Sulaymaniyah, 9 september 2012

An apologie:

Dear friends I am really sorry that I had not the energy to provide some of texts which will be read during the ordination. Please forgive me. I will try to do better. I hope that I can give you still during this year the oportunity to understand the celebrations of the Chaldean tradition.

A thought: (Isa 30:15-21, 2Th 2:15-3:5, Mat 13:1-9)

Maybe, it is because this is a special Day for me here in Sulaymaiya, but also because of these series of texts we read over the last few weeks, it seems to me that vocation is very much in the centre of the readings today. In Isaiah we find God again waiting for his people, true to his vocation which he will not withdraw. However there is a step to do. The conversion of the heart is the only way to be able to approach the Lord. He will help. He will stay beside us but we have to do this step by our own. For it is the design of His creation that we will able to approach him with the same free relationship of love as the Three Persons offer to each other. Therefore not to taint this freedom with his overwhelming force, he leads us trough our steps toward him, but it is to us to do the stepping. And the son shows us that the way to the Father might be painful. To strengthen us we have the support of the Holy Spirit who helps us to transform our suffering in hope.

Sunday Mass

Sulaymaniyah, 2 september 2012

A thought

(Isa 30:1-6, 1Th 2:14-20, Luk 18:9-14)

In our readings we see the pictures of three communities or kinds of believers.

The first one has lost its trust in the transforming power of the Spirit of witness. The nobles of Judea flee to Egypt, which in turn will not be able to defend itself against the coming invasion of the Chaldeans. Many times the Prophet Isaiah was asking his people to stay but they would not listen. But if men do not listen to the voice of the Spirit, the prophecy, it means that they are refusing their vocation; and refusal of vocation is nothing else than disbelief.

A thought

Today, as we encounter often in the readings, there appears the question: "Who is believer?" Few of us come to a deep experience of faith other than through a profound depression. Often it seems that men are only capable to open themselves to the Lord through hopelessness and vulnerability of a complete disaster. If we remember how important it is to hear the voice of God in the Bible, we might grasp how desperate must be the situation of the deaf in the reading of the old Testament.

Dear Friends,

We greet all of you and thank you for your solidarity. We called today Father Paolo who is at the moment in the town of Qsayr and has confirmed to us that he is staying well.

We tell you this because in Syria there is ciculating an sms message that a monk was injured the town of Qsayr. We hope that it is just a hoax and if it should be true we wish the to us unknown hurt monk, as all injured of Syria, a swift recovery and a total restoration of health.

Press Release

Events of Wednesday, 22 February 2012 at Deir Mar Musa el-Habashi

Wednesday evening at 6 pm, the following happened: