Selected Hymns Sung by Choirs at the Conference of the Eastern Catholic Churches in Toronto,October 10

نحن ساهرون   نحن ساهرون ومصابيحنا مشتعلة، ننتظر عودتك أيها الرب يسوع (2) - كما يومض البرق في أفق ويتألق في آخر(2)، هكذا مجيء ربنا يكون - ملكنا آت بمجد عظيم (2)، لنضىء مصابيحنا ونخرج اليه - لنفرحن به كما فرح بنا(2)، لأنه سيفرحنا ببهاء ضيائه نحن ساهرون ومصابيحنا مشتعلة، ننتظر عودتك أيها الرب يسوع (2) - كما يومض البرق في أفق ويتألق في آخر(2)، هكذا مجيء ربنا يكون - ملكنا آت بمجد عظيم (2)، لنضىء مصابيحنا ونخرج اليه - لنفرحن به كما فرح بنا(2)، لأنه سيفرحنا ببهاء ضيائه

بمراحـــم الرب أغنى عن حقــــه  يخبر فمـــــى أزال مخــــاوفى منى ... منحنى سعــــادة أبديــة   لــــــه ذراع القــــــدرة ، لــــــه يمين العـــــــزةٍ اسمـــه رب النعمـــة .. من قد اعطانى الحريــة   ملوك الأرض يسجدون .. له بخشوع يخضعـون من غيره غلب المنـون .. يســوع فادى البشرية   من فى السماء يعادله.. من على الأرض يشابهه مهابتــــه تكللـــــه .. ابن الأحضـــان الأزليــــــة

أبناء أم واحدة أبناء أٌمٍ واحِدة          بلحُبِ والوئامْ أبناء امٍ ماجدة         كَنيسةِ السلامْ الردة شعارنا سامٍ صريح المُلك للمسيحْ إشدو أناشيدَ المديح النصرٌ للمسيحْ   بلحـــبِ اوصانا المسيح             في ليلـــــــــة العشاءْ سقانا من قلبٍ جريــــح               محبة َ الإخـــــــــــــاءْ   فينا المسيحُ عامــــــــلٌ               مادام  في القلــــــوب حبٌ صحيحٌ شامـــــــــلٌ              في اليُسرِ والخطـــوب   صــدقٌ وعزمٌ واتحــــاد             هذا شعــــــــــــــــــارُنا حُب المسيحِ والــــــوداد            هذا منــــــــــــــــــــارُنا   إن فرقتنا في البـــــــــلاد            أحداثُ ذي الحيـــــــــــاة كل القلوبِ بأتحـــــــــاد             تبقى ألــــــــــى الوفــــاة   الردة رضيت يارب عن ارضك غفرت اثم شعبك سفرت جميع خطاياهم سكنت كل سخطك 1 آالى الابدي تغضبُ علينا ...آالى جيلٍ فجيلٍ تطيلُ غضبك آلاتعودُ تُحينا فيفرح بك شعبك الردة 2 أرينا يارب... أرينا يارب...أرينا ياربُ رحمتك وهب لنا خلاصك الردة

افرحي يا مريم العبدة والأم لأن الذي في حجرك الملائكة تسبحه والشاروبيم يسجدون له باستحقاق والسيرافيم بغير فتور ليس لنا دالة عند ربنا يسوع المسيح سوى طلباتك وشفاعتك      يا سيدتنا كلنا السيدة والدة الإله لكي نسبحك مع الشاروبيم قائلين: قدوس قدوس قدوس أيها الرب ضابط الكل السماء والأرض مملوءتان من مجدك وكرامتك       أبانا الذي في السموات. ليتقدس اسمك. ليأت ملكوتك. لتكن مشيئتك. كما في السماء كذلك على الأرض. وخبزنا كفافنا أعطنا فى ايامنا. وأغفر لنا ذنوبنا كما نحن لغيرنا. لا تدخلنا في تجربة. بل نجنا من الشرير.       لأن لك الملك والقوة والمجد من الازل إلى الأبد. آمين. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.

 

How did the Eastern Church contribute to carrying the light of Christ to the world?

 1.                  Our Lord Jesus Christ, His Blessed Mother, and the Apostles were all born and lived in the East.  Christ’s family tree goes back to Abraham - the father of all faithful - and his descendants who lived in the East.

 2.                  The first Church was born in Jerusalem.  Christians were first called by that name in Antioch as the Acts of the Apostles attests.  The Apostolic Sees founded by the Apostles are all in the East except the See of Rome founded by St. Peter in the West.

 3.                  The first Ecumenical Councils (where all the bishops of the world gathered to articulate doctrines of faith) were held in the East.  For example, the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) proclaimed the Christian faith that Jesus Christ in his divinity is equal to (“consubstantial with”) God the Father. The Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) proclaimed that Christ is fully divine and human.

 4.                  Monasticism started with St. Anthony in Egypt who was followed by a great throng of “fathers of the desert” and spread in the East before it went to the West. Giants include Sts. Basil, Maron, Pachomius, Simeon, Daniel and many others.  In our times, modern saints in the Eastern Catholic Churches such as St. Charbel, St. Rafka, and Blessed “Mary of Jesus Crucified” shine as models of holy life. Characteristic of the Christian East is the spiritual guidance by holy monks which helped many people in their lives. The writings of spiritual fathers such as St. John Climacus “The ladder of virtues” are invaluable.

 5.                  Many of the great and popular saints and martyrs in the history of Church came from the East. Sts. Mary, Barbara, Catherine, Dimitri, George, Maron, Nicolas, Simeon and many others came from the East. The Eastern Church produced millions of martyrs who accepted suffering and death rather than renouncing their faith.

