This is how that little girl stood in front of me last Sunday after lunch, posing the question, the most important of all questions… I looked at her with the same childhood tenderness that was drawn on her beautiful face and asked her… “How old are you?” She replied “six years and a half”. I said: “I have many questions to answer, but yours is the most important. I will answer you next Sunday… ask your mother to read the answer for you…
How can each one of us become a saint?...!. This is the question… Maybe this girl heard her parents, or children chanting after lunch, and her soul were enlightened with the grace of the Holy Spirit, after the Holy Liturgy, where she received Holy Communion of our Lord’s body, and listened to the choir?... The child was touched and became conscious. She felt that our life must have a target, which is ultimately “sanctity”!!.
I was standing “still” in front of her!… Her parents and many faithful surrounded her… I recalled the past, the time of my childhood, when I was at her age, and wondered… Was this question our aim in life, us, the children of the former generation?!... I smiled… I used to stay alone, watching the high blue sky, and how the clouds were painted in it, and when my mother asked me once:” what are you doing all alone over there?!. Go and play with your sisters and cousins!”, I would answer her:”I am counting Jesus’s clothes, that His mother, the Virgin Mary, is hanging, in Heaven after washing them to dry”… my eyes were filled with tears, aiming to depart to the simplicity and purity of the past, seeking continuously all what I love on earth and in Heaven, and I held my answer.
Beloved “Nai”… “Sanctity” is a mother raising her children, whom her heart saw before her eyes did… “Sanctity” is a maternal awareness of the mother embracing the seed of divine tenderness and giving in her womb, to bring up that plant; and nurture it with the blood of her heart and the tears of her eyes, for the sake of the child carried in her womb… “Sanctity” is the preparation of the divine love by the father, to be offered to the mother who prays with compassion, asking God to grant her children, an offspring, to raise for Him, for He is the life Giver, and she will strive promising to give life back to Him through her children, whom He will grant her … “Sanctity” is a vigil prayer, awaiting for the Divine will to grant the womb the indescribable miracle of birth- giving…
The mother, my beloved one, is as in the “image of God the Father”, as I was told. Since, life emerges from her, as it emerges from God, and she is called to become that clear crystalline vessel, which engulfs the Holy Spirit, in every child she gives birth to…Then each and every mother becomes “that” vessel of the Holy Spirit.
“Nai”, “Sanctity” is all what has been mentioned so far… Hence, how can we realize it?... by preserving the sacrament of “faithfulness”, given to us by God, i.e. by preserving the sacrament of “love”, which is given by Jesus Christ to every created human being, in the Holy Spirit, in His image, according to His likeness…
Beloved “Nai”… I will never forget your face, your hair, and your timidity in asking the question:”how can I become, myself, a saint?”… And I ask: how do we all become saints?!...
This is my answer now, to you, your mother, and to the father of “Nai”, and to all the mothers and fathers whom God has given them children… Gibran Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese writer, painter and artist, said:”our children are not ours”!!!... Yet he knew not how to finish his phrase, that they are the children of God through the Holy Spirit…And must live in and for Him…
So, all have to “study” the sacrament of “marriage”, to live it every moment, in the course of life that is shared, between fathers and mothers, and to seek shelter in the daily personal prayer and the communal one... As we wait to receive Holy communion in Church, every Sunday, every feast, in every holiday, thus living truly, and truly, praying as per to the Gospel’s teaching, in our everyday practice…
“The Saint”, my beloved one, is the one who realizes, that living the divine sacrament in one’s life, will be given to become alive to the image of Christ, who is anointed by God, the incarnate Lord of our lives, to establish what God asked us to do…”Be ye holy; for I am holy.(1P1:16, Lv11:44:45)…
“Read” your illustrated Bible “Nai”, everyday, and pray… “Collect” coins for the poor, in order to give it to the poor, so they would eat from what the Lord has offered you… “Love and Forgive”, all those who hurt you, and never hurt anyone… “Love” your God with your heart, and every neighbor as yourself!!. your parents, your brothers and sisters, and all your friends; and rejoice, because in all this, you will be fulfilling the Holy commandments… and the Holy Spirit will abide in you, to make you a saint!!.
Ask your mother to read and explain my answer to you. Do visit us, and we will pray together, in the Holy Liturgy…Be happy and in peace, my dear little saint…
Mother Mariam (Zacca), "أسئلة لأجوبتكم" .
Saint John the Baptist Monastery. Douma.
Translated by the Holy Trinity Family.Douma