Interviews with Father Wadid
Transcript
(Translated by Servants of various parishes in the Coptic Orthodox Church)
Interviews with Father Wadid
Saint Macarius Monastery, Egypt
"Father Matta el Maskine 1919-2006"
This sign is erected near his tomb at the entrance of the path that leads to his tomb. He was born September 20th, 1919 in the city of Banha. In 1948 he became a monk in the monastery of Anba Samuel. He later went to El-Sourian Monastery.
He was the papal deputy in Alexandria, then he returned to the monastery of Anba Samuel then again to El-Sourian Monastery and finally he spent 10 years with several disciples in caves at Wadi Rayyan between 1960 and 1969.
In 1969, Pope Cyril VI asked him to come restore and renovate the monastery of Saint Macarius. He came that year and restored the buildings, the historical monuments of the monastery he expanded the borders of the monastery, he planted a lot the current area reaches 2,700 acres.
This is close to 1,100 hectares andthe number of monks when father Matta el Maskine arrived, was not more than six old monks of whom two were blind, one paralyzed while currently, the number of monks reaches one hundred and thirty monks.
He brought to the monastic life the spirit of the early fathers of the desert.
He wrote much, as he composed more than 420 works, amongst some were biblical exegesis, spiritual writings, and theological writings, some that were translated into many languages.
He returned the bosom of the Father June 8th, 2006, and he was buried in the location he wished to be, as he told his spiritual sons. He lived and died a simple monk, having received no ecclesiastical dignity. May his prayers be with us all, amen.
So, how did the body of John the Baptist arrive here?
We know that John the Baptist was martyred by Herod during the life of Jesus in Jerusalem and his body was protected and kept at Jerusalem with that of Elisha the prophet.
In the 4th century, that of Saint Athanasius the Great, the body of John the Baptist was transported with that of Elisha the prophet to Alexandria.
One Saint Athanasius' successors, Theophilos of Alexandria built a large cathedral for them in the 5th century in Alexandria. We know where it is located. The relics of both John the Baptist and Elisha remained in that cathedral in Alexandria until the Middle-Ages. In the Middle-Ages the Pope of Alexandria, and all the Coptic Church was under severe persecution and the Pope was forced to flee, to leave the papal seat in Alexandria to seek refuge in the monastery of Saint Macarius. During nearly two hundred years in the Middle-Ages, our monastery was papal seat of the Coptic Church.
At the time the Pope left the papal seat in Alexandria, all precious items were hastily carried out of the patriarchate: the manuscripts for sure and the relics.
It's precisely those relics that we have found here in this vault. It's not only the bodies of John the Baptist and Elisha, but also all the relics of the great Church of Alexandria, which included a large number of martyrs. And it's these relics that we have found in this vault in 1976 and we have built this shrine to place them.. ceratinly now we have closed the church, and we have no workers working in it. We, ourselves, the monks who have exhumed the relics and this shrine also was built by the monks who placed the relics in it here.
Who was Elisha the prophet in history?
Elisha was the disciple of Elijah. We know that Elijah was carried up to Heaven on a firey chariot and that he dropped his mantle for Elisha who succeeded him as the great prophet. For sure we do not have the relics of Elijah since he ascended to the heavens with his body however, the relics of Elisha were kept in Jerusalem. During the first centuries of Christianity, the body of John the Baptist was kept by the Disciples who became Christians and who kept it next to the body of Elisha where they both stayed in Jerusalem until the 4th century as I told you.
For the church who protects the relics of the early saints, these relics represent for her the communion which we have and which we preserve with the early Christian communities; with the era of the martyrs, with the early monks. We also have in this Church, the relics of Saint Macarius -- Saint Macarius the Great and Saint Macarius of Alexandria his disciple and contemporary.
We also have in a nearby Church, that of the forty nine martyrs, the relics of forty nine monks who were martyred in the 5th century. The relics of these monk martyrs are very dear to our community why? Because precisely they are the link between the saints.. the normal saints and the martyred saints, in other words, between the order of the monks and the order of the martyrs; they are monks who became martyrs.
We need to explain that perfection for a monk is the same as perfection for a martyr.
We are told that Saint Antony, the founder of the monastic life had a secret desire to die as a martyr and that he went to Alexandria in the times of persecution to be taken and captured with the martyrs. However, as says his biographer Saint Athanasius the Great, the Lord has protected him in order to become for many generations the master of the ascetic life which he had learned by the Holy Scriptures.
However, the persecutions having ended. He returned to his cave and there, day after day, says his biographer, he offered himself as a martyr for the Lord.
We have to know that the monastic life had not started to become to prosper until after the end of the persecutions. When it was no longer possible to die as a martyr because there was no persecutors, the most fervant Christians went to the desert to live for the Lord, to offer their lives to the Lord. When it was no longer possible to die for the love of the Lord, at least it was possible to live for His love and offer Him our lives. This is the essence of the monastic life.