 6.                  The Eastern Church produced many thinkers, theologians and philosophers who defended the faith. In the 2nd to the 5^th centuries, the school of Alexandria and that of Antioch were most influential in theology and philosophy. Some of the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church came from these schools such as Sts. Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria and John Chrysostom. Traditionally, 4 Greek doctors are well known: St. Basil; St. Gregory the Theologian; St. John Chrysostom and St. Athanasius.  The work of St. John of Damascus influenced the study of theology in Europe in the Middle Ages. Today, the whole Catholic Church is calling for a renewed interest in the Fathers and their writings. 

 7.                  Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter “The Light of The East” says this on the liturgy in the Christian East “The sense of inexpressible divine reality is reflected in liturgical celebration, where the sense of mystery is so strongly felt by all the faithful of the Christian East...One of the first great values embodied particularly in the Christian East is the attention given to peoples and their cultures so that the Word of God and His praise may resound in every language” (Orientale Lumen, 6, 7)

 George Farahat, Prepared for the 2^nd Conference of Eastern Catholic Churches in Toronto

Blessed Mother Teresa on The Joy of Living

" Let anyone who comes to you go away feeling better and happier. Every one should see goodness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile."

"We are carriers of God's love."

" Today God loves the world through us. Especially in times like these when people are trying to make God 'was', it is you and I, by our love, by the purity of our lives, by our compassion, who prove to the world that God 'is'."

"Do you want to do something beautiful for God? There is a person who needs you. This is your chance."

"Is my heart so clean that I can see the face of God in my brother, my sister who is that black one, that white one, that naked one, that one suffering from leprosy, that dying one?" "See how nature -- trees and flowers and grass -- grow in silence. See the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence. The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life."

Blessed Mother Teresa (1910-1997), quoted from "The Joy of Living"

Karl Rahner on Faith and Grace

"...grace is always and everywhere at work...the mystery of God communicating himself in love..." The Practice of Faith

"...we always, even in the midst of everyday life, extend beyond ourselves and the specific thing with which we are now concerned, we might say that mysticism occurs in the midst of everyday life, but it is hidden and undeclared..." The Practice of Faith

"...all things, heaven and earth, the realm of the material and of the spiritual, are the creation of one and the same God...spirit and matter have more in common than they have differentiating them." Foundations of Christian Faith

"...to pour forth the love which God is. That is the first and the last of God's real plans and hence of God's real world too. Everything else exists so that this one thing might be: the eternal miracle of infinite love."

Karl Rahner (1904-1984) is considered the greatest theologian of the 20th century  

Georges Farah on The Exaltation of the Cross

On the occasion of the feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross, it is good to recall the liturgical year, and its starting feast. The liturgical year starts September 1 and finishes August 31. Why so? Because it refers to the cycle of seasons. And the early civilization depended on seasons for agriculture. Liturgically, the Fathers placed the feast of the nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on September 8 and her Assumption on August 15. So the year starts and finishes with Mary who begot our salvation. The exaltation of the cross is the first feast of our salvation. It is placed on September 14.

Historically there is a lot to say about the Cross. It was found by St. Helen, the mother of Constantine, in 326. Excavating near Jerusalem, she, in fact, found 3 crosses, and one of them miraculously healed a sick person.  For almost 100 years from 511 on, there were many revolts and upheavals against the empire from within and from without.  Instigated by minorities including  the Jews, heretics and schismatics such as the Jacobites in Syria, and the Copts in Egypt, the Roman empire in the East was substantially weakened. In 614,  the Cross was carried away from the church by the invading Persians and remained missing until it was recaptured by the emperor Heraclius in 628. The Church commemorated the recapture of the Cross by illuminating with fire light the mountains and places it travelled throughout the empire. The Church does that every September 14.

The gospel we read on the feast is a re-actualization of the events that preceded the crucifixion of our Lord. It shows the forces that stood against Christ on his way to save them: the high priests, the Jewish people, and Pilate. The crowds were singing to Jesus a week earlier and now they turned against him. The high priests thought they were not doing anything wrong. Their duty was to keep the Law and to make sure that no revolution will take place when they are occupied by a staunch enemy: the Roman empire. They thought it is better for one man to die than the whole nation to perish. Pilate was a foreign governor who had no interest in religious Jewish quarrels. His dialogue with Christ before ordering his crucifixion sheds light on us today as much as it did then.

He questioned Christ at length, prompted by his wife’s request to release him. But Christ remained silent! He then asked him “So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate said to him, sarcastically, "What is truth?" as if saying to him: You have nothing. You are going to be killed for saying things. Be wise. Forget about truth-Just worry about your life and survival here.  I can release you and you can go to Rome. Live your life there as a free man…

Pilate could have said that to any other person but the answer of Christ is the same. The Truth is a big thing in Christ’s way of thought and life. He must defend the Truth to the end. He is not politically correct. And he cares for everyone even when everyone is against him.

“Behold the Man” Pilate tells the Jews when he is surrendering Christ to them. Christ is said to have been  crucified on the place called Golgotha i.e. The Skull, the skull of Adam- the skull of humanity. His blood went into the skull of humanity and he went to Hades so that he could save by his death the dead humanity. Christ’s Cross is tied to his Resurrection. No life without death.

Now look at Pilate and think of us: Do what you want – Just be silent in matters of truth. Is not this how we think today? Do not we crucify Christ everyday?

Fr. Georges Farah, PhD. gave the above lecture at Jesus the King Church on September 12, 2008.