On life (118) – ”Hermit” – 20/3/2016

   Reposed Pope Shenouda III, 117th patriarch, said, “Always remember you are a stranger on earth and you will return to your heavenly home.” These words always echo in our ears, for they have been the secret of many people’s greatness and triumph. Also, forsaking them is the reason for many people’s defeat. When man realizes that he is a stranger in this world and that, some day, he will leave it, he will not be attracted to its allures and conflicts. Rather, he will be drawn to it through a stream of love and bounteousness. Hence, the precious things he strives to attain will be linked to his destination, not to his journey. These are love, mercy, and justice.

   If you live abroad, you will see matters differently, and, thus, react to situations differently. Only the smart will know that conflicts avail nothing. Collaboration will be the recipe of a better life. They will help others, not conspire against them.

   In like manner, when one realizes that his life is a journey that is sure to end, his goal will differ. He will not preoccupy himself with trivialities. Nor will he accumulate worldly riches. Rather, he will gather whatever helps him secure his life in his heavenly abode where one will never use money, talents, position, or education. He will only benefit by his good deeds in which he utilized his knowledge and potential.

   As one proceeds toward his heavenly home, his perspective of pain becomes different: for he considers pain temporary. Thus, he endures it patiently. Likewise, he will see joy as a temporary situation, and the true joy is that which is linked to his heavenly abode.

   This is not a call to seclude yourself from the world, but to live in it freely and happily. Thus was Pope Shenouda’s life. He lived in the world, but the world did not live within him. His poem, “Hermit” is quite expressive of this meaning:

I am a hermit who roams in a wilderness so vast

with no monastery, I live as an outcast.

No fence there is, fences imprison my mind

I am bird soaring so high, I have no nest of a kind.

I am free, I wander the world and rove

I am free to sleep, walk and hurriedly move.

General Bishop

Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center