{"id":35447,"date":"2020-06-10T10:39:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T10:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=35447"},"modified":"2020-06-10T10:39:13","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T10:39:13","slug":"syrian-archbishop-says-he-can-still-find-happiness-despite-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2020\/06\/10\/syrian-archbishop-says-he-can-still-find-happiness-despite-destruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Syrian Archbishop says He can still find happiness, despite destruction"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Despite being surrounded by war, persecution and destruction, the archbishop of war-torn Aleppo in Syria says that he\u2019s still able to find happiness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWorking for the Lord fills my life with meaning and gives me a solid reason for being,\u201d wrote Archbishop Jean-Cl\u00e9ment Jeanbart in a Pentecost message.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">His reflection is titled \u201cI am Happy,\u201d seemingly a contradiction, as he begins by listing the many reasons why he cannot feel this way: \u201cFrankly, there is no reason to be happy with everything that has happened to us for almost ten years. It is quite obvious that I cannot be happy thinking of the hundreds of thousands of victims who have disappeared because of this senseless and savage war that ravaged our poor country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Jeanbart said he cannot be happy seeing the endless destruction of houses and infrastructure, just like he cannot feel joy seeing the harm done to his people by depriving them of schools, hospitals, most of their heritage, their daily livelihood, their factories and workshops.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Nor can he be happy seeing the wound left by the \u201cdisappearance of dozens of abducted or murdered faithful, including two of my fellow bishops and several priests,\u201d whom he still remembers, much as it \u201cleaves my heart in pain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He\u2019s referring to the April 22, 2013 kidnapping of Bishops Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yaziji, whose fate remains shrouded in mystery, much like the disappearance of Italian missionary Father Paolo Dall\u2019Oglio.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe sight of our destroyed churches in addition to the structures of our deteriorated and demolished social and cultural institutions obviously makes me suffer a lot,\u201d Jeanbart writes. \u201cI am particularly saddened by the thought of all the sacrifice, effort and hard work put into constructing each of these vital and precious institution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Being happy over this would be like saying he\u2019s joyful at the sight of \u201cthe labor of a lifetime suddenly collapsing before my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Jeanbart\u2019s reflection come as the multi-sided civil war in Syria marks its ninth year. The war involves both domestic and foreign forces and helped give birth to the self-proclaimed as Islamic State, which perpetrated a genocide against Christians and other minorities both in Syria and neighboring Iraq.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As the archbishop noted in his message, Pentecost represents \u201cthe confirmation of the Apostles and the baptism of the first Christians of Syria,\u201d reason why, despite the many reasons against it, he \u201ccannot help going out,\u201d and \u201cloudly and shamelessly\u201d proclaim \u201cI am happy!\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cHappy first of all, because during this despicable war, I found in my everyday life the Lord,\u201d Jeanbart wrote, noting that never before in his life had he felt as confident in and close to God as he has during this time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He also feels happy because amidst so much suffering, he\u2019s been able to discover in each of his faithful the \u201ccharity which challenges\u201d &#8211; that he\u2019d often spoken about in many homilies and meditations, but that \u201cday after day,\u201d has become a concrete reality for him &#8211; \u201ca fertile and moving reality, lived with joy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The archbishop said he is also happy because he\u2019s recently been able to reassure the faithful about their future, in part thanks to the \u201ccontinuous help of friends and benefactors.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/donate\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35305 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button-300x44.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"44\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button-300x44.jpg 300w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button-580x85.jpg 580w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button-600x88.jpg 600w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button.jpg 627w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite being surrounded by war, persecution and destruction, the archbishop of war-torn Aleppo in Syria says that he\u2019s still able to find happiness. \u201cWorking for the Lord fills my life with meaning and gives me a solid reason for being,\u201d wrote Archbishop Jean-Cl\u00e9ment Jeanbart in a Pentecost message. His reflection is titled \u201cI am Happy,\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Syrian Archbishop says He can still find happiness, despite destruction - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2020\/06\/10\/syrian-archbishop-says-he-can-still-find-happiness-despite-destruction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Syrian Archbishop says He can still find happiness, despite destruction - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Despite being surrounded by war, persecution and destruction, the archbishop of war-torn Aleppo in Syria says that he\u2019s still able to find happiness. \u201cWorking for the Lord fills my life with meaning and gives me a solid reason for being,\u201d wrote Archbishop Jean-Cl\u00e9ment Jeanbart in a Pentecost message. 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