Confessions to the Creator

Opening Prayer of Dr. Michel Abs, MECC Secretary General, during the online Ecumenical Prayer held by the Middle East Council of Churches, and organized by the Communication and Public Relations Department in cooperation with the Theological and Ecumenical Department, on Friday 12 February 2021.

We confess to You, O Lord, that we have persevered in our sinfulness,

We admit to You, O creator of the universe, that we have corrupted Your creation,

We confess to You, Lord of the universe, that we have forgotten Your commandments,

We confess to You, Loving Father, that we have offended Your love,

We confess to You, O Most Merciful, that we did not show mercy to each other,

We admit to You, who are Able, that we were not able to curb our greed,

We confess to You, Redeemer, that we did not respect Your redemption,

We put Your gifts to ruin,

We destroyed the natural environment You endowed us with!

We destroyed the life You created!

We destroyed the creation that You redeemed!

In the midst of our tumultuous daily life, we forgot the distinction between good and evil, between truth and falsehood, and between truthfulness and blasphemy, and we hid behind masks that we borrowed from Your legacy and falsified them to meet our interests.

We forgot in our gasping behind the vain glories that Your trust in us has a right, so we created a society of consumption, prevented protecting the environment. We established injustice as a rule of life and deceitfulness as a guide to dealing with each other, and when we reached the end of times, we accused You of punishing us.

Because evil is so widespread in our togetherness, we forgot that You are the Lord of love, and thought that we are in the presence of the Lord of punishment that our minds invented! We have forgotten that we do not fear the Lord, but rather we love Him, and the good deeds that we do are not due to fear, but spurred by identification with His boundless love which we seek to incarnate.

Because of the intensity of our ignorance, we thought that the pandemic that was about to destroy humanity was a punishment inflicted by You, and we forgot that we were the ones who produced it from our excessive darkness.

As we gather here to pray for the end of this pandemic, we are inspired by You and we admonish to ourselves and to each other, invoking Your boundless mercy.

From eternity to everlasting times, we will not forget that You redeemed us and sacrificed Yourself for us, so make us worthy of Your redemption and make us preserve the gifts that You have bestowed upon us.

Dr. Michel E. Abs

Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches