Vol: 8 Issue: 11
Hatour 1730 / Nov 2014
The life of contentment By: H.H Pope Tawadrous II
What do we need to live a life of contentment? 1- Obedience is a form of faith and submission. let us go back to see Abraham the father of fathers who was living at Ur of the Chaldeans where God called him “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you” (Genesis 12: 1-4). In this verse we can see God’s command and Abraham’s obedience. As we learn from the ascetic sayings at monasteries “blessing upon the son of obedience”. As for those who lives in obedience whether at home, the monastery, church, or in the society gains blessing and feels content. On the other hand the stubborn man who rejects to be submissive and is stubborn about his opinions, usually does not feel content. 2 - Submission, It is like when a child holds his father’s hand while walking in busy city. The child might be distracted by people, cars or shops but, he feels very safe because he is holding his father’s hand. We can find in church history when a new monk goes through spiritual warfare, he would pray to God to save him from this war by the prayers of his spiritual father. These days, people can not submit their life to God as man became his own god as he relies on his intelligence and the new inventions that surrounds him. On the other hand, submission makes one reach a state of inner peace. 3- Trust and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who manages our life as mentioned “All things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28). This tells us how strong God’s hand is, as his hand is still working as he manages everything in the universe and manages everyone’s life by His wisdom for the good of everyone.
So how to practice the life of contentment: 1- Avoid comparing yourself to other people as it is really bad to your spiritual life. The Lord said in the parable of the talents about one
servant who took five talents, to another two and to another one, to each according to his own ability. It does not mean that the one who took two talents compared himself to others! They both (the two servants who traded and gained more talents ) heard the same blessing “Well done, good and faithful secant; you were faithful over a few thing, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matth 25:21,23) 2- “NO…” try to say it less often and use other nice expressions instead. If you would like to disagree with someone you could say something like “I could be wrong but,….I am not sure if this is the right way of….”, “I think this could be done…”, “we can think in another way…” Do not behave like the elder brother when he said no to his father when his younger brother came back home. 3- Always smile when you talk to people. As smile is the language that does not need be translation as it can reach everyone’s heart. We even need to smile when we are correcting our Children’s behaviour and attitude so that they do not feel at anytime that they are unloved. 4- Be positive when you approach people by using positive words. I remember once when I visited the governor of Malta, he used lovely positive words Instead of names to introduce his office staff members to me and of course that made them very happy. So the wise man knows how to find good qualities in everyone and as result he will feel happy and content. 5- Keep a list of good things God has done or provided you through your life and every time you pray thank God on every good thing on this list. Be mindful of these things that God given you and try to remember it whenever anything bothers you. (Translated from El Karaza Magazine, Sept 2014)
Fr Abraham’s First Liturgy
Fr Thomas’s First Liturgy
God Became Man God’s delight is in mankind; God’s love for humanity exceeds any imagination and the incarnation of God’s Son by becoming human is the biggest proof of God’s love for us and the strongest evidence of God’s providence for the sake of proclaiming His love for mankind, who was created in God’s image. If the cross revealed to us the great love, which fills the heart of Jesus Christ, then the mystery of incarnation proclaims the magnificent love, which fills the heart of our heavenly Father who accepted that His Son be incarnate through the womb of a virgin whose name was Mary. This booklet by the late bishop Poemen sheds light on the meaning of the incarnation theologically and what are its implication for our lives. Page 3
CALLED TO BE TRANSFORMED INTO THE IMAGE OF CHRIST By: Armand Veilleux OCSO We are created in the image and likeness of God, but, wounded by sin, we need this image to be restored within us. This is the ultimate goal of the Christian life and so also of the monastic life. The Son of God, who was in the form ofGod, was not afraid to renounce his privileged status; he humbled himself (Ph.2:6-7), making himself one of us, like us in everything except sin (Heb.4:15). He consented to lose his image, his beauty. He was disfigured to the point of being no longer recognizable (Is.53:2). He tasted death. But the Father raised him from the dead, seated him at his right hand, and made him Lord (Ph.2:9). In this way we have been shown the way of return to the Image. Having been deformed by sin, we must reform ourselves so as to be gradually transformed into the image of the risen Christ. This final transformation, through a long process of reformation, or conversion, is the object of monastic formation. This formation must be understood in the first place not in the sense of an activity exercised by a human formator on another person, but in the sense of a gradual and constant transformation, never fully realized, of a person who using the means offered by monastic life, allows the Holy Spirit to restore within him the disfigured image and the lost resemblance. The theme of the Image of God is central in the spirituality of primitive monasticism. This doctrine, which comes from Genesis 1:26, is very dear to all the Fathers of the Church who have dedicated themselves to searching into