Vol: 5 Issue: 3
Amsher 1727 / March 2011
On the Divine Liturg y By: H.H. Pope Kyrillos The following are a collection of letters that H.H. wrote to monks about the Divine Liturgy. In a letter to a monk ordained a priest, he wrote, "Grace and peace from our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, our guide and comforter. I pray that you are in good spiritual and physical health, rejoicing in this heavenly gift that you were called to by Christ our God and High Priest to the office of priesthood. He gave you this talent to grow and multiply. I congratulate you from all my heart, praying that our Saviour may protect and strengthen you with His right hand, and render your service for the glory of His holy name. Do your best to memorize the Divine Liturgy and present offerings during these severe times. St. Isaac said, ‘ When the priest offers the bread and the wine on the Altar, the Holy Spirit descends upon them, and provides a means of forgiveness for all creation’. St. Isaac emphasized that the focus should be on this unity. St. Cyril the Great, who composed the Liturgy we use today, said, 'Do not cast us away, for the filthiness of our sins. For, as our Creator knows, no one born of a woman can be considered pure before You. Lord, make us worthy, that with a pure heart, and a soul filled with Your grace, to present to You this holy, spiritual, bloodless offering, pleading forgiveness for our errors and the sins of Your people'. Consider the great gift you received and be active in presenting the offerings. Ask and plead to God with all of your heart, that when the Holy Spirit descends on these offerings, God may be merciful to the world, and behold His church and restore it to its past glory. Pray for me, and for my weakness. I send greetings to you and your brethren, each one by his name.”
On Supplication During the Divine Liturgy. "In all that you require, supplicate the Lord with unceasing prayers during the Liturgy, for this is an opportune time. It is during the Liturgy that the doors of heaven are open. It is the time that Christ is present among us, offering His flesh and blood in Holy Communion, so that we may live and be granted the forgiveness of our sins." He also wrote a letter to encourage and strengthen the people of the church: "Everyday, during the Divine Liturgy, entreat God to preserve you with His mighty hand and His embracing arm to protect you from every evil and anything akin to evil. Also, pray that the angel of peace surround you and save you."
Right: A Group of year 10 boys spending a retreat at the monastery
Left: A group from St Abu Sefeen Church during their visit to the monastery.
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Christian Behaviour According to St Pope Kyrollos VI By: One of the youth Christian Behaviour: according to the Saint Pope Kyrollos the Sixth, is a great little book that captures the spirituality of this great saint, not while he was a Pope but in his first few years in the monastic life. The book reveals the spiritual insight of this saint and the virtuous life that he practiced at home before becoming a monk and grew stronger in his monastic life. I will present this through excerpts from letters he sent to his spiritual sons during the first years of his monastic life. Order and Discipline • In order to have discipline in our prayers we should speak softly to God and stand while praying as long as possible. In our alms, we should not give for the sake of self-glorification or pride. We must have discipline as it says in Matthew 6:3 “Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” • In our fasting, we should not only fast with the body by abstaining from meat, but fast from the heart abstaining from gossip and slander. Fighting against old habits • When we conquer one habit, we should fight the next until we become a new man. • Our victory comes by the grace of God and His blessing. • When troubles arise, we can say, as spiritual soldiers with David the prophet and psalmist “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Your comforts delight my soul” (Psalm 94:19). Habits to be Avoided • Evil relationships - they corrupts good thoughts. • Talkativeness - the more you talk, the more likely you are to sin. • Excessive laughter - this can eliminate the fear of God from man’s heart. If you laugh it should not be loud, but rather smile quietly. • Idle talking and mocking others - this lessens God’s grace in man’s heart, instead we should glorify God in our speech. “For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” (Matthew 12:36) • Joking/sarcasm - this can become a habit and a second character. Do not develop any bad habits. “Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death, Is the man who deceives his neighbor, And says, “’was only joking!’” (Proverbs 26: 18-19) Daily Behaviour Page 3
