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

206 JULYprize that Eve forfeited when she stole the fruit that one dayyou would have given in its due season. How are you thesource of patience since you do not wait, and all time is but amoment in your sight? How can you be regarded as indulgentwhen you are supreme justice itself?But your love must overcome your justice. Justice must betempered with pity, or we shall all die away from you. So“long” did you “suffer” as your children languished in slavery.In Egypt they cried out, not even to your name, whichthey had forgotten (Exodus 3:13). Yet their groaning reachedyour ear. You bore them up, you carried them out of captivity.You tended them with a mercy beyond the human heart ofMoses, and raised them as an infant to your cheeks (Numbers11:10-14; Hosea 11:4). Beyond this, you endured the burdenof them when they forgot your word and rebelled against yourLaw. “My people, what have I done to you; in what way haveI offended you?” you asked (Reproaches of Good Friday). “Myheart is overwhelmed; my pity is stirred. I will not give wayto my rage,” you declared (Hosea 11:8-9).So I turn to you now, and beg your pity. I am not at allprepared to leave this House of Egypt to which you called melike you called Joseph in his exile from his family. I am notprepared to depart this place of my nourishment, as it was forJacob and his twelve sons when a famine covered the wholeworld. My whole world was gripped in the famine of nothearing your word (Amos 8:11), and you gave me relief inthis holy city in the desert, where latter-day Josephs havestored the bounty of your Word in monastic bread ovens andthe ascetical granaries of your Gospel. The abbot of St. Bishoiinvited me to stay. Pope Shenouda offered me a home! Theyunderstand me and see my joy among them. Abuna Eliacalled me his only son, his “Isaac,” and shared with me hismeditations from his many years of solitude.How can I leave this place? To enter the monastery inAmerica was so much easier. To promise chastity and obediencewas so much simpler. Nothing of that world could haveattracted me away from my vows or my priesthood. But thetemptation to stay here is too much for me, for, by yielding toit, I would feel that I had finally come home to the truth ofmy vocation and my vows.