LATIN
PATRIARCHATE – JERUSALEM
Message for Lent 2004
1.
The time of fasting is a time of repentance and return to God. It is a time of
presence before God. “The Kingdom of God is among you”, Jesus says. God
is present among you. All your life and not just during Lent, should be a time
of perpetual purification in order to better perceive God among yourselves and
in all His creatures, beginning with every brother and sister who has a part in
your daily life.
Fasting
is a spiritual path in the life of the believer, in the midst of daily
preoccupations and the complexities of life, of its joys and its trials. The
Spirit of God that sustains us and gives us the true strength to persevere and
remain constant in our daily spiritual combat is our guide in the building up
of the Kingdom of God on earth. Thus, every land and every parish might indeed
become the abode of God on earth and a holy land.
In
the daily life of the believer there is faith. However, there is also a
perpetual combat with various challenges, both within us and in every
manifestation of evil in our society. After forty days of fasting, the tempter
says to Jesus: “Tell these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt 4:3).
In Jesus’ response: “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that
comes from the mouth of God”, we understand that material needs need not
become an obstacle to listening to the word of God. It is the word that reminds
us of God’s presence within us. The construction of God’s Kingdom is to be
pursued in all circumstances, whether easy or difficult. God’s grace shall be
given us in all circumstances, whether easy or difficult. “My grace is
enough for you” (2Cor 12:9), God says to Saint Paul, who was also
struggling between weaknesses in the face of evil within himself and the grace
of God who had called him to preach the Gospel.
The
criterion of a just Christian life, which is on the path to sanctity, is in the
accomplishment of the single commandment that Jesus left us: “Love your
neighbor as yourself” (Mt 19:19). If we want to know whether we are on the
right path or not, we must question ourselves, we must review our positions and
our behaviors, in order to see whether we really love our neighbor. It is he or
she who shows us and tells us, according to our actions and our feelings with
regards to him or her, whether we are on the right path or not. This neighbor
is every neighbor without exception, every person in our life, a member of our
church or of another church or of another religion. Christian love, conforming
to the love of God, has no limits. Jesus says: “You must be perfect just as
your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). Elsewhere, he also says: “Love
one another just as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34). The example that must be
imitated is God’s example, nothing less. If Jesus gives us this commandment it
means that we are capable of fulfilling it and he will give us the grace to
sustain us and make us capable of imitating him. Just as God loves all God’s
creatures, so we too love all our brothers and sisters, members of all
churches, belonging to all religions.
Fasting
is to return to God and thereby to return to all our brothers and sisters. It
is to rid ourselves of all the evils that have accumulated in us, so that we
acquire the strength of the Spirit in order to be strong in all the areas of
our life. The others will then respect our strength, which will be then the
fruit of love and not the fruit of pride or the oppression of others.
2. Lent is a
time of sharing. In the difficult times we are living and in face of the
various deprivations imposed on many, sharing is a duty. On the other hand, and
spiritually speaking, we cannot build up the Kingdom of God that is among us
alone. We build it up with all those that suffer. By living, within our souls
and within our prayers, the oppression of some and the fears of others and by
becoming conscious of our part in the responsibility for putting an end to
this, we carry out our Lent. Thus we are involved in constructing the Kingdom
of God among us and within our society that is at war.
The
circumstances within society that we have to face in the Holy Land are in fact
circumstances of war: siege imposed on all, death imposed on some, prison and
torture, various deprivations, house demolitions, destruction of agriculture,
attacks and killings of innocent victims. In the midst of all this, our life is
a difficult and painful search for justice and peace. It is an unceasing demand
to put an end to oppression and fear and to the cycle of violence that is their
consequence. One day, God will get rid of all these but human beings will do
this as well. We will participate with God, each of us, by refusing both the
oppression of a people and the spilling of innocent blood, and leaders too,
through their wisdom and their lack of vested interests, becoming the servants
of the people instead of serving themselves and their own interests.
Those
responsible for war in this land seem to be acting in these days as if they
were planning for a permanent war and not for a permanent peace. However, the
human person in this land is not called to live in a state of permanent war.
God has said: Live in the land in peace, peace with God, who chose the land for
his abode, and peace with those who live in it. Peace cannot be established
while oppression and the violence that results from it continue. Depriving a
people of its liberty and of its land is oppression that no conscience can
accept. Likewise, no conscience can accept killing innocent people in order to
protest oppression. Let us not become twofold victims of the war, first victims
of material destruction and second, victims of a hatred that demolishes the
human person, Palestinian or Israeli. No person is better than another when he
or she is transformed into a carrier of hatred and revenge. Sadly, this is what
is happening in this land, holy for the three religions and towards which the
entire world looks because it is holy. This is why those who impose oppression
have the duty to put an end to it so that the land might then know the security
and peace that are so much desired.
Parish
priests and men and women religious in the various parishes spend long hours at
the military checkpoints in order to carry out their pastoral work in their
parishes and throughout the diocese. We say to them: be patient and pray to God
for every human person, Palestinian or Israeli. Make your trial a prayer for
all, for all those who suffer on both sides of the conflict. Your trial is
little compared to death, torture, attacks, demolitions that are faced by so
many other victims. Accept these difficulties as a sharing with all the poor
ones of this land, to whom God has sent us in order that we might serve them
and share in their sufferings and their hopes.
Brothers and
sisters,
3. Lent, a
time of fasting and prayer, is a time to return to God. It is a time to be
conscious of the Kingdom of God that is among us and that we are to establish
in our society. It is a time when all believers in God might be filled both by
His love and His force.
In the
difficulties we face, let us continue to live and to believe. St Cyril of
Jerusalem used to say to his faithful, who also were carrying a difficult cross
at that time: “Do not rejoice in the cross in time of peace only, but hold fast
to the same faith in time of persecution also. Do not be a friend of Jesus in
time of peace only but also in time of persecution” (St Cyril of Jerusalem, 2nd
reading, 4th week of the year).
+
Michel Sabbah, Patriarch
Jerusalem,
Ash Wednesday
25.2.2004