Greetings in Christ!
It seems that Autumn sprang up over night here. After a few hours of heavy rain fall, the weather now demands extra blankets and space heaters, and I find myself continuously bundled up in layers of warm clothing. Winters here are much colder and summers much hotter than in Manton, California and I'm beginning to form a picture (although certainly somewhat romanticized) of some of the conditions of the early desert ascetics. Admittedly though, I would much rather focus my attention towards my plate of steaming shishbarak over rice and kibbe followed by a cup or two of Arabic coffee. (with cardamon please!)
The fall harvest ended here the beginning of this month. The monastery preserves a number of staple items every year including a year's lupply of jams from apples, quince, plums, figs and apricots as well as green and black olives and makdous. The makdous production requires about a week to complete and a steady stream of able hands. We begain by boiling hundreds of small egglplants until they were nice and tender. After this, we pressed the water out of them overnight using cement blocks. THey have to be completely dry for successful preservations. The next day we stuffed them with a mixture of mild red pepper flakes, walnuts and salt, carefully arranged them in glass jars and poured olive oil over them, which safely keeps them for the year, ready as a staple at every meal if you like.
We celebrated the feast day for the Cherubim monastery on Sunday. Loads of pilgrims came for the liturgy. Most of the church was packed with pious old women who seem to have all of the services memorized, unhesitatingly chanting along with the priest and deacon. It made for quite a lot of intensely focused holy noise in the church and was rather reminiscent of some of my experiences in the Russian tradition, for which people here seem to have a lot of respect. Apprently the relationship between the Church of Antioch and that in Russia has a very long and positive history. Thank God.
The bishop who presided at the service gave a beautifula nd simple homily concerning love. He said that when we engage love by focusing on the other person first, then we begin to approach a life driven by that love and begin to experience the joy in freedom from the pains brought by the passions and ego. He spoke about the purpose of the monastery as providing an atmosphere for people who wish to completly focus on a life of prayer, and on living for Christ and the other person. He stressed though, that it is possible to do this at home without becoming a monk, but that in the monastery, this sort of self-emptying carries a more concentrated tone, which is the city is not alwasy possible or safe.
It is encouraging to meet more and more bishop swith a positive and knowledgable approach to monasticism, and it was apparent from Sayedna's smiles and interactions with the people around him that he genuinely loves his flock.
Asking your prayers with love in Christ,
Monk Evphrosynos |
