1999

Today’s Gospel starts with the Lord’s blessed saying: “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are evil your whole body will be full of darkness”. Eyes do not refer here to the body part found in the face but to the inner vision, the soul’s vision. Shakespeare talks about this in his play “Julius Caesar” saying: “The wrong, my dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in our souls”. What can the vision that’s in you see? It can either see God in front of you at all times and therefore you’d be healthy (modest), or it could be directed towards the ground and therefore you will be like an eye that has cancer or blue eye disease where a thickness in the lens prevents vision.

The simple or healthy eye is loving, while the other eye envies and therefore everything will seem dark. The world would seem beautiful when you have a beautiful vision, and it would seem dark when your internal vision is dark.

People believe that the green-eye is harmful. The church doesn’t admit that a person could harm another through envying. The person that envies can only harm himself. Even though we do have a prayer to remove the harm of the green-eye, this isn’t an admission about the existence of the “harmful eye”. The prayer helps the person that feels “hit” by this harm to be liberated from this fear, and this is why this prayer quotes from the Psalm and says: “The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” and “I feel no evil, for you are with me”.

The envious person ruins his soul because he carries hatred. I mention here that while hearing once the confession of a man that asked me to help him in confession, I asked him: “Do you have jealousy?” He answered: “yes”. Then I told him: “What would you lose if you thought that you are beautiful, and others are too? What do you lose if you thought that you are intelligent and believed, at the same time, that many of you friends also have a lot of intelligence?” Beauty and intelligence are common between people, and therefore God shall be glorified through this.

The person who loves should be happy for the fact that gifts are distributed and miscellaneous. Gifted people lead us to praise the God that gave them the good things they have. No one of us could have all the good things for himself. When you recognize these gifts in others you shall enhance yourself and progress, while when you envy you shall fight the person whom you are envying and, therefore, you shall live in constant bitterness in which you hurt yourself.

If you recognized goodness in you thank God, and if you recognized it in others also be thankful because the only God has shined over both of you. On the other hand, if you saw badness in people you should be sad for this, and pray for the person perhaps God embraces him through his mercy. Inspire all people to see the glory, dignity, and purity so that they could assimilate Christ’s simplicity.

Of course, you cannot withhold your qualities; your qualities shine and their brightness could make the envier more envious. However, do not lose hope from his repentance. His lord might be merciful one day and make him see the beauties of the world, gain the simplicity of vision, and learn to praise. Perhaps envy comes from fear or Insecurity. It is, for sure, a kind of weakness in faith. You often find yourself unable to lead the envier into light. Here, you have no solution except to continue praying for the person that hates you, and he has his God who shall deal with this: He might cure him in a time of satisfaction. You should believe that all people are better than you and be thankful.

Translated by Mark Najjar

Original Text: “العين الشريرة” – 20.06.1999

At a time of lack of discipline and rebellion of children against parental authority, and in a society calling for the freedom of husbands and wives, talking about obedience has become an old issue. I know that the concept of counseling exists among believers; nonetheless, this concept does not really take place if the seeker of counsel is not willing to accept the truth coming from someone else. The truth always prevails, and counseling is not having many standpoints; but rather reaching a proper one that satisfies God, not the majority.

              The Bible mentions obedience to God. As for obedience to humans, it is restricted to those who have the word of God, or who remind us about it. We do not obey anyone because of his rank; but rather because he says the word of God. Obedience through him is, thus, obedience to God. Within the Church, you obey the spiritual leaders because they are responsible for your salvation. Originally, they are where they are because they learned, before taking up this responsibility, to ensure your salvation.

              Once I was preaching and I was told:”You are saying so because you are a bishop.” (The person meant that I was repeating words imposed by my job). I told him that, on the contrary, I have been named bishop because of my words.

              In monasticism, the spiritual father who is obeyed and who guides the monks does not fulfill this role because he listens to confessions. A spiritual father has acquired an extensive knowledge in Christ; and consequently in the human heart on one hand, and in the divine word on the other hand. Because he is not authoritative and has no interest, he guides you towards what is beneficial for you. Obedience is based on confidence in this context and on the faith that your spiritual father represents God.

              All this begins with the obedience of the Son to the Father “…made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death.” (Philippians 2: 7-8). This obedience was the way of the Lord to resurrection.

              Going down from the Lord to our fraternal relationships, we find that God wants us to be “submitting to one another in the fear of God”. (Ephesians 5:21) In this call, we see that the elderly can submit to the young, the young to the elderly, the woman to the man and the man to the woman. There is no dominant category, and another submitting one. You submit to whoever says the truth regardless of what you think of him. You always submit to whoever has the Spirit of the Lord. If you knew that someone has the Spirit of the Lord, you shall submit your will to him.

              First and foremost, do not reject a fair demand and do not close your heart in front of any asker. Listen fairly to those who argument. Be open to people as the Lord has said: “Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.” (Mathew 5:41) In this the Father may be glorified.

Translated from Arabic – 07.04.10

Original Text: “الطاعة” – 23.05.99

Thoughts from Today’s Feast

     The importance of the holy St. Antonios resides in the fact that he was the founder of the monasticism. It is not that there weren’t any hermits for studentship in Egypt, but they say that the monasticism has also appeared in this same historical era, which means in the third century and in between western Aleppo and Antioch, the cities known as learners’ cities of northern Syria. St. Athanasios the Great, the famous patriarch of Alexandria, who had participated in the unification of this movement with the church, had written the biography of St. Antonios. As I’ve said, the monasticism was an evangelical movement that insisted on living the gospel totally and this was after that St. Antonios had noticed a bit of corruption penetrating to the believers’ crowds.

     He wanted a Christian life in the desert, a life with no adulteration and no haggling, a life based on abstinence, self-control and fighting desires; but a life based on love and tenderness. St. Bakhomios and St. Basilios had succeeded him building up the mutual life, a life determined by groups living together and leaded by a guide who they should obey. This first independent enthusiasm had grown into vows and had been spread all over the world: in the east and in the west.

     Yes, the monasticism had not invented the virtues. These have already existed in the gospel. However, the monks showed us how to struggle against lowness. They have studied and known the ruses of the evil spirit and how we can be rescued from lowness. They have put rules to liberate ourselves from pressing caprices and a technique to reach virtues and to preserve them. The believers have learnt from them the seriousness of the spiritual war and the seriousness of living with Jesus. From here, the monastic example became the example for all the orthodox people. It is not that we have to put an end to marriages, but we have to be all related to the spirit of poverty, abstinence and obedience, either we were living in this world, or isolated in monasteries.

      In addition to this base, the monks had accomplished a very sublime work, as they had organized the worships determining their basics and organization. They had organized the mutual prayers that we practice (the hours, Matins, Vespers, and the liturgical books) as they had structured them. Only the divine mass had already existed before the monasticism. However, the most important of our people who determined its last organization were John Chrysostom and Basilios who were monks.

     Furthermore, the monks had put a great heritage into the ascetical literature (Zorothios Al Ghazawi, John Climacus, Isaac of Nineveh) and if we only mention the great of them, it is for to be guided by their heritage in order to self-redress from our faults and our trials. Its essence is useful for all people.

     Some of them had also participated in writing the pure theology and we mention here John of Damascus and Safronios (both of them were from Damascus) and Maximus the Confessor. Thus, we can say that there is no knowledge domain in the church in which monks did not participate.

     Nevertheless, the spiritual life is an expansion in people life. And this is particularly obvious in Russia and in the west, where each cultural activity used to appear in the monasteries and then to reach the outside. We mention here the industries and agriculture of Russia that arose in the monasteries. You devote yourself to God and you wait for the second arrival of Jesus Christ. This doesn’t separate you from the laics, but it brings you closer to them, for supporting them in love and in their economic life.

     It is not the appropriate occasion now to enumerate the great activities that the monks in our lands had done. Our specificity in the See of Antioch is that we have a monasticism that preaches and goes out to the world. The monasticism of Antioch existed until the eighteenth century; it was then disappearing between men until the moment when God gave it back to us in the beginnings of the fifties (but it has always existed between women in the Patriarchal diocese in Sednaya and Maaloula). It came back today to the Patriarchal monastery of St. George’s in Humeyra and to the Lady Monastery in Blemana (the diocese of Lattakia) and in Mount Lebanon. We have in this diocese today fifty monks and nuns and they are distributed among all our monasteries (The Lady of Hamatoura, The Lady of Nourieh, The Lady of Kaftoun, St. Michael in Bekaata, The Monastery of St. Georgios in the village of Deir El Harf, The Monastery of St. John and The Monastery of St. Selwan in Douma) and all those monasteries are established the old way.

     All those monasteries are still visited by believers in order to pray and to be guided. They also have some ascetical and theological publications that participate in our raising. All this has started with this great man Antonios.