A Social Network for the Church

With most businesses using social networks such as Linked-In and Facebook, I thought of proposing an exclusive social network for the Church.
Why?

—connect 30,000 to 40,000 Church members in Canada.

—reach out to all the faithful who are not  visible in Church Masses, services and lectures.

—establish online catechism for the young and Church teachings for adults.

—publish Eastern Christian  Tradition to new generations.

—bring Al-Macarrat and other scholarly work on-line.

—build faith in the Bible and Church Tradition and link to existing scholarly Catholic and other Christian resources.

—provide a link for young adults looking for jobs or advancement in their careers within the community.

—provide an opportunity for business exchange between members and to businesses that wish to advertise their services to members.

Tonight I will talk about this project to attendees of my lecture. This is only one of the ways of using social networks to expand the Church

On the beginnings

In my current lectures at Jesus the King parish and in my writings too, I emphasize the need for the Church - the People of God, as Vatican II proclaims – to be a witness to Christ in all nations. You and I -the Church - need to invest what we have received in our lives to serve the Lord. This year is the 50^th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council. The Council ushered the reform that welcomes greater contribution of Christian lay persons to the building up of the Church.

First, let each one recall the good things he received from God, then see whether we can thank God for his great love. Not everyone is ready to thank God. Some of us are hurt by events that they encountered such as the death of a loved one, or the terminal disease of another. When we see innocent people die in a storm like Sandy, or worse, in a war like the one in Syria, we can’t ignore them and their families. Usually we blame God for the miseries that beset us, yet we are taught that he loves us. If you do not believe that God really loves you as you are then you need to assess your faith by asking a trusted pastor or spiritual director in Church. Second, we need to pray with the Church, discern the will of God for each one for he loves us in good times and bad, and work with the families to bring them healing and relief according to his will. The program of discerning God’s will in our lives initiated by St. Ignatius Loyola is a great program which will be introduced at Jesus the King Church shortly.

Third, The Knights of Columbus should be aware that they constitute an important organ in the Church’s mission which Bishop Ibrahim spoke about recently. In a recent interview with him conducted by Charity TV, he mentioned the need for reaching out to kids, teenagers, and young adults. Awareness should help us desire to give out of what we have whether in education we received, in talents, or in money; for everything we received was given to us as a gift by God through parents who loved us, families, schools and society that cared for us. Our thanksgiving should imitate Christ who “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”(Phil 2: 6-8).

Fourth, The Knights of Columbus at Jesus the King Council have already started a program to help the Church in need through donating for children’s education at the Patriarchal School of the Melkite Catholic Patriarchate in Jerusalem. Your donations can be given at http://www.jerusalemstudents.org - More on-line projects can be carried out with the same spirit. This is particularly important to help suffering Christians in the Middle East where our Lord was born and the Church was formed by Him. Communication is most important to speak to and listen to others in Church. Since many of us use social networks on computers, we can build a computer-based social network that is exclusive for the faithful in the Melkite Catholic Church in Canada as well as for the members of the Knights of Columbus in Canada and beyond. I have proposed such projects to the local leadership of both. The return on these projects is immense in terms of the many new people who will join us through these networks and the revenues for the Church and its servants the Knights of Columbus. We have enough talents and experience to carry out such projects from Jesus the King Church to the glory of Jesus the King. In this Christmas, may the “infant of Bethlehem” be glorified in us and the rest of the world and may the joy in the Lord fill us all.

New Insights

One of the things that I share with my pastor is the idea that people must know about everything in the world as much as they can. In order to discern what is right and what is not right, we need to examine what we are bombarded with everyday in light of the Moral Law. There are many good events but there are also evil ones. A good website that discusses educational and moral issues is the Canadian-based Catholic Education Resource Center at http://www.catholiceducation.org - Other ones are: Zenit at http://www.zenit.org and  Imitatio at http://www.imitatio.org/ which delves into anthropology of Mimetic Theory, and a fourth one is America Magazine run by the Jesuit Fathers in the U.S. at http://www.americamagazine.org A fifth one that is indispensable to researchers in Catholic tradition is http://www.newadvent.org which features an online Bible, The Catholic Encyclopedia (dated 1910 but rich in content), and readings from the Fathers of the Church in addition to articles by contemporary authors. I must add the renowned First Things at http://www.firstthings.com/ Not all articles are free but you can read the free ones to learn how contemporary Catholic thinkers think. On my blog Today's Questions at  http://www.todayquestions.blogspot.ca you will find many more websites in contemporary theology and science. None of these are infallible but we always grow in learning by opening up to everything that can conceive the good in our minds and hearts.

