Journey Back to Eden.pdf - St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church Chicago

118 FEBRUARYAbuna Elia said that the people were going to falsify Christ’s mission.They were going to tempt him to self-exaltation and self-fulfillment,to turn him against the godly work of self-emptying. Christfled from this temptation so that he could continue his mission, bothin terms of his dialogue with the Father and in terms of his Passion.When Peter attempted to dissuade Christ from his sacrificial work ofthe Cross, Jesus disassociated himself even from his friend and vicar:“Get behind me, you Satan!” (Matthew 16:23). At his critical momentof self-emptying, Christ Jesus would be alone, even forsaken.So the monk is called to the mountain or to the desert to prayalone and, when in community, to pray from a lonely interiority.He prays for the Church and for his own particular mission whenit is given to him. But he also summons the Church to greater authenticity,to be a sign to priests, to Religious, to the clergy, to thelaity: a sign of self-emptying love, self-emptying dedication toGod’s will. He prays to be a sign which summons the Church togenuine faith and poverty of spirit before the world.Ultimately, Abuna Elia said, even though the monk is isolatedand apparently far away from the heart of all the Church’s activity,if he is faithful, the Church will fashion herself around him and reconstituteChrist’s body with him. Such being the case, the Churchwill always be able to inspire martyrs. This is all to the good because,in the case of the Coptic Church, a lack of readiness to raiseup martyrs would, in fact, be a sign or even a cause of the Church’soverall decline. No matter how apparently disorganized and oppressedthe institution of the Coptic Church may have seemed, itsspirit has always been prepared to instill such a degree of holinessamong its members that there were those in every age willing tosuffer and to die that they might bear witness to the mission ofChrist in the world.Forty DaysFEBRUARY 15, SUNDAYThe monastery here involves itself more and more deeply in itspreparations for Lent. Just as in the Western Church, Lent is a periodof about seven weeks’ duration which, except for Sundays, istherefore a forty-day period of preparation for Easter.But in the Coptic Church, there are some undertones to theLenten season that I had not realized before. I never knew there