Rome, Prayers and an Overpowered People

Dr. Michel E. Abs

Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches

Today I will write about Lebanon, not because it is my homeland, but because what the Lebanese are living, and suffering has exceeded all expectations and all science fiction. If any country goes through the same occurrences that Lebanon is going through, everyone will have the duty to write about it.

There are five million hostages in Lebanon, a large part of whom idolizes their tormentors.

In Lebanon there is hunger, poverty, misery, oppression, favoritism, political feudalism, impetrating religion in politics, and disregarding the conditions of the country and its people.

In Lebanon, there is a shortage of medicines, infant milk and food, and thereby the price of such necessary commodities is far beyond the reach of the vast majority of the people. Therefore, the sight of the Lebanese searching for their livelihood in waste containers has become familiar.

In Lebanon, there is a severe shortage of energy sources of all kinds, which results in a stumble in production and a sharp decline in the standard of life.

In Lebanon, business organizations are closing their doors, workers are fired by the thousands, and families are deprived of their breadwinner.

In Lebanon, waste accumulates and poisons the atmosphere, and no one cares.

In Lebanon, young people migrate in alarming numbers in search for a decent life and a better future.

In Lebanon, children no longer play and sing... Joy has been cast out of their lives,

In Lebanon, people feel that D-day has come and that a catastrophe is imminent.

In Lebanon, there are sharp contrasts between extravagance and misery, between luxury and thrift, between dignity and humiliation, between honesty and hypocrisy, and between patriotism and betrayal.

Because in Lebanon, all of that is happening,

And because indifference has reached its uppermost state,

And because the mite of corruption is eroding bones of values ​​and dismantling the structures of society,

And because human dignity has lost its meaning, sparing only a small number of people,

And because earthly considerations are no longer suitable neither for understanding what is going on nor for getting the country out of the bottleneck it finds itself in,

And because only a non-physical, invisible, beyond any measure and unseen force will save us from our depression and turmoil,

Its name is God's mercy.

Because of all this, it became necessary for the country’s spiritual leaders to go to Rome at the invitation of His Holiness the Pope to engage in a day of prayer and meditation for Lebanon.

Earthly forces are no longer useful,

Stony speeches are outdated,

And non-functional plans make matters worse.

Therefore, it is necessary to resort to the power of addressing the Creator. Perhaps what we are going through is a lesson for us creatures.

Our spiritual leaders have certainly grasped the meaning of what is happening in the land of Lebanon, and they have done the best of what is in their ability to do with all their energy and will.

Religious institutions are not a state and cannot be a substitute for it, neither are all relief funds or developmental organizations of a civil nature.

There is no substitute for a state that is capable and deprived of any vested interest to curb the energies of the people and move society towards welfare.

As for religious leaders, they cannot do more than what they have already done, whether by word or by deed.

This is the reason why Peter's Chair has called them to prayer.

Through prayer and meditation, under the eyes of the world, and especially under the eyes of our grieving people, people will remember that the Power of the Almighty only will give them enough impetus to dare to dream of building a better tomorrow and to start building this tomorrow, which is the least of their rights.

Through prayer and meditation, the people will remember that there is one unique God, one Heavenly Being, whom they worship and turn to in calamities, and that the earthly “gods” they worship now are but a handful of dust, like all men are.

The contemplation and prayer that the prelates of the Church of the East will participate in is in partnership with our nation’s non-Christians, a partnership emphasized by His Beatitude Patriarch John X through visits he made to Islamic religious leaders in Lebanon prior to his trip to Rome. They discussed together the necessity of convening a spiritual summit following the Rome retreat.

Meditation and prayer in Rome, on the first of July, was preceded by a day of Prayer for Peace in the East on the twenty-seventh of June, ushered by the reading of a text written by His Beatitude Cardinal Mar Raphael Sako for this occasion.

Lebanon is part of this Levant, which has suffered and still suffers from those who are near and those who are far. As it constitutes its weakest link, the disasters of this Levant pour into it and add to its grievance and devastation.

It is time for this chronic course of events to end.

Don't the Lebanese, and the Levantines, deserve the right to some stability?