Discipleship-Fr. Maroun Mbarak-RC

Discipleship - Father Maroun Moubarak
"I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
http://www.ayletmarcharbel.org/content/alttlmz-alab-maroun-mbark
Friday 12/27/2002
Annaya – The Family of Saint Charbel
Encounter with Father Maroun Moubarak, M.L.M.
Topic: Discipleship
Introduction: This the third consecutive encounter with the Family of Saint Sharbel in which we conclude a year and begin another, brimming as we are with Christian with joy and open to God’s Word and to one another. This encounter is no coincidence, but it is rather a divine arrangement through which the Lord is calling us to be ready to receive and give. This is one of the great mysteries of our Christian faith because spiritual experience shows a strong, necessary, and reciprocal connection between receiving and giving, for there is no giving without receiving, and no receiving without giving. They nourish one another in order for the spiritual journey to progress. We gather on this occasion each year to increase the experience of receiving the Lord’s word and to increase our giving through our actions and testimonies.
During the last two years we reflected on two topics in line with the transition from the old millennium to the new. In 2000, the year of the jubilee, we talked about “passing over”; and last year, on the occasion of the launch of the jubilee, after we had “passed over,” we talked about “belonging,” or deepening our roots right from the start, because the journey is long. This year, in 2002, we will discuss “discipleship,” which means nourishing this initial belonging with continuous belonging through the mobilization and development which give our spiritual journey the momentum it needs to keep moving toward its goal.
4- Third level: “Creativity and Stardom”
After this much productivity, man earns a wider experience and reaches new levels of operating and producing, and this is a sign of enrichment. A star is known for:
Conclusion: Christmas is the school of divine creativity in directing humanity toward stardom. The Child Jesus born in a cave, the Son of God, came to teach humanity a lesson about how to succeed in life on earth, and his approach to success is “lifting up oneself by lowering oneself.” Have you ever heard of an arrogant person who was able to solve a problem? On the other hand, we have all certainly known many humble people who got around their problems, overcame them and ended up succeeding. This is the message of Jesus’ Higher Institute for the Arts of New Life for this year. This is the Mystery of discipleship that we all strive to achieve.
"I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
http://www.ayletmarcharbel.org/content/alttlmz-alab-maroun-mbark
Friday 12/27/2002
Annaya – The Family of Saint Charbel
Encounter with Father Maroun Moubarak, M.L.M.
Topic: Discipleship
Introduction: This the third consecutive encounter with the Family of Saint Sharbel in which we conclude a year and begin another, brimming as we are with Christian with joy and open to God’s Word and to one another. This encounter is no coincidence, but it is rather a divine arrangement through which the Lord is calling us to be ready to receive and give. This is one of the great mysteries of our Christian faith because spiritual experience shows a strong, necessary, and reciprocal connection between receiving and giving, for there is no giving without receiving, and no receiving without giving. They nourish one another in order for the spiritual journey to progress. We gather on this occasion each year to increase the experience of receiving the Lord’s word and to increase our giving through our actions and testimonies.
During the last two years we reflected on two topics in line with the transition from the old millennium to the new. In 2000, the year of the jubilee, we talked about “passing over”; and last year, on the occasion of the launch of the jubilee, after we had “passed over,” we talked about “belonging,” or deepening our roots right from the start, because the journey is long. This year, in 2002, we will discuss “discipleship,” which means nourishing this initial belonging with continuous belonging through the mobilization and development which give our spiritual journey the momentum it needs to keep moving toward its goal.
- The official topic of our encounter today is “discipleship,” or, as I humorously would like to call it, “Jesus’ Higher Institute for the Arts of New Life”. This is where we learn the real concept of discipleship. During this liturgical season, Jesus’ Institute draws us to its special campus, “the Nativity Cave,” because we are still living the spirit of Christmas, and are still engrossed in “the holiday’s spiritual busyness.” Like all the other students enrolled in the Institute, - Joseph, Mary, the shepherds and the Magi -, we are attending this Institute because we have been invited to it. Christmas, during which we commemorate and celebrate the Mystery of the incarnation of God’s son, does not only concern those who witnessed it at the time, but also concerns all of us, throughout the ages; it concerns us who stand before this Event which has become the center of all our conversations. It is at this “Crèche course,” so to speak, that we learn about discipleship to Christ, the Heavenly Promise who was fulfilled.
- The first level at Jesus' Higher Institute for the Arts of New Life is the “amateur” level:
The shepherds were in the wilderness keeping watch over their flock at night when an angel told them that the awaited new King has been born. They didn’t know much. They had only the angel’s words to go on. Usually, an amateur has three characteristics:
* Enthusiasm, which means higher aspirations. The amateur does all he can to improve his status. This is exactly what happened with the shepherds. They looked after their flock and kept watch over it, and as soon as they heard the news the angel brought to them, they hastened to uncover the Mystery of what they had just heard. A new path has been cleared before them, bringing to them the Awaited One who raises their standard of living.
* Inexperience: A beginner only knows what he has heard. He is still incapable of connecting and analyzing ideas, or of quickly drawing conclusions. He only uses the information he has at hand. The shepherds did not really use their reasoning skills. All they did is considered executive action, which is following orders as they are (in a “bookish” way). They repeated what had been said to them, without fully understanding it.
