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IN THE WILDERNESS AND QUIETNESS

By H.H Pope Shenouda III



Amidst the hustle and bustle of life, with its many worries, how beautiful it is for one to devote even a little time, to sit with God, in an atmosphere of contemplation, prayer and open his heart to the Lord.

Here one resorts to calmness and quietness...It is appropriate, when talking to God, to be alone with

Him...For this reason, God moved Abraham from his own country and people, to the mountain where he became alone with God...There, he had to build the Altar...In the seclusion of the Holy Mountain, Moses spent forty days alone with God, till he took the Law and the Commandments and the instructions on how to build the tabernacle. Also, in the seclusion of the mountain, the Lord Jesus met with His Disciples and sometimes He took them to an isolated place...The prophet Elijah, was trained in the quietness of Mount

Carmel. John the Baptist, was brought up in the wilderness for thirty years. The Prophets were also trained in quietness and calmness. Moses, before he became a prophet and was chosen by God for

leadership, spent forty years in quietness. He stayed far from Pharaoh's palace, with all its clamour and politics...The Lord Jesus Himself, in spite of the unlimited tranquility deep within Him and the eternal relationship with the Father, set the example for us by staying alone on the mountain for forty days in a state of quietness with the Father, before He started His public ministry. The mountain had its place and position in the life of the Lord, as goes the beautiful saying of the Bible, "And everyone went to

his own house. But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives" (John 8:1).

The garden of Gethsemane was a place of quietness as calmness for Christ, where He spent periods of deep contemplation. Mary, the sister of Martha, was an example of the life of quietness, sitting calmly at the Lord's feet. As for her busy and worried sister, who was far from the life of quietness, the Lord

rebuked her by saying, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed..." (Luke 10:40-41). Then, will you search for the Centre of quietness in your life?

Are you worried and troubled about many things... When will you calm down ... ? When?

Today’s Synaxarium: Thoout 3, 1729



§ Assembly of Ecclesiastical Council in Alexandria to refute those who believed that the soul dies with the body

§ Great Earthquake in Cairo and Most of Egyptian Cities