How to Get Others to Follow You

Last Friday I spoke at Jesus the King Church about only some of the ways to get others to follow you.  Many of these ways may result in immoral decisions but can certainly be used morally. This is why we should know about them.

 

We are all interdependent to varying degrees. The fact that new technology allows me to communicate with friends anywhere in the globe is evidence of the influence that anyone can exercise on others in the globe.

 

The most recent research this year shows that businesses are increasingly using “Big Data” from huge Internet social networks, email systems, transactions and structured databases in different forms to analyze consumer interests and sentiments and influence the decisions of consumers and other businesses in order to buy their products. Advertisements on TV, radio, and the Web are marketing new products and ideas to you and me every second.

 

In “Banished from Eden: Original Sin and Evolutionary Theory in the Drama of Salvation” Raymond Schwager, S.J. traces the origin and development of humans along the evolutionary paradigm using new findings in genetics, biology, Girard’s Mimetic Theory, the listening Audio-Psycho-Phenology Theory by Dr. Alfred Tomatis, and the work and thought of Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. and Karl Rahner S.J. Against these findings, he explores the Biblical narrative of the Fall.

Here are examples of ways to get others to follow you:

 

Mimesis (Imitation)

 

Mimetic Theory has been tested in university researches and appears to give an answer to the above question. How?

 

When I admire someone I create a model of him/her for myself in my mind. This model person, if really in contact with me, may be infatuated or attracted by the same object that attracts me. The result is that we both become attracted to the same person or thing and become rivals (Example: Rivalry between men in love of a certain woman). When my model sees that I am attracted to the same person that he is attracted to, his feelings of wanting this object get reinforced.  Imitation is a very powerful thing we use every day. I imitate persons who are peers to me yet more successful, or more handsome! Because he is my rival now, I try to destroy him through defamation (jealousy), and by showing off that I fit better. Eventually each one of us seeks to possess the object or even rape her only to feel that she is mine.   The fight can escalate into powerful races of battles and into violence. This is partly why tribes or nations attack each other.

 

But imitation can also go in the other direction if we are careful! Many saints did imitate their models and through this imitation built bigger monasteries, schools, and spent their lives learning and teaching. For example, St. Pachomius imitated St. Anthony of Egypt and built the first community of monks. St. Athanasius wrote the biography of his model St. Anthony and got it translated when he went to Rome so that in the end St. Benedict benefited from it in founding his order. The second Christian book, after the Bible, read by generations of Christians is “The Imitation of Christ” written in the 15^th century.

 

The result is that I can influence many others when I imitate what they wish to be. We always learn from each other through mimesis or imitation. If, by my example, I imitate Christ or follow one of the saints, others who come into relationship with me are influenced by this imitation and are likely to follow me. (For more info on Mimetic Theory see my post:

 http://www.todayquestions.blogspot.ca/2009/07/apocalypse-now.html )

 

Listening

Dr. Tomatis’s theory that "the voice does not produce what the ear does not hear", is the hallmark of his research and his method.

In his research and subsequent confirmation by colleagues, Dr. Alfred Tomatis found that the earliest communication in humans takes place in the womb of the mother. The fetus at the age of 4 months listens to his mother’s feelings and is disturbed if she is having an argument with the husband. In his book “Neuf mois au Paradis” Tomatis shows that the child is secure in his 9 months in the womb of his mother and that there is memory of the child from the moment that there is a cell (i.e. from conception). Accordingly begetting or conceiving of children is much more than a mere biological process; for it is a communicative process that includes the whole human person with an intensive imaging (‘in his image’). Thus Schwager writes “Because inter-human communication is disrupted through sin and procreation belongs to this communication, sin can make its home in the deepest dimension of human nature.”

