. He only accepted it to make us know that through it we can move towards God. We are made ready through hardships that come our way to receive the grace that is poured down on us.

You can expect physical healing which we think of as brought about by God. And Psychiatry tries to deal with the complexes we have inherited but it does not deal with our spiritual well-being. It basically does not seek what is spiritual especially that its founder is an atheist.  I do not say that prayer is a substitute for medical treatment. And the Saints encouraged people to seek medical treatment. But Man is “on the cross” with hardships that come his way until he receives the Divine mercy. No one invents his own personal cross. And maybe you do not like my use of the word “cross”. But its reality stands in the midst of our existence. We stick to the word because the cross brought us life when the Man of Nazareth accepted the crown of thorns and the piece of wood on which He was hanged and nailed.

When our Church assigned the readings for the day of the memory of the Cross, all the texts came similar to those read during Holy Week namely Holy Friday.  As if the memorial of the Cross during Lent is an anticipation of Holy Friday. As if we cannot wait long till we get to Pascha so we remember that beforehand. And the theological readings we read in this period are similar to that of Pascha. We, in our Church, desire the foretaste of the joy of the season we are waiting for.

I do not remember which Muslim scholar had said centuries ago something like God does not allow a monotheistic community to remain in error for many centuries in its understanding of the Cross or to fall into a grand deviation, like the one attributed to it, from the truth. I have taken it upon myself not to rival others, but I am not the one who has uttered the above words. But I do not think that the greatest epic of love like the one we are considering here should be totally alien to the Divine Mind.

I do not know want to think that the myriads and myriads of martyrs who have been killed for that Love-story (of the Cross) or have died for its sake did that in vain and had died for a big lie; and if they had been deceived, who then is the deceiver? The great extent of holiness they got to was only accomplished because of their faith in what they considered to be their true salvation.

We who are fasting this Lent come to the Memorial of the Cross in the middle of Lent so that God would purify us from all our uncleanness, thus we inherit the Bearer of Life who is Christ.

We ask for divine forgiveness and the heavenly light and Life and true joy, and we know that those are glory itself. But before the descent of that glory upon us, we say “Lord do not rebuke us a sinful people in your anger, and do not chastise us in your wrath because you are good”.

Finally, what does the Cross, in the knowledge we are renewed, mean?

The idea of Christ’s death means nothing to us except that He, who is life, has entered the realm of the dead and deadened death. The whole story can be distilled in that with Jesus accepting suffering, He revoked suffering and granted those who believe in Him the power over all that is negative in this world.

But the triumph of the Resurrection makes us not forget those who are in suffering and are sick and makes us ready to carry them with us to Joy. We do not like to “crucify” any one and we wish that no one remains under the load of his cross. One Man carried the Cross so that no human being should remain bent under its load. We strive to ascend with all people to the peak of existence, that which we call Heaven. We hope that all people would arm themselves by triumphing over whatever in them that antagonizes Humanity.

We will go on fasting in God’s pleasure in the hope of getting to Pascha with all those who love Jesus and then pray that all humanity will be in Joy.

Translated by Riad Moufarrij

Original Text: “الفرح” – An Nahar – 17.03.2012