* Seizing opportunities: An amateur waits for the right conditions to benefit from them and advance his career. The shepherds did not miss the opportunity that the angel gave them. To the contrary, they rapidly heeded the call and decided to go. They are amateurs who wanted to experience the journey. And this is how their journey started:
- They decided together. Their collective decision-making gave them a new chance to move forward, increase their experience, and improve their performance.
- They supported each other, and collective support allowed them to succeed. Amateurs know that their power is limited, and, therefore, they support each other to find strength through collaboration.
- They completed the journey together. Collective execution helped them to reach their goal successfully. They supported one another during the journey, reached the desired goal, and found the child King lying in a manger.
Like the shepherds, we are “amateurs” on a spiritual journey, searching for the Incarnate Lord, “God with us.” We experience fervor and enthusiasm in our relationship, which we want to be perfect. However, our inexperience makes our efforts at innovating fail. We only know what we have learned, and our journey is still at its beginning. Nevertheless, the Lord provides us with the right opportunities, inasmuch as he multiplies for us the favorable circumstances and the spiritually rich occasions from which we can benefit. The only thing left for us to do is to make a decision, knowing that every collective decision supported by collective collaboration succeeds. Here we understand the value of the collective ecclesial dimension in living our spiritual Christmas experience. This is the amateur’s approach to Christmas, with its enthusiasm, decision-making and implementation. But let us not forget the other dimensions: “receiving,” “the personal encounter” and “the depth of the relationship” which take us to the next level in Jesus' Higher Institute for the Arts of New Life. - Second level: “professionalism”
Professionalism is an advanced level of professional progress in a person’s life. One acquires, in addition to knowledge, practical experience, ease of action, higher productivity, and, consequently, success. A professional is someone who:
– takes his time in what he is doing, dedicates his time to what he does and succeeds in it. He spends his time researching, investigating, delving deeper and thinking in order to improve his work. Time is valuable. If we know how to use it well, we would benefit a lot and could even reach holiness. Time is a series of events, a history made of everyday life. I consider it a “strength,” or a “power” that helps us “earn a living,” not in the financial, but in the moral sense. Either we win our life morally, or we lose it. Time is a necessary in our lives for us to learn about things, and to experience and master them.
- has theoretical knowledge, but also the practical experience which grows his knowledge of the subject he is studying. This grows not only his knowledge of the truth, but also his relationship with the truth, increasing his creativity, output and productivity. This makes him a respected reference in his field which he is trying to develop and improve. His contributions are always novel, and he never repeats himself. His output does not wane. He is an inexhaustible spring of new and beneficial data for his environment.
- has a meticulous, scientific mentality and an essential seriousness. He goes deeper than the surface because he has acquired a lot of information and great understanding of his field. He follows the rules of his work, but he can also “think outside the box” without destroying or losing his objective. To the contrary, his innovations are in line with the existing system, even though he may slightly deviate from the system. He respects the scientific rules and technical systems of his field, but he does so indirectly, in the sense that he is able to preserve the beauty of his work and its purpose, despite ignoring some general rule that an amateur would probably be unable to ignore. If we were to look again at to the “crèche course,” we would be able to see the shepherds responding to the angel’s words and interacting with him in a “professional” manner.
- They started to have a practical experience after they had received the word and learned from it. They combined the auditory and the visual.
- They heard the angel’s words, so they experienced “listening,” which is a deep process that helps one to delve deep into the truth. Listening is a state and an action through which one puts himself at the disposal of the truth, and is possessed by the truth. He becomes part of the truth, and not only the truth part of him. The truth envelops him to the point where he can only live in it. The truth is not just part of him because it became part of his knowledge, but it became an integral part of him because he is enthralled in it. The shepherds had this experience of “listening” and acted under the motivation of the truth. Their decision was based, then, on what “the angels told them”.
- They looked at the cave and saw the Holy Family. They saw what Joseph and Mary were seeing. They experienced “contemplation” or “reflection,” which is another deep process that helps one to delve deep into the truth in its broadest sense, meaning that reflecting on what we see makes us explore our own hidden reality. When they saw the Child in the manger and connected what they had heard about Him to what they were seeing in Him, they understood His truth well. It filled them up. Contemplation stirs deep emotions and motivates one to act and to start a new life. For this reason the shepherds spread the word after they saw all that the angel had told them about. In other words, they bought into this new logic, since they weren’t telling the story in their own way, but in the way the angel had described it to them. Like the angel, they conformed to the Child’s reality à they did not only let the truth into their life, but they became part of the truth and moved their life into the truth.
4- Third level: “Creativity and Stardom”
After this much productivity, man earns a wider experience and reaches new levels of operating and producing, and this is a sign of enrichment. A star is known for:
- Brightness: He excels at everything he does to the point that everyone seeks him out and wants to learn from him how to succeed.
- Success: He works hard to produce perfect work with maximum benefit for everyone. Through his work he expresses his abilities, inner struggle and experiences in the form of his most wonderful and beneficial ideas and projects. Thus he becomes the center of attention and inspires people to love beauty and creativity.
Conclusion: Christmas is the school of divine creativity in directing humanity toward stardom. The Child Jesus born in a cave, the Son of God, came to teach humanity a lesson about how to succeed in life on earth, and his approach to success is “lifting up oneself by lowering oneself.” Have you ever heard of an arrogant person who was able to solve a problem? On the other hand, we have all certainly known many humble people who got around their problems, overcame them and ended up succeeding. This is the message of Jesus’ Higher Institute for the Arts of New Life for this year. This is the Mystery of discipleship that we all strive to achieve.