the mystery of salvation. Each of them has dealt with it in a different way, with the freedom that is found among poets and mystics, and so this doctrine has become very complex and has been presented with many varied shades of meaning. It can be summed up as follows: Man has been created in the image and likeness of God. As a privileged creature, he is called to share the divine life. These provisions have been reversed by sin, but man retains the ability to turn towards God. Through the grace of the Redemption and in imitation of Jesus Christ, man is capable of participating in the divine life. If his predisposition towards God develops and manifests itself in a sustained life of virtue, he moves towards resemblance and finds his fulfilment in becoming the image of God. When we speak of monastic formation, we usually mean initial formation. However this can only be considered as an element or stage in the total process of transformation which we have just described. The goal of monastic formation, in all its stages, is nothing less than the restoration of the image of God in the monk. It is a progressive transformation which embraces the whole of life. To bring about this journey of transformation, man has a model, a prototype: the Word, who is the perfect Image of the Father. Page 4
None of the Fathers of monasticism have in fact written about "formation" - at least in the sense in which we understand the word today. Nevertheless we see from their writings that they understood clearly that their role, whether as abbots or spiritual fathers, was to bring Christ to birth in their disciples. They knew that to bring this task to fulfilment they should lead their monks to the imitation of Christ. It is indeed through this imitation of Christ that the monk gradually makes more active in his life this resemblance which he received at the moment of his creation, and that the image of God within him is restored. The idea that one can form someone to the monastic life, as one trains a doctor or a professor, comes from an altogether modern conception. This approach was absolutely foreign to the Fathers of monasticism. For them, monastic life was not a reality in which one could form anyone, but on the contrary it was a means, or rather a comprehensive range of means, by which one allowed oneself to be formed. It is in living the monastic life that one becomes more and more a monk and gradually allows oneself to be transformed into the image of Christ. (From: http://www.scourmont.be/Armand/writings/formatio.htm)
Fr Sourial with Sunday School boys
Fr Gabriel With a group of youth
Fr Thomas with a youth group from St Mary’s Church Page 5
St Abraam Church Sunday School Group
St Barbra Youth Group
Fr Josephe’s First Liturgy
#YOLO! By: Fr Anthony St Shenouda The acronym YOLO (You Only Live Once) is often used with negative connotations by young people today. So when someone is doing something that is of high risk to their life or outrageous they make sure they share #yolo with friends on instagram, tweeter. Somehow by sharing #yolo the person who did this outrageous act is excused from being publically ridiculed, on the contrary becomes an inspiration to others. Surprisingly enough this expression is not a new one; 2800 years ago the Israelites used a similar expression to justify their disobedience to God. When the people of God were disobedient to His call for repentance, instead they lived the party life “eating meat and drinking wine”, when they should have been offering repentance and fasting. To justify their action they quoted the saying “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” (Isaiah 22:13). While we as Christian have no problem with the expression, as it is obvious that we only live once, yet we can’t agree with the negative connotations. We only live once so we should live it in full obedience to Christ’s commandments. The problem that many people have with this kind of life is that they imagine it to be very boring and unsatisfying. If anyone does it they have to force themselves into it, putting up with all its undesirable toil for a reward in the next life. I think this is far from truth! Our life here on earth is not detached from our eternal life. Or to put it differently, our eternal life is a continuation of our life here on earth. So a person who lives in Christ here on earth has already had a foretaste of the fulfilled life to come. For example when the three young youth were thrown in the fire, Daniel 3, they were not unfulfilled and miserable, on the contrary they were fulfilled by Christ’s company in the midst of the fire. Similarly St Anthony who went to the desert at the age of 18 and died at the ages of about 105. I can’t imagine that he chose to live 90 years in an unfulfilled life, in hope that he would be rewarded for it in the life to come. His fasting and ascetic life was not to him a price he has to pay here to make it to heaven, but it was his way of living a fulfilled life in Christ. He fasted because Christ fasted; he went to the desert to pray because Christ went to the desert to pray; He lived an ascetic life because Christ lived poor. All his ascetical exercises were ways of living a fulfilled life in Christ. In actual fact, our life in Christ is the only fulfilled life there is. Our only fulfillment is to live with the one who created me, the one who became man for me, the one who was crucified for me and the one who was resurrected and ascended for me. It’s the only life that does not end, “if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death” (John 8:51) because we will continue living with Christ in eternal life. Therefore, living with Christ is a fulfilled life and all those who live it can #yolo. Page 7
Congratulations to all the winners and we hope to have all the songs from the competition put together into a new album like we did last year. Meanwhile you can keep on listening to the songs from our website.
www.asaphtunes.com Please keep praying for the success of this service