I Am He

The Church of the Catacombs in El Minya, Egypt [i] HG Bishop Macaruis in one of the burned churches in El Minya  The congregation of El Minia underwent a very unique experience this week. They gathered to pray the Holy Liturgy yesterday and today in two churches that faced complete burning, destruction and looting. It looked like the churches of the Catacombs in Rome, where the believers there gathered and supported one another in the first three centuries, where the first Christians prayed beside the tombs with the stench of death surrounding them yet did not alienate them as much it attracted them more to the life to come. Thus we were praying the liturgy while we are surrounded by the remnants of the burnt things, and the smell of fire filled our noses, as the smoke had not yet gone out from some places. We saw each other with difficulty, and the place was very close to the tombs. We agreed with the fathers the night of the liturgy that the number should be lim...

You are Hidden in Him Inside every one of us there are two tendencies: one to follow the pop star, and one to be humbled under God’s Mighty Hands so He can your life can be visible through Him. These two tendencies fluctuate all over our life. To be famous by being in the picture with the one of the pop stars, or to allow only The Star to appear and me will be hidden in Him? We are all struggling with this.  I saw many people who would imitate personalities not theirs, imitate even the walk of a famous person, ignoring others as to make a cloud for themselves, write posts which can make people start talking about this person, etc. There are many examples. Till when my beloved? We are fooling ourselves. The great Fr. Lev Gillet when HG Bishop Mousa and Fr. Athanasuis Farag were preparing his trip in Egypt. While he was there, Fr. Gillet continuously stared into people’s eyes, saying he seeing Jesus Stamp on every person which is very unique. You are a pop star because He ...

هذه هى المدونه الأولى باللغة العربيه ، بعدما طلب منى القراء ترجمتها ، اتمنى الفائدة الروحية للجميع Theologians, please do not be upset أرجو عدم زعل اللاهوتيون I recently attended a conference about Bible doctrine and the Church Fathers. Here is what I noticed: The Religious science used to be a window for the believers to transform their hearts and minds. “ And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what   is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Romans 12:2 The Writing of St. Athanasius, St. Cyril and others are not meant to be a way to study hypotheses and create new theories, but are meant to be “ Lex Credendi” [i] Which means, the way we believe in God, the true faith. Writing a paper about the writing of one of one of the saints should not occur without bringing it to our daily life, and how we believers can feed this knowledge into daily practice, bring...

(Title adopted from the title of the ecumenical patriarch or the patriarch of Alexandria “First among others or first among Others) (notice the sensitivity of letter’s case position) The picture is copied from http://www.unitedwaysteelecounty.org/About_Us.php                               Recognizing the presence of the others is a valuable virtue. Without the other, you do not exist. In the 20 letters of St. Anthony, Samuel Rubenson mentioned that one important quality of St. Anthony the Great is that in order to be saved, you should lead others too to their ways of salvation. This reminds me of a quote from the Indian creed, “the hurt of one is the hurt of all and the honour of one is the honour of all,” which also coincides with what the blessed St. Paul said to his disciples Timothy in his first epistle “ For this   is   good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ...

In my service I started to realize this concept about we are creating pharaohs.  Sometimes, I see a “movement” started by one of the youth and later many people were attracted to this “movement.” Later this group becomes led by this person, and whatever s/he says they follow, mindlessly.  This phenomenon reflects another deep problem:  why do you not have your own self-identity and instead of being just an enslaved by another person’s identity, being an identity yourself who seeks God’s unique stamp in your life.   My advice to those “pharaohs” who enslave others, be careful my beloved, ruining minds is a great tragedy, do not be part of it. The blessed St. Paul said, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). So Christ is the focus. Here is a simple tool for discovering if your participation in a meeting or group will be valuable to you:  Ask yourself the following questions: 1- What is the objective? 2- Why are w...

Democracy of the Ground My professor Robert Chambers , while he was teaching us about participation and how it should be conducted, mentioned the term “democracy of the ground.” It has a simple meaning: when he was in India he had to sit down on the ground to work with the people. Copy right to IDS, Brighton UK University of Sussex Last month, my son asked me to play with him.  I asked him to come up where I was as I was tired, but he then said “no, you come sit with me.” The democracy of the ground returned back to my mind. He is right, I should come to his level. Would we in our interactions and dealings with others, remember to “come down”?  It reminds me with how Jesus answered the blessed Andrew and John to “come and see” (Jn. 1: 39) when they asked Him ““where are You staying?” If we cannot come down, the people cannot go up. This also reminds me with the verse, “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the...

Inner Life and the Life of Celebrity  During the last period of time I was watching the media and how they make heroes out of people and I thought about the real heroes who are hidden and nobody knows about them. Many people started to be driven to have their status or update their photos, to cope with this celebrity life. What concerns me is that when we do this, we are killing inside all of us the power to be a hero. We have started to perceive the heroic action only as the media displays it. But, my beloved, you, as you are, are a hero. You have inside you the power to change the world around you. Here I cannot do anything except to give respect to the Mahatma Ghandi when he said “be the change that you want to see in the world.” Remember my beloved how many times you were a real bright change to yourself and to the people around you. The life of celebrity is your life, it is about you and you are the hero not anybody else. Find the hero inside you . Forgive me for t...