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.

Mariyam al-Aadhra Church, Sulaymaniya-Iraq, 29 May 2012
Houla
Last Friday and Saturday, I watched with complete bewilderment the news. I asked myself sincerely if this is the same country that I have known for nineteen years and in which I lived ten years. Was it really the same country I left some months ago for my new mission here in Kurdish Iraq.
I have known Syria as a country with friendly people who love to drink tea or maté with each other, the land of profoundly religious persons who deeply respect the religion of their neighbors.

Translation from Arabic

Easter comes after a year of untold suffering, unpredictable and unimaginable for most of us. Unfortunately, what we wrote on the same occasion a year ago still applies to the current situation of our unhappy country. At that time, we had expressed our solidarity with the victims of the conflict and our participation in the expectation of those who were hoping for a deep reform of Syria without falling into the logic of violence, and fearing the explosion of civil war and loss of national unity. Misfortune has reached us and we fear the worst.

Christmas Letter from Iraqi Kurdistan

Kirkuk, December 20^th, 2011

Dear friends,

Thank you again for the warm welcome I received this fall from the Swiss and Italian members of the associations of friends of our monastic community. It felt good to have you near. Many thanks also for your numerous expressions of solidarity in these turbulent times for the Middle East. Our website's statistics and our “inbox” that you are following us attentive, thank you! The Middle East, and especially Syria, really needs much prayer and solidarity. We are witnessing a continuous rise of violence, and we cannot but call with all our energy to non-violence and reconciliation.