We did not fall asleep on Saturday night, April 13, and this is normal since the love for our country, Jordan, made us sleepless, at a time when we were praying all night-long pleading with the Almighty God to save our country from any harm. We, in Jordan, are not familiar with the sounds of planes and the dropping of materials flying in the sky. In the end, we say: Praise be to God for the safety of the homeland which was fulfilled with the determination of the leader, His Majesty King Abdullah II, and all those who sit up with him and join him with the intention to ensure the homeland’s security and stability.
On that sleepless night, I went back in time years ago, when I had a private meeting with Dr. Ma’rouf Al-Bakhit, may his soul rest in peace. He told me about a night in March during the Arab Spring at a time when tension and fear greatly gripped our beloved country. He said to me, “Be sure, Fr. Rif’at, that any Jordanian who loves Jordan was sleepless that night. We feared for our country and we strived to spare it any harm.”
This is another similar night, during which we were sleepless, and we realized that our love for our country, our homeland, its soil, its water, its sacred river, its national unity, its historic Hashemite leadership, its sanctities, its air, and its skies are neither a poem nor poetry and patriotic songs that we merely sing on national occasions. It is rather a sincere love represented by our fear for Jordan, before our fear for ourselves. Furthermore, the prayers and supplications that were lifted up at the dawn of the blessed Sunday, during the Lenten Season of fasting, were answered by the Merciful God. Praise be to God for the safety of the homeland, and praise be to God for our national unity and our great love for our sacred homeland.
We greatly expand our love for our homeland, and this does not forestall us from extending our love to our universe in which we live, within the extended human family to whom we belong. We are greatly pained, before anything else, that the wound of Gaza is still deep, the blood of our brethren continues to seep on daily basis, the occupation is still persistent, while the world has not stopped its quest for a radical solution to this central issue, whose solution would lead to security and stability in the entire world. His Majesty King Abdullah II always says: “Peace in Jerusalem is the key to peace in the region, and in the world.”
I, furthermore, proceed to Australia, where I am pained as is the case with everyone who had the same feeling with stabbed Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, who an influential figure in his homilies and postings on social media. A youth comes from a different area, according to the Australian police, and travels while keeping with him a knife and attacks the bishop with several stab wounds while he was preaching in the church about love. May God heal the bishop from the wounds afflicting his body, as well as heal this young man and the likes from the mental wounds caused by hatred and improper upbringing.
This is the current global panorama, namely conflagrations among several countries, and fires erupting in the chests that conceal deep-seated hatred which materializes in heinous and ugly acts of terrorism. But, the fire of love that erupts in many people will prevail in the end, for the goodness always prevails, no matter how great the forces of evil are and no matter how tyrant, dominant, and vociferous they are.
In the end, our love for our country is truly our right... and our love for the extended human family makes us pray for it every morning, so that the fires of hatred raging between them would be extinguished, and the lieu of that the fires of love would be lit, for it is worthy to attain the betterment of the world, God willing.
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