• Commit yourself to go straight from home to work and vice versa, and likewise to church and to spiritual meetings. • Do not hurry in walking except when it is necessary, and do not turn right and left while walking in the street but look straight ahead while walking, praying in your heart, “Lord take care of me, hide me under the shadow of Your wings. O, my Lord Jesus Christ, deliver me from any offenses”. • Go to bed early and awake early, when you awake, do not remain in bed. Make the sign of the cross on your face and say the Lord’s Prayer. Christian Soldier’s • Every believer is a soldier in the army of Salvation. We have duties to fulfill in order to be praised by our Leader and receive a reward. As Saint Paul the Apostle says in Ephesians 6:10 “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might… take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Going to Church • We should not be slothful about going to Church, especially on Sunday. Suppose you have an appointment with one of your friends, surely you wouldn’t neglect him and stay in bed. Is God any less than a friend? Should we not therefore offer Him only the best? As St. Isaiah the Solitary said:“What...is meant by the worship of God? It means we have nothing extraneous in our intellect when we are praying to Him: neither sensual pleasure as we bless Him, nor malice as we sing His praise, nor hatred as we exalt Him, nor jealousy to hinder us as we speak to Him and call Him to mind.” Thus, let us conclude with the words of Pope Shenouda III, “one who works for his eternity always acts carefully in everything, lest he loses his crown through a mistake or neglect.”
9th March Feast day of the departure of H.H. Pope Kyrillos VI
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A Group of Year 9 boys from St Abou Sefeen Church spending a retreat at the monastery
A Let ter about the principle of the path of virtue Understand, my beloved son... The principle of the path of virtue is for a man to force himself into every work, and only then will he find a hidden power supporting him and encouraging him, for the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11: 12) Force yourself to pray all night, and read the psalms. Continue in reading the Holy Bible, and where possible, increase your prayers, for reading is the source of sweet prayer. As I already told you: The first effort in virtue is reading, with a correct purpose – I mean reading to gain understanding in walking in the path of virtue. For whosoever reads books for the sake of the knowledge of the path of virtues finds a door opening to him in the path of virtues. And whosoever enters through the door of virtue will find a door of temptation opening to him. But the last door is a gift from God, for the Lord strengthens and guides your ways, and holds your right hands as He leads you in the assembly of His victory. (By: Fr Mina the Solitary who later became H.H. Pope Kyrillos) Page 5
The Solitary Patriarch By: Edward Wakin Abuna Mina's life as a monk had begun at the age of 25 when he resigned from Thomas Cook's, the celebrated travel agency, after obtaining the Patriarch's personal permission to become a monk. While in secondary school in Alexandria, he had been inspired by reading the lives of famous monks; the monastery he selected was al-Baramus located near his birthplace in the Nile Delta village of Tukh an-Nasarah. Born in 1902, he was educated in a primary school in Damanhur, a predominantly Moslem town. Before joining Cook's in 1924, he worked with his brother in a Dutch firm. As a young monk, he came under the influence of leading spiritual figures in the church; in middle age, he passed on inspiration to other young men, who are now part of a cadre of monks combining education and piety, rarely joined in the Coptic Church. Ordained in 1931, Abuna Mina attended the Helwan School for Monks for two years and, following a short stay in Upper Egypt, he entered a cave near the Monastery of al-Baramus. A famous monk at the monastery had been his spiritual father. A monk known as Abuna 'Abd al-Masih the Ethiopian and renowned as a prophet influenced Abuna Mina greatly as he lived his solitary life in the cave, going to the monastery only to obtain supplies of water and flour for baking his own bread. His harsh personal purification involved days of fasting and hours of prayer. In 1936, after being refused permission to rebuild the Monastery of St. Menas near Alexandria, Abuna Mina moved to a deserted Napoleonic windmill in Old Cairo. He built his monastic cell and a small chapel, slept on the ground on sackcloth and lived off gifts of food. His growing fame as a mystic