Sermon of Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rai
Bkerki - Sunday October 27, 2019
“All that you have done to one of these young brethren, to me you have done it” (Matthew 40:25).
1. On this last Sunday of the liturgical year, the Church celebrates the feast of Christ the King, who will come to glory at the end of time, "to judge the living and the dead", as we proclaim in the Credo. In the evening of life, He will judge us for love towards our fellow human beings in their various material, economic, moral and spiritual needs. He declares that He is identified with every human being in need and calls his little brother: “All you have done to one of these young brothers, for me you have done” (Matthew 40:25).
2. The six cases in which the Lord Jesus expresses the need of every human being: hunger, thirst, nudity, alienation, disease and imprisonment, are not limited to the material and economic level, but also to the spiritual, moral and cultural level.
The hungry needs bread and food, as well as education and work. Thirsty needs water, justice, dignity and basic rights. The naked needs a dress, shoes and housing, as well as a job, status and role in his community. The stranger is living in a country other than his homeland, and he also lives the bitterness of alienation in his homeland, which does not allow him to stimulate his abilities, and does not involve him in his development, living the bitterness of marginalization, neglect and exclusion. The prisoner is the prisoner behind the iron bars, and he is a prisoner of injustice, tyranny, oppression and arrogance of influential people and those holding the decision and the functioning of constitutional institutions and public administrations.
3. The Lebanese people, with their children, youth, adults and women, whose positive and reformist revolution has been living in spontaneous demonstrations for eleven days, have been on the roads in all Lebanese regions and in the countries of proliferation, because it suffers from these six cases materially and morally. These peaceful, civilized demonstrators are not perceived as supernatural, reckless or politicized. Their uprising cannot be diverted to partisan conflict or to destructive ideological goals. It is indeed a phenomenon that the Lebanese people, under the banner of Lebanon, in the various cities and towns of Lebanon, are uniting around their national demands for dignity and social justice, rejecting the faltering financial and economic reality, and demanding a government that inspires confidence.
This scene confirms to all that our historical national culture is the culture of freedom and a decent life, in the state of citizenship that is inclusive of diversity. There is no room here to intimidate or to betray our young people who sacrifice in order to correct political practice so that it is impartial, fair and transparent. The culture of coexistence that characterizes Lebanon is based on three values: freedom, pluralism and human dignity. Consequently, no authority that is neither a guarantor nor a servant of these values is legitimate. In our Lebanese constitution, the people are the source of authority and the basis of their legitimacy. Therefore, political power cannot ignore it; it must listen to its demands and interact with it before it is too late. The cry of the demonstrators is that, for eleven days: the formation of a new government in all its aspects, miniature and impartial, and composed of personalities known for their competencies, and be the focus of public confidence, and agreed in advance to prevent the vacuum, to work on the reform paper announced by the Prime Minister on 21 October The first one, which the demonstrators accept but do not trust that the current government is capable of implementing it, has spent two years after the Cedar Conference to write it, and has not yet undertaken any reform required from this conference to take advantage of the money allocated to help the economic renaissance in Lebanon.
This reform paper considered by His Excellency the President of the Republic in his speech on 24 October, "the first step to save Lebanon and the specter of financial and economic collapse," and stressed "the need to review the current government reality to this end." We call on all concerned political forces to heed the call of His Excellency the President and the repeated cry of the people.
4. Our political system in Lebanon is democratic, not dictatorial, pluralistic, non-monolithic, national, not sectarian, and its people are the source of power (cf. the introduction to the constitution, c and d). No one reduces the people and imposes his opinion or will on him.
Politicians, as you were looking for the satisfaction of the people and their voice at the time of the elections, now search for this people and what pleases him, lest you lose his confidence once and for all. Do not neglect this national uprising so as not to grow larger and derail its positive national path, by the saboteurs hired into the gown.
You, the uprising, have preserved the morality of your uprising, and do not fall into the experience of partisan and sectarian conflicts. Facilitate the right of citizens to move and pass in order to meet their needs, and do not appear as the masters of public roads that belong to all. They responded to the Lebanese army and security forces whose efforts we salute and value their wisdom. I invite you, together with all the faithful, to stand at 5:30 pm every day to recite the Rosary of Our Lady, our last and most powerful weapon. To respond to your prayers and to the prayers of all those of good will, and to the conscience of political officials and to inspire them in the way to get Lebanon out of this very serious crisis on its fate. The "Arab Spring" of this "Arab Spring" will not come to us if we all act with consciousness and wisdom.
5. All these demonstrators are, in the light of the Gospel of the day, the “little brothers of Jesus” (Matthew 29:25): “His brothers” because he is in solidarity with them in their diverse sorrow, expressed in their cry. Like them, he tasted poverty, need, injustice, rejection, and exclusion, and united them through his sufferings, "and he gave their sufferings a salvific value" (Col 1:24). In addition “young” because he is “the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 28: 9). He is so special to them that those who serve them and fulfill their needs and take them out of their suffering, which they have been expressing for eleven days, but Christ serves the Lord Himself who says: "All you have done to one of these little brothers, let you do it" (Matthew 40:25).
You political leaders in Lebanon, you are called to this honorable act to meet the needs of our people and youth through love that frees you first from the families of your interests, calculations, preconceptions, narrow interpretations and analyzes. You will be condemned by God and history for your love for your people. Be at the level of this honorable vocation that shares with you the kingship of Christ, the kingship of love, truth, social justice and peace.
6. In this holy sacrifice, we elevate our prayers to Christ the King so that every official may be brought to the tops of the Spirit, and our people will strengthen in their struggle for love to prevail, truth will prevail, and social justice will be achieved, glorifying the One and Trinity God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and forever, Amen. .