وجبـــــــة روحيـــــ(†)ــــــــــة يوميـــــــــة

[Mary Naeem]

ومن شقوق الصخور.
لأن عينيّ على كل طرقهم.
لم تستتر عن وجهي،
ولم يختفِ إثمهم من أمام عينيّ
وأعاقب إثمهم وخطيتهم ضعفين،
لأنهم دنسوا أرضي،
وبجثث مكرهاتهم ورجاساتهم قد ملأوا ميراثي" [16-18].
التشبيه الخاص بدعوة صيادي سمك للصيد بين شعب يهوذا شائع كما في (حز 12: 13؛ 29: 4-5؛ عا 4: 2، حب 1: 14-17). وأيضًا صيادي الحيوانات الذين يصطادون حتى من شقوق الصخور كان معروفًا، كما جاء في (عا 9: 1-4).
يقصد بالتشبيهين أن عيني الله تنظران إلى كل شيء حتى ما يبدو مخفيًا في وسط البحار أو في شقوق الصخور، وأنه لا بُد من المجازاة عن الشر أينما اُرتكب.
يرى كثير من الدارسين أن تقسيم العدو الذي يسبي البلاد إلى صيادي سمك وصيادي وحوش، وذكره أنه يعاقب إثمهم وخطيتهم ضعفين، إشارة إلى السبي على دفعتين عاميّ 598، 587 ق.م، بهذا السبي الذي تم على مرحلتين انتهت حياة الأمة تمامًا.
الجزافون (صيادو السمك) والقانصون (صيادو الوحوش)
الجازفون في رأي العلامة أوريجينوس هم تلاميذ السيد المسيح، صيادوا السمك، الذين اصطادوا النفوس ودخلوا بها إلى شبكة الكنيسة الملقاه في بحر هذا العالم لتعيش كالسمك الصغير مع السمكة الكبيرة "المسيح نفسه". أما القانصون فهم الملائكة الذين يجتذبون المؤمنين الذين صاروا كالجبال والأكمة وتمتعوا بشقوق الصخور فصار لهم حق اللقاء مع عريسهم السماوي في اليوم الأخير.

[Mary Naeem]

"وأعاقب إثمهم وخطيتهم ضعفين،
لأنهم دنسوا أرضي،
وبجثث مكرهاتهم ورجاساتهم قد ملأوا ميراثي" [18].
يرى البعض أن الكلمة العبرية misnehالتي تترجم عادة ضعفين double يمكن أن تفهم بمعنى معادل equialent. هذا التعادل يحدث بأنهم دنسوا أرض الله بالآلهة التي بلا حياة، وكأنها جثث ميتة، لذا سقط عابدوها في الموت وأُلقيت جثثهم على الأرض لتدنس الأرض عينها التي دنسوها أثناء حياتهم بعبادتهم للأوثان (راجع إش 47: 6).
يقول العلامة أوريجينوس: [إن كلمة "أولًا" موجودة هنا فعلًا في موضعها الصحيح، لأن جزاء الإثم يكون "أولًا" ثم يأتي من بعده جزاء الخير. فإن الله لا يوزع الجزاءات بالترتيب العكسي. لأنه لو كان قد أعطى جزاء الخير أولًا لكان يجب أن تتوقف أعمال الخير حتى يمكننا أن نعاقب على الإثم. لكنه يُجازي الآن عن الخطية، حتى إذا انتهت الخطايا، تنتهي أيضًا عقوباتها، وبعد ذلك يجازي الله عن أعمال الخير. كذلك تجد في الكتاب المقدس أن الله يتحدث "أولًا" عن الأشياء التي تبدو أكثر حزنًا ثم يذكر بعد ذلك الأشياء الأفضل منها: "أنا أميت وأحيي، سحقت وإني أشفي" (تث 32: 39). "لأنه هو يجرح ويعصب، يسحق ويداه تشفيان" (أي 5: 18). لذلك فالإنسان الذي يفهم هذه الكلمات ويدرك معنى "عقاب الخطية أولًا" يمكنه أن يقول مع المرتل: "يا رب من يسكن في مسكنك، من يحل في جبل قدسك؟ السالك بلا عيب، والفاعل البر، والتكلم بالحق في قلبه، الذي لا يغش بلسانه ولا يصنع بقريبه سوءًا، ولا يحمل تعيير على جيرانه. فاعل الشر مرذول أمامه. ويمجد الذين يتقون الرب" (مز 14)] .

