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

A TIME OF SIGNS: CAELUM ET TERRA 63Blessings for PilgrimsDECEMBER 4, THURSDAYI’ve been observing pilgrims who come to the monastery.Rarely do the monks consider them to be sources of diabolic temptation,though surely they test the patience of the monks. But thisis the test of compassion and charity. The pilgrims, for their part,see the monks as sources of divine blessing, sources of barakah.They seek from the monks God’s grace, because they believe thatthe monks are the proximate source of blessing that he has establishedfor them. They come out into the desert; they leave theirhomes, their places of business, of work, even their places of failureand sin and frustration so that they will be in a place available toholiness, not just geographically but, if there is such a thing, in thelandscape of the soul. By being pilgrims, they are in a place that isopen to a special channel of divine assistance.How do the monks bless them? In ways that are establishedand conditioned by their history, even by their culture. If the pilgrimssomehow manage to touch the hands of a monk, they believethat to be a blessing, especially if they can kiss his hand. If theymanage to hold onto the ankle or the feet of a monk, they considerthat to be a source of blessing. It is an even greater blessing if theycan kiss the feet of the monk.In all of these situations, the monk appears to try to pull away.He seems reluctant to allow his hands or his feet to be touched or tobe kissed. But it’s part of the give-and-take of the relationship betweenthe monk and the pilgrim. It’s almost a kind of choreographyof reluctance and desire: reluctance on the monk’s part, and desireon the part of the pilgrim. And yet both the reluctance of the monkand the desire of the pilgrim respect the intention of the other.The pilgrims want the monk to place his hands upon theirhead, or they will place his hands upon their head if they can do so,or they will place his hands on the head of someone they want tobe blessed. Their desire just to touch his hand reminds me so muchof the story in the Gospel of the woman who touched the hem ofthe garment of Jesus.Pilgrims who manage to elicit from the monk a small prayerobtain his blessing; even the merest words “God bless you” are suf-