 

Listening rather than only hearing is, therefore, essential in effective communication.

(For more info on Alfred Tomatis see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomatis and http://www.tomatis.com/ ).

 

The Fall

Through the mechanism of evolution God created everything including the first humans. According to the Biblical narrative:

 

The LORD God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it you shall die. (Gen 2)

 

So Satan comes to Eve. See how he speaks to her AND HOW SHE LISTENS.

First he IMITATES in a pervert way the words of God:

 

Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’? (Gen 3)

 

Thus Satan

1.       changes the order to include all trees.

2.      When Eve corrects him “it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die” he designates to her the fruit so that the focus is on an object. The focus is now on the fruit.

3.      At that time, reminding her of the terror of death, he lies to her saying “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.”  In other words, you will be like God!!

 

Eugen Drewermann points out anxiety in Eve because she finds herself attracted to the OBJECT but if she POSSESSES IT she will die!

 

With Satan’s provocation, Eve is lured to an object away from a relationship that constitutes her eternal life. Instead of maturing in the relationship with God, she loses her trust in God and falls in the trap.

 

Communication continues: Now Eve gives Adam some of the fruit because she loves him and wants to share the pleasure with him but also she wants to share with him becoming DIVINE in everything. If I think I can stand on my own or be my own God, then I am deceived. Hope can be false if not based on the truth. When Adam is asked why he committed his sin he blames God for the woman he was given. When Eve is asked, she blames the serpent that God created.

 

The Fall did not prevent communication and sharing but tainted them with lack of trust and an inclination to continue in the selfish path and desire of objects.  In later generations communication will continue, in spite of evil, which will be found in trade and tribal allies and subsequently in civilizations.

 

But who followed who? We followed Adam & Eve through Original Sin and actual sins that are generated from the inclination caused by Original Sin, but is there a way back to Paradise? Only in uniting ourselves to Christ through prayer, repentance and trust of his merciful love. These are practiced in the Sacraments especially the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist as well as in immersing ourselves in learning and following the Scriptures as interpreted by the Church and in practicing what we learn everyday through self-giving to others as much as each of us can. Christ is the image of God, the self-revelation of God and the fulfillment of love that lived, died and resurrected to reunite the human family with her true destiny, God.

 

 

Ibrahim Ibrahim on the Mission of the Church

In a recent interview by Natalie Elias hosting "Nabad Al-kanisa" episodes of Charity TV in Lebanon, Canada's Melkite Catholic Bishop Ibrahim Ibrahim answered questions about his mission and the mission of the Church in the world.

The silver jubilee of his own ordination to the sacramental order of priesthood was in July this year. For this reason it was timely to hear from him how he came to be called and sent out. His name "Ibrahim" is Arabic notation for Abraham the Father of Fathers whom God called from his land in Ur, in Iraq today, to go where God sends him. To Abraham, God said "Keep my Covenant" (Gen. 17, 9). Abraham's response brought the world the blessings which culminated in Christ and are spread by the Holy Spirit through Christ's Church. The same words of God have become the motto of Ibrahim Ibrahim since his ordination to the priesthood.

Ibrahim was raised in a pious family. He insists that bringing up children in a healthy atmosphere of the family, the little domestic church in his words, develops true vocations in serving God. He recalls his family and neighbouring families in the same village who shared prayers, love of God and veneration of Mary "The Theotokos" (Mother of God). He fondly recalls that in his early childhood he used to pray before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary thinking that it was a statue of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.  His love to serve God and the Church never left him but rather grew stronger as he entered the Basilian Salvatorian Order. The same love of family never left him as he became a member of another and larger family too. Here he recalled the great servants of God who taught him and his fellows the love of God and neighbour by example. He received his education in theology and philosophy at the University of the Holy Spirit in Lebanon. In spite of a vicious civil war in Lebanon, he continued his graduate studies at the Gregorian University and other eminent ones in Rome. Shortly after his ordination and while back to Lebanon, he was assigned to teach in the primary seminary.