[Mary Naeem]

It is not an easy task for anyone to describe the glory of the Mother of God. It is also extremely difficult to put into words the virtues and holiness of the Living Temple of God, namely the Holy Theotokos.
Now, let us investigate what the Bible says concerning the Theotokos. In Genesis, the first Book of the Old Testament, God promised Adam and Eve that from a virgin the Saviour of mankind shall be born, when He says to the serpent: “Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and all the brutes of the earth, on thy breast and belly thou shalt go, and thou shalt eat earth all the days of thy life. And Ι will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed, he shall watch against thy head, and thou shalt watch against his heel” (Gen. 3:l5-l6). This promise is called “Protoevangelio” (the first Good News) because it is the first message that God gave man concerning the salvation of mankind. The virgin will give birth without having a relationship with a man, and the Child will crush the head of the invisible enemy, namely Satan. The image of the heel is used by God to prophesy the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of our Lord.

[Mary Naeem]

In the Book of Daniel we have the prophesy concerning the seedless, or immacu*late, conception خ؟f Christ, “Whereas thou sawest that a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands, (and it beat to pieces the earthenware, the خ¯د„on, the brass, the silver, the gold: the great God has made known to the king what must happen hereafter: and the dream is true, and the interpretation thereof sure)” (Dan. 2:45). The most significant prophesies concerning the Birth of our Saviour are made by the Prophet Isaiah, “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel” (Is. 7:l4).

[Mary Naeem]

In the Old Testament the خ،atriarch Jacob sees in his dream a heavenly ladder which connected Heaven and Earth, with the Angels of God ascending and descending this ladder. The Fathers of the Orthodox Church see this ladder as a prophecy of the Virgin Mary which, through her, connects man to God (Gen. 28:l2). When Moses finds him*self in front of the flaming bush which was not consumed by the fire on Mount Sinai, the fact that the Theotokos was to receive in her womb all the Divine خ‌ature of God the Logos, and that she was to remain a Virgin, are prophesied.

[Mary Naeem]

The parents of the Theotokos were Joachim and Anna. They were unable to have children, because Anna was sterile, but they never ever stopped praying and believing that God would grant them a child.
The yearning for a child in faith of St. Anna was very great and for this reason God sent His Angel at the time when St. Anna was praying in her garden, to announce the joyful news that she was to have a child. According to Holy Tradition, the trees and plants bowed down when the holy Angel appeared. (The Theotokos was not immaculately conceived. The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about the Theotokos is wrong. Because the Theotokos was conceived in a normal, human way and so she was born with the original sill).

[Mary Naeem]

The entire life of the Virgin Mary was spotless and holy. When She was 3 years old when her parents presented and dedicated her to God in the Temple, where She remained in the Holy of Holies until She was l2. According to Holy Tradition, the Theotokos spent all Her time in this Holy of Holies praying and reading the Holy Scriptures. An Angel of God was feeding her daily during this period.

[Mary Naeem]

The ever-Virgin Mary became worthy tخ؟ become the Mother of God the Logos not only because this was prophesied in the Old Testament, but because She Herself was struggling for sanctification. God, knowing before all ages Her purity, chose Her to become the Mother of His only-begotten Son..

[Mary Naeem]

The Theotokos was cleansed from original sin at the Annunciation of the Arch*angel Gabriel. When the Virgin Mary accepted, of Her own free will, to bear the Logos, the Holy Spirit cleansed Her soul from the guiltiness of the original sin. According tخ؟ the words of the Archangel Gabriel when He says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke l:35). From that moment God the Logos was incarnated in the womb of the ever-Virgin Mary, the Theotokos. Because She was sanctified, the Virgin Mary was now incapable of sinning, regardless of Her own free will. Further, just as man fell and died through a virgin who disobeyed, he was revived tخ؟ new life through the Virgin who was obedient tخ؟ the Word of God (St. Irenaeus).

[Mary Naeem]

According tخ؟ the Orthodox Church, the Theotokos was a virgin before She gave birth, when She was bringing Christ intخ؟ this world, and after the Birth, she remains a Virgin forever. For this reason, in Orthodox Iconography, three stars are placed on the Theotokos: one on each of the shoulders and a third one on the forehead. خ’y these stars is expressed the Orthodox dخ؟ctrine concerning the virginity of the Theotokos. It is blasphemous for anyone tخ؟ say that the Theotokos had other children with St. Joseph; these blasphemies come from impious heretics. St. Joseph, the pro*tector of the Theotokos, was a widower and was marخ®ed before and had 6 children: 4 boys, namely James, Joseph, Simon and Judas, as well as 2 daughters (Matt. l3: 55*56).