Homily Church of Our Lady of Damascus, Valletta, April 16, 2010 المسيح قام! حقا قام! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Dear brothers and sisters, In this Easter time, and on the occasion of the Apostolic Visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict the sixteenth, our beloved Holy Father, it is my pleasure and my honour to bring greetings to Malta from Damascus, the city of Saint Paul. Here, the Apostle came arriving from Syria; here, he was the first to preach the Gospel of Christ, on his way to Rome, where he was to give testimony of his faith and of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. After the three-month stay of Saint Paul in Malta, mentioned in chapter 28 of the Acts of the Apostles, between the Middle East and Rome, we have a continuous history of relations between the Middle East countries of Syria and Lebanon with this country. We have the relations of the language, with so many Arabic elements in your national language. The most beautiful link between Damascus and Malta is the precious icon of Our Lady of Damascus, the "Theotokos Damaskini", venerated in this church of Valletta. In Damascus, too, we have a Melkite Greek Catholic parish with a beautiful church under the patronage, precisely, of Our Lady of Damascus, where we can find a copy of your icon, which was brought here by the Knights of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known now as the Sovereign Order of Malta.
For many years, the guardian and custos of the icon was the beloved Papàs Vito Borgia, now retired in his native Sicily. I am sure that you will be glad to know that I have just appointed him an Archimandrite of the Patriarchate of Antioch. His successor, your present parish priest, recently appointed by His Grace the Archbishop of Malta, is the Right Reverend Archimandrite Monsignor George Mifsud Montanaro, my friend and today my concelebrant, who was appointed a Protonotary Apostolic by the Venerable Pope John Paul II, and also is a Conventual Chaplain of the Sovereign Order of Malta. I wish him a fruitful ministry among the Greek Catholic faithful of this country. And, since he was ordained a priest of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Saint John of Acre, in the Holy Land, forty years ago, on December 20, 1969, as well as to express the great esteem of the whole Melkite Greek Catholic Church, today I give him the Patriarchal Cross of Jerusalem. He is worthy of it, indeed! In Syria, in Lebanon and in Malta, we share our common faith in Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord and Saviour. Saint Paul is our common teacher, after Jesus. The Jubilee Year of Saint Paul, 2008-2009, was a very wonderful occasion to deeper and deeper understand the whole teaching of the Apostle, so close to the teaching of Jesus. In fact, the "Gospel of Paul" is the result of his personal experience of the Gospel of Jesus. We intend to emphasize the presence of Saint Paul in Damascus, the city of his baptism and of his first preachings, through the foundation of a museum about the Apostle, installed in our Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate. In front of the icon of Our Lady of Damascus, we pray for peace in the Middle East, a lasting peace, which is so necessary for the future human generations. We pray, especially, for a real solution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, for an end
of that conflict, after 62 years, to give the young generations more space for love, for good news and for hope. We pray, also, for us to keep a strong faith and for its preservation, to allow the Christian presence in the Holy Land and in the whole Middle East to continue, because we have to give testimony of our faith in front of and among our Moslem and other non-christian fellow citizens. The Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, invoked and venerated both in Damascus and in Malta, will certainly unite us, to put the Holy Gospel in practice in our lives, in our society and in our world, to be able to face the big challenges that we all have to live with Patriarchs, Bishops, Priests, Knights, lay leaders, fathers and mothers and to transmit the deposit of our faith, in which we grew in the past, to our children, to our successors, to the new generations, with a new look and a new strength. + Gregorios III Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, of Alexandria and of Jerusalem
To the Maltese members of the Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem April 17, 2010 المسيح قام! حقا قام! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! If I am here today with you, dear Maltese members of the Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, it is, first, because your Grand Prior, His Excellency Doctor Joseph Pace, did invite me, in my quality as Spiritual Protector of the Order; and, second, because, on the occasion of the Apostolic Visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, I considered I had to bring greetings to Malta from Damascus, the city of the baptism of Saint Paul, the Apostle who came to Malta from Syria in his way to Sicily and Rome. Around the Mediterranean Sea, there is a circle of cultures, of civilizations and faiths, with its main origin in the Greek culture, which Alexander the Great did spread in the whole Middle East, then was baptized through our Fathers in the Faith, especially the Cappadocian Fathers, and later, with the coming of Islam, was translated into Arabic through our ancestors, the Christians of the Middle East, and so, we, the Christians of the Arab countries, we are a part of the Arabic civilization. Later on, when Islam arrived to Spain, the Arabs brought their legacy of the Greek culture with them and allow Latin and Germanic Europe to enlarge and deepen contacts with the Greek culture, the Eastern Christian culture and the Arabic Islamic culture. This is a wonderful circle of culture and civilization which is, also, an invitation to continue, in the cities and countries of the
Mediterranean area, the circle of dialogue, of cooperation and of solidarity. So we have, Ladies and Gentlemen, a common responsibility to be straight and strong in our Christian faith and to promote a really human being, in deep relation with God and with his and our brothers ans sisters, with their own lives and cultures, so as to avoid any clash of civilizations, by promoting, instead, the encounter, exchange and dialogue of cultures and religions. This is why I have created centres called "Al-Liqaa" an Arabic word which means "encounter" in Egypt and in Syria, and now I am building a new and bigger one in Lebanon; here I have a few leaflets about that project. In such a prospect, we consider that the Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem and its members have a very special task: to continue this communion between East and West through the many services the "diakonia" that the Order is offering and giving in several countries of the world, to help human beings in need. Here, I should like also to mention the project of hospital that I am building in Khabab, in a very poor area of Southern Syria, which is the "Arabia" where, according to the Acts of the Apostles, the recently converted Paul stayed after he ran away from Damascus. In fact, Lazarus, the poor man of the Gospel (different from the brother of Martha and Mary, the friend of Jesus, who is the Patron of our Order), is always at the door of rich people, waiting for their love and help. So, we have a common mission of faith and at the same time a social mission, which is based upon our holy faith. To conclude, let me thank all the Knights and Dames of the Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem in Malta for all the services they are giving to fulfil their mission and to help us to fulfil ours,
that is to continue and strengthen the Christian presence in the Middle East. + Gregorios III Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, ndria and of Jerusalem of Alexa