But, as he said later, he loves challenges. This is probably providential since two years after his assignment at the seminary, he was sent by the ecclesial authorities to serve in a Melkite parish in Cleveland, USA although he did not at the time know much English nor the lifestyle of Americans. As a priest, he worked in Cleveland for 12 years. Fr. Ibrahim's energetic work within the parish and with other churches, both Eastern and Western, was noticed by ecclesial authorities and his mission became a larger challenge when in 2003 he was elected Bishop/Eparch of all Greek Melkite Catholics in Canada. His openness brought him into friendships with many people from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan.

"Nabad Al-Kanisa is an Arabic word which means heart of the Church" said Bishop Ibrahim. "Your program acts like the heart that pushes and transfers blood in the whole body. In the same way, we need to think of the Church as the pounding heart that carries life to the entire world."   Christ is the life that the Church carries out to the world.  "Your program  then does transfer the message of the Church to people who have not heard of it" he continued. "We used to read the stories of the fathers, including those who departed recently, at dinner table thus we benefited from their experience." Bishop Ibrahim reaffirms the development of understanding the Church's Tradition as in the development of sciences throughout history based on the experience we receive from our forefathers and their teachings studied continually in educational institutions. Today the Church uses the media available to us to reach out to the world and deliver the good news we received since Apostolic times.

The young Eparch spoke on the important role the laity must play in the mission of the Church today. He said that the laity challenge us with their zeal and energy to build and develop the Church. It is with this energy that Bishop Ibrahim built the first Cathedral of the Melkite Catholics in Canada 5 years ago. He looks forward to the contribution of many young adults in building up the Church of God in Canada and elsewhere. Almost 10 years have gone since his elevation to the episcopal ministry in which Bishop Ibrahim has accomplished many activities throughout Canada, not the least his ordination of two new priests to assist Fr. Georges Farah in Toronto: Fr. Michel Chalhoub a few years ago and Fr. Youhanna Hanna in the presence of the Knights of Columbus honour guards in January this year. For many years now, he has been publishing the "Bal", an annual magazine, and last year he published a special edition of the "Bal des Bâtisseurs" where he appreciated volunteer work of servants in the vineyard of the Lord throughout Melkite Catholic parishes in Canada. When asked about the youth, Bishop Ibrahim mentioned programs inaugurated in Montreal and Ottawa as well as other cities where our young learn the Christian faith and participate in other cultural activities of arts and sports. This was a sign that learning and schools are important in the mind of the young prelate which in fact have materialized this year in the acquisition of a new school in Montreal. Moreover, the young Bishop maintained, "We try as much as we can to fulfill the needs of generations and different languages in Masses."

Bishop Ibrahim looked very appreciative of the recent visit to Canada by the Maronite Patriarch Mar Bishara Al-Raii, and those by Melkite Patriarch Gregory III Laham. He said "These visits warm the hearts of the faithful in the Diaspora towards their mother Churches in the Middle East. When asked whether the faithful in Canada would go back to the Middle East, his answer was a pastoral one where the faithful are encouraged to contribute to the well being of their mother Churches, yet their individual choices are respected. Bishop Ibrahim believes that the whole earth belongs to man. The idea of citizenship is global citizenship today. While the presence of Christians in the Middle East is important, he believes that we cannot force anyone to live his entire life there; for the mission of the Church is global and multi-cultural. The Church transcends the cultural boundaries. Bishop Ibrahim is the current coordinator of the bi-annual conferences of the Melkite Bishops in the Diaspora. For so many years, these conferences have helped coordination between Melkite Bishops in their pastoral work in the Diaspora, and as a consultative body they produced recommendations and guidelines, yet each Bishop uses what is best for his diocese/eparchy in cooperation with the priests in his diocese.

A man of deeds, this young prelate and pastor has shown he is up to the challenges "by the grace of God" as he always says! "To Many Years O Sayedna" We respond!

The interview in Arabic has been recorded on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OuDCGem3Ktc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xSvBfA2atAw