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

42 NOVEMBERto take his son. All the world, Jew or Greek, godless or godly, seeks aplace to engage God. On Mount Moriah, God provided one.“In all of this,” Abuna Elia said, “the desert was a teacher forAbraham. The desert teaches us how helpless we are, how muchwe depend upon one another for survival. It is with a completesense of dependence, a complete sense of helplessness that we mustapproach God, and that we must approach one another in terms ofpossessiveness or control.“Our relationships in the monastery,” said Abuna Elia, “arefilled with ambivalence. By complete openness and availability toone another, we are obedient to each other in matters of charity.We are at each other’s service.” He reminded me of St. Paul, whosaid, “Humbly think of others as better than yourselves” (cf. Philippians2:3). “But at the same time,” Abuna Elia added, “our relationshipsmust be ordered by a surrender, a letting go, a sacrifice. We ownno one; we possess no one. The chaste life is like this in general;the celibate life must be like this in particular, and the monastic lifemost especially so.”Abuna Elia assured me that the sacrifices we make in our livesas monks, as Christians, will always be enfolded in layer upon layerof the sacrifices that went before us. Ultimately, they will be enfoldedin the sacrifice of Christ and his Cross on the Mount ofMoriah. Our sacrifices do not achieve or attain merit or value inthemselves—frequently because we do not agree to make them withthe same undivided heart that Abraham did, or that Mary or Jesusdid. But to whatever extent we may agree, that agreement is perfectedwhen our sacrifices are enfolded in those holy sacrificeswhich were offered before us. We must always see our lives as giftsof offerings and sacrifices, as part of a larger movement of generosityfrom and to God: the gift exchange!Abuna Elia reminded me that throughout his life, Abraham wasasked to make sacrifices of separation. He had to leave his kinsfolkand his father’s house and go out into the desert. Later he had tobe separated from his nephew Lot. After that he had to be separatedfrom his son Ishmael. Then there is this terrible story aboutthe sacrifice that he was asked to make of Isaac. And finally, hiswife predeceased him and we are told about the terrible separationhe had to make at this time in his life. “All of these separations remindus of the cost of discipleship,” said Abuna Elia. “They remindus of the abandonment about which Jesus protested on the Cross.