In these days, we all pray, and implore God to have mercy on us all. O God, we all are your creature, the work of your hands. We all are your children.

Barriers fell in front of the great calamity. We began to see our truth, that we all are created by God. We all are brothers and sisters.

It seems that overnight we entered a new world. A pandemia throughout the whole world, the first, second and third world, the world of the rich and the poor, the good people, and less good…

We all in this world have found ourselves alike, in our vulnerability to a new disease. We put ourselves under siege and underwent to the same strict isolating measures, each in his country, his city and his home. Isolation, however it intensified the feeling of universal solidarity. We all opened our eyes to see that we are one humanity, with the same weakness. Isolation, but people came closer, and feel better one the need of the other.

God created us, and entrusted us with the development of the Earth, and today we see that we are still far from completing the divine mission, entrusted to us.

With the “new time”, will a new light enter this our land, new humanity, new hearts and new minds, able to see that God’s land belongs first to its Creator, and secondly to all its inhabitants and ceases to be a land of death?

What is important in the new time is that it is an introduction to a new life, even if the road to life is difficult. Death will go. Life will remain, to those who seek it.

The strict measures imposed upon us all are not to sow fear in the souls, but rather to direct us towards our human truth, towards more faith. The believer welcomes reality as it is, he takes the necessary measures, continues to live, to believe, to be patient, even if hunger will appear.

These are days when the believer should listen often to the word of Our Lord Jesus Christ: “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid” (Jn 14: 27). These days, the believer says with the Pslamist: “My trust shall not fail, even when I say I am completely wretched” (Ps 115: 10). In difficult times, the believer renews his faith in God Almighty, until the sun will rises again.

Prayer with Psalm 86/87
1 Listen to me, o God, answer me, for I am poor and needy.
2 Guard me, for I am faithful, save your servant who relies on you. You are my God,
3 take pity on me, Lord, for to you I cry all the day.
4 Fill your servant’s heart with joy, Lord, for to you I raise up my heart.
5 Lord, you are kind and forgiving, rich in faithful love for all who call upon you.
6 Yahweh, hear my prayer, listen to the sound of my pleading.
7 In my day of distress I call upon you, because you answer me, Lord.

By: Patriarch Michel Sabbah