A Communique from the Middle East Council of Churches in the Season of Lent and times Coronavirus
With the blessing of the Heads of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), in this Season of Lent and in the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic which threatens all of humanity, the MECC wishes to issue the following Communique to its member churches and all people of good will.
Fasting is a time of meditation, prayer, and conversion during which Christians repent and ask God and each other for forgiveness. The Church starts by asking forgiveness, in preparation for Easter, the crossing from darkness to light, from death to resurrection. The Church Fathers likened that journey to the People of God, the Church, crossing the desert into the Promised Land, the Land of the Covenant and into a new life with God, a journey in which they experienced hardships, difficulties, and temptations, while accepting God's Covenant, commandments, and salvation.
In the desert crossing, God revealed to His people the glow of His bright face and glory through patience, affection, and love. The forty-day fasting is about the old man accepting the gift of freedom in Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Fasting helps humans consider their weaknesses and sins, repent to God and return to themselves and to their brothers and sisters. Fasting helps them see the radiant face of God reflected in the image of His Son hanging on the cross in his infinite love for humanity. Fasting is also the yearning of the faithful for the lights of the Resurrection and the newness of divine life in the Holy Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, the crossing of the desert in this year’s Lenten Season is utterly bitter and thorny, because of wars, migration, displacement, tragedies, epidemics, spiritual alienation, the weakening of human values and more. However, we do not despair, we are not dismayed, the Lord is with us. As the psalm says, our faces shall never be covered with shame, we seek the radiant face of Lord, we reach out to our brothers with love and strive to sanctify nature. The sense of responsibility before God requires from us to undertake an in-depth reflection into the meaning of fraternal solidarity among people and solidarity with nature, as a means of safeguarding the universe and its ecological balance, while struggling to redress the various processes and policies which resulted in the imbalance and disruption of the system. There is no point in fasting unless we empty ourselves in His image, “He who emptied himself taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are…he was humbler yet, and even to accepting death, death on the cross” (Philippians 2, 7-8), and unless we purify ourselves to overcome hardships, pain, and epidemics, and seek love, generosity, purity, and sacrifice.
Containment is imposed on us by the Corona epidemic, turning us into hostages in the desert of the fear of contamination and death. However, the Lord urges us “to keep our eyes fixed on him, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which lay ahead of him, he endured the cross, disregarding the shame of it, and has taken his seat at the right of God’s throne” (Hebrews 12, 2). The Lord walks with us and draws us towards him, the source of our strength and courage. This is an opportunity for rapprochement, reconciliation, support, and solidarity; an opportunity to help the needy, the sick and the displaced, an opportunity to test human fraternity in its divine depth, and to put ourselves into question while seeking to rediscover the meaning of our existence in the light of genuine spiritual and human values.
On behalf of all member churches, and with the blessing of our spiritual leaders, MECC is mobilizing its potentials while doubling efforts to carry out its spiritual and humanitarian duties in response to the current situation. Prayers will be held next Sunday, March 22, 2020 to raise a unified voice and supplications for those infected with Corona and their families, and for the medical staff and health workers who risk their lives to provide treatment and prevention, including public health officials, who, we hope, with God’s help, will be able to contain the spread of the virus and prevent potential grave social, economic and environmental consequences.
Next Sunday morning, we shall meet in deep prayer entrusting humanity and the universe “to the merciful Father and the God who gives every possible encouragement” (2 Corinthians 1, 3). All individuals and in various societies will hopefully recover their well-being, in an act of Christian and human solidarity derived from the heart of the Lord. We pray God Almighty to help us act in a spirit of responsibility, courage and sincerity in the service of people, so that the light of Christ who triumphed over evil and death, may radiate throughout our world.