attracted Coptic pilgrims who came for his blessing. It was here that Patriarch Yuannis XIX made his prophetic visit. According to Dr. Meinardus, the monk was expelled from the windmill during World War II by the British, who suspected him of spying. Another source maintains he was expelled to make room for archeological excavations. His prayerful message to the pious who surrounded him as he left his windmill characterizes his deep spiritual commitment: "Do not cry, my children. The Lord's Will must be done. His plans are sublime. The Lord will not abandon me. He who provides his feeding to the weakest bird will give me shelter and bread. Do not be anxious for me." Abuna Mina stayed for a few years in a room near the Churches of St. Michael and St. Theodore the Eastern until his appointment in 1944 as head of the Monastery of St. Samuel in Upper Egypt. Though he was in the most isolated of the desert monasteries, pilgrims still traveled to Abuna Mina to obtain advice, prayers and blessing. Next, he began his final pre-patriarchal phase by using the donations of pilgrims to Page 6
build the Church of St. Menas in Old Cairo where he was praying on the day of his selection as Patriarch. In a settlement house adjacent to the church, he trained students for the monastic life; when this project was discontinued he rented rooms for few piasters to university students from Upper Egypt. In the first year of his reign as Patriarch, Kyrillos VI demonstrated both his single mindedness and his sense of the religiously dramatic. Under his direction, two convoys of cars one from Cairo and one from Alexandria converged on a desert area where the Monastery of St. Menas once stood. It was the monastery the Patriarch had tried to rebuild a quarter of a century earlier in honor of his namesake, Menas (or Mina), an Egyptian officer in the Roman Army martyred in 296 A.D. for defiantly announcing his Christian faith. By piety and performance, the Patriarch touches the emotional, high strung religious feelings of the Copts. He wakes daily at 3 a.m. to pray; he officiates publicly at the daily celebrations of the liturgy. During Lent, he fasts daily from midnight to 6 p.m. when he celebrates Lenten Mass. When the press interviewed him after his installation, he answered difficult questions with the admonition: "It is better not to speak, rather to pray,"
(Edward Wakin, A Lonely Minority: The Modern Story of Egypt's Copts)
On Fasting Fasting from meat and fasting from gossip; “so and so is a good person, but so and so is a bad person�, this must not be so, for fasting of the tongue is far better than fasting of the mouth, fasting of the heart from anger and thoughts from trouble are both better. (By: Fr Mina the Solitary who later became H.H. Pope Kyrillos) Page 7
H.H. Pope Kyrillos VI, with his nephew, the late Fr Mina Nemetalla (1972-2000). Fr Mina was appointed by His Holiness on the 10th March 1967, to start the first Coptic Orthodox Church in Australia. Fr Mina became the first ambassador to the Coptic church in Australia. He established the first parishes in both Sydney and Melbourne. He rested in Peace on the 10th of July 2000
At tack on thoughts From: The Sayings of the Desert Fathers A brother asked one of the fathers, ‘What shall I do? My thoughts are always turned to lust without allowing me an hour’s respite, and my soul is tormented by it.’ He said to him, ‘Every time the demons suggest these thoughts to you, do not argue with them. For the activity of demons always is to suggest, and suggestions are not sins, for they cannot compel; but it rests with you to welcome them, or not to welcome them. Do you know what the Midianites did? They adorned their daughters and presented them to the Israelites. They did not compel anyone, but those who consented, sinned with them, while the others were enraged and put them to death. It is the same with thoughts.’ The brother answered the old man, ‘What shall I do, then, for I am weak and passion overcomes me? He said to him, ‘Watch your thoughts, and every time they begin to say something to you, do not answer them but rise and pray; kneel down, saying, “Son of God, have mercy on me”.’ Then the brother said to him, ‘Look, abba, I meditate, and there is no compunction in my heart because I do not understand the meaning of the words.’ The other said to him, ‘Be content to meditate. Indeed, I have learned that Abba Poemen and many other Fathers uttered the following saying, ‘The magician does not understand the meaning of the words which he pronounces, but the wild animal who hears it understands, submits, and bows to it. So it is with us also: even if we do not understand the meaning of the words we are saying, when the demons hear them, they take fright and go away.’ Page 8