Priest Alexandru Lungu
It`s evening. When you read the Paraklesis alone in the church at night, nothing can disturb you. The light from the vigil lamp and candles falls quietly over the Horologion which became old because of the uncountable services read over time. From outside it is heard a dog from far away and the wind pushes the tin from the church. From time to time a late car crushes the icy snow. The floor makes its own prayers under the tired knees where it rests by turns an epitrachelion from the Holy Altar.
My mind goes far away. I would get into a car and wished I would try to take part at the rescue mission that has been carried on for a few days in Turkey and Syria. But in my job`s description is written something else and my mind comes back to prayer. Holy Mother of God have mercy on us. What does God feel seeing so much suffering on earth? Wars, injustices, an endless rush after money, all kinds of calamities. When it rains for long days I imagine God crying. These days His tears turned into snowflakes. I was so much moved emotionally by the images with that little girl who was protecting her brother under a concrete block of flats. But what could I say about the mother who gave birth to a baby under the weight of the walls and in the end gave her life ? Martyr in heaven is any mother who dies for giving birth.
No doctrine can make me believe something else. What about those rescuers who cried full of enthusiasm at every child taken out of the ruins of the buildings. I wonder if their value is measured at other standards than those which we use when we judge narrowly from a sofa these days. Since when is there anything beyond a life? Is religion a bridge to the others or an impassable abyss?
I end the prayer and feel a peace. God is over all of us, even beyond religion. He is our Father, not only of the Christians or of the Muslims, He doesn`t belong only to the peoples from Africa or the remote America, He belongs to the universe. No man is less precious on earth than another one. Not even a flower withers without His knowledge. This is my faith and I can`t deny it.
