October 2020 Letter

Dear brethren,

On the occasion of the new Coptic year, here is the description that Tertullian gives for the delightful Christian worship in the end of second century:

“We are a society with a common religious feeling, unity of discipline, a common bond of hope. We meet in gatherings and congregations to approach God in prayer, massing our forces to surround Him. This violence pleases God. We pray also for the emperors, for their ministers, and for those in authority, for the security of the world, for peace on earth, for postponement of the end.

“We meet to read the books of God, if anything in the nature of the times bids us look to the future or open our eyes to facts. In any case, with those holy words we feed our faith, we lift up our hope, we confirm our confidence; and no less we reinforce our teaching by inculcation of God’s precepts.

“There is, besides exhortation in our gatherings, rebuke, divine censure. For judgment is passed and it carried great weight, as it must among men certain that God sees them; and it is a notable foretaste of judgment to come, if any man has so sinned as to be banished from all share in our prayer, our assembly, and all holy intercourse.

“Our presidents are elders of proved character, men who have reached the honor not for a price, but by character; for nothing that is God’s goes for a price. Even if there is a chest of a sort, it is not made up of money paid in entrance fees as if religion were a matter of contract. Every man once a month brings some coin, or whatever he likes, and only if he does wish, and if he can; for nobody is compelled; it is a voluntary of offering. You might call them the trust fund of piety. For they are not spent upon banquets nor drinking parties nor thankless eating houses; but to feed the poor and to bury them, for boys and girls who lack property and parents, and then for slaves grown old, and shipwrecked mariners; and any who may be in mines, islands or prisons, provided that it is for the sake of God’s love, become the pensioners of their confession.

“Such works of love (for so it is) put a mark upon us in the eyes of some. ‘Look,’ they say, ‘how they love one another,’ for themselves hate one another. ‘And how they are ready to die for each other,’ for themselves will be readier to kill each other.

We ask the Lord to bring with the New Year blessings for His church and for the whole world, and to keep the world from every evil and harm, and grant us to get back to enjoy the presence in His house without any obstacles.

May the blessing of St. Mary, St. Mercurius and all the martyrs be with us all. Amen.

Belleville, October 1, 2020

رسالة شهر أكتوبر ٢٠٢٠