Talking to the Lord for the sake of humankind

The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) Dr. Michel E. Abs delivered most of this article at the opening of the Ecumenical Musical Event “Beirut 2024” which was held on the occasion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and the Fiftieth Year of the MECC Founding, on Saturday 20 January 2024, at the Forum de Beirut.

Dr. Michel E. Abs

Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).

O Savior,

We are gathered here, in Your name and with Your blessing, we pledge allegiance to You, and as we are more than two or three, so You are in our midst.

We are a group of believers who came in droves, chanting for Your kingdom and inspired by Your love that covered Your path, Your preaching, Your crucifixion and Your resurrection, for the sake of a new life for human beings.

O incarnate Word, the living Christ, we, the people of the region have gathered, where You were incarnated and where the beginnings of the message took place, a region that is ravaged by greed and hatred and is experiencing times that may be the worst it has ever experienced in its ancient and modern history.

From all regions of Lebanon, the Lord’s endowment, we came to you, as well as from neighboring societies, declaring that we are one, because the Lord is one, the Church is one, and the believers are one, and that our faith and love are in the service of human beings, every human being, any human being, so that he may have life, and have a better life, as You wanted with Your message of salvation for the human race.

O You who are stronger than annihilation, Your Church is, after two millennia, still unbendable, bearing witness to Your message, and presenting challenges to those with souls that do evil, to those who have strayed from the right path and seek injustice and oppression against their brothers in religion or in humanity. Your church is still a source of values ​​and a home for humanity, as evidenced by the institutions that emerged from it, contributing to the development of society and civilization, and inspiring culture and arts.

Your church is united in an organization that is on its fiftieth anniversary, the day it was baptized in May 1974 under the name of the Middle East Council of Churches, in Cyprus, after a process that began in 1929. A council that includes all the churches of the region, organized in four families, adopted the ecumenical option and put its hand together on the plow, transcending the differences that become dull before the pain of the Crucifixion and the light of the Resurrection.

“On the fiftieth day, they were all together, in one place,” is the verse-motto that the Council adopted for its fiftieth year. It does not go back to the beginnings, but rather reminds of them and is inspired by them, for the sake of aspirations towards a common Christian future, based on unity among Christians, as with other components of society.

We are also inspired by the verse in which it is said: “And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim freedom in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you...”

The fiftieth year of the Council's life will be full of spiritual, cultural, intellectual and artistic activities, distributed across the countries of the Middle East, and we wanted our blessed evening of spiritual chants tonight, to be the first of the activities that also coincide with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The fiftieth year of the Council will witness seminars, lectures, spiritual chanting evenings, international conferences, new publications, and other means of spreading the common Christian spirit, and will continue until the beginning of the 1700th year of the Council of Nicaea next year.

Our ecumenical spiritual evening tonight is the product of the Holy Spirit, embodied through purposeful humanitarian means, through believers, who worked with determination and insistence, in order to achieve this ecumenical musical event. We will not go into enumerating the means of the Holy Spirit, and believers are its means, the results are before you, and the tremendous efforts that contributed to making this work possible have borne fruit and much will be written about it. This evening will also be an example to be emulated in the years that will follow.

This event tonight is a typical ecumenical one, as it brings together the one Church of Christ, in praise and glorification of the Lord, the righteous of creation, based on multiple languages ​​and cultures, expressing the cultural diversity and richness that abounds in the Middle East, transforming differences into integration and diversity into solidarity. Let no one be surprised that this blessed choir speaks with multiple tongues, for it is filled with the Holy Spirit who gave it to speak in this way, as happened on the day of the Pentecost.

Our chant tonight will rise to the sky, with the strength of the spirit that unites us, and it will, in this region of extreme turmoil to the point of catastrophe, be stronger than the screams of the haters and murderers of man, and louder than the sound of their bombs, those who do not have mercy on those who are weaker than them and do not recognize their right to life.

The Ecumenical Musical Event comes with the Week of Prayer for Unity, a tradition launched in 1908 that has become a culture and part of the annual church calendar, in Lebanon as well as in other countries of the region and the world.

 From Your height, look, O eternal Master, at the vine that your right hand planted, and bless it, for it has become so lush in shadows that it covers the globe and shortens the known time, and it is steadfast till eternity, renewed, like life.

Grant her patience and the ability to heal the hatred and disobedience that are widespread in the world, and those who are trying to besiege her with them, especially those who were the basis of their civilization and denied it.

Help it guide and embrace larger groups of people who yearn for freedom and dignity, for justice and peace,

And you know that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.