It's to tell you why these relics of the forty nine monks who were martyred are so dear to us, because these monks who have perfected their monastic calling and the successors of the martyrs.
It's a way to fully consecrate oneself to the service of the Lord. We can say that the principal verse for a monk is thatthe Lord Jesus Christ had died for us, and therefore, we need to. He died for us so that the living don't live any longer for themselves but for Him Who died for them. Therefore, it's for the love of the Lord that the monks forge into the desert to consecrate themselves to His service, to His praise and the practice of everyone of the commandments of the Gospel, in as perfectly as possible.
Each monk felt a call from God and each one of us has their own little history that they would tell. He came to the monastery feeling that he was called by a higher power that the monk did not come to understand...often the monk would say I dont know how I came here, I don't know, I wouldn't...by my own means I would have never been able to take this step.
However, there is certainly a very deep calling that is given by the Lord Jesus...I stress, it's given because the Lord said in the Gospel specifically about the righteous life: "Not every one can accept these sayings but for those to whom it is given." Therefore it's a gift from God, it's a calling from God.
Since the 4th century, there were always monks here. When father Matta El-Maskine arrived here with his group of monks in 1969, there were already some monks there were six monks of whom two were blind, one was paralyzed and the monastery was about to totally collapse, but the Lord did not allow. Since the 4th century till today, the Lord has not allowed that the praise of God ceases from being raised in this monastery.
As for what meets the eyes, surely there are greater differences: the works we practice are not the ones the Desert Fathers practiced, we don't make mats as they did.
As for ascetism also, we can say that we are not at the same level as the early fathers of the desert in their ascetism...today's human health is not the same as that of the early times.
Nonetheless, on the inside, as what concerns the invisible internal life, it's practically the same calling to which responded Antony, Macarius, Pachom and to which responded today's youth:
It's the same calling, a calling which is always from the Gospel, from the words of Jesus: "If you would like to be perfect, go sell all your goods, give the money to the poor and come and follow me carrying the cross." It's this saying that Saint Antony heard from the mouth of the Lord at Church, says his biographer, and on the spot, he could not stay still, he got up, sold all his belongings, distributed the money to the poor, and went to follow the Lord in the desert. It's the same Gospel verse which continues to call the youth of the 21st century.
In the West, when one chooses a monastery, they choose it because of the rule: a Cistercian, Benedictine or Carthusian monastery or an order such as that of the Franciscans or Dominicans.
It's because of the rule followed in it. Here in the East, it's totally different.
We don't have multiple rules and we none. There are no rules at all. However, when one chooses a monastery, it's because of the spiritual momentum given by the spiritual father: It's the spiritual father who replaces the rule.
The spiritual father is a living rule which evolves from day to day, which adapts to each monk, which develops the monk day by day. What he would say to a novice would not be the same thing he would say after ten years or after 20 years. And he himself would not cease to grow spiritually and to train the community of his followers.
This is what we have lived following father Matta El-Maskine.
Seems like the coptic orthodox live a renewal of the monastic life, we say that the monasteries are refilled, is it father Matta El-Maskine that began this renewal of the monastic life or is it...?
Certainly, he had a considerable role in the progress of this renewal.
Certainly, his example is more important than what is spoken and what is written. His example, his life gave him power, strength to his written work and his words. When we hear him speak and we know that he lived what he said, his words penetrate alot deeper and they are followed, they become more practical.
He wrote alot about the monastic life but mostly about the spiritual life.
Usually, when he talks to us, the monks, he sees through the monks, he sees the whole church and the lay people and it is the same spirituality that is proposed to any christian, that means that he talks to us monks as christians a lot more than us as monks.
It's a little special for the Coptic Church there is no separation between the spirituality of the lay people and that of the monks. There is a Christian spirituality that is followed by everyone.
Like father Matta El-Maskine says, the monastic life is not a particular order, is not a lifestyle,it is not a religious caste but it is simply the christian life that is lived in a serious way. So what he says to the monks applies to all christians.
Also, when you read his books we don't feel like he is only talking to monks, he is talking to all christians and the most important aspect for him is that his monks are christians that live a christian life. This is probably why he quotes a lot of Saint Paul. Why? Because Saint Paul is the one who spoke the most about the christian life, lived like the christian life should be lived, how to live in communion with the Holy Spirit, how to deeply live in Christ. It is very simple and directly revealed from the heart.
There isn't any intellectual complication,if you want to live this way, it comes directly from the heart but it is deep, deep that it needs to be read once, twice, three times and the more we read the books, the more it penetrates. It is probably like the holy scriptures, we are never done reading the same passage of the holy scripture.
Like a psalm.
It penetrates and we discover a new depth. His book, Orthodox Prayer Life, was my favorite book, I read it a hundred, two hundred, or three hundred times, I can't tell but it is like that everytime we need to be lifted, we read a passage and we start to pray.
It is God that can, when we are loyal in our relationship with him that the power of God can truly do all.
Christ said "if you abide in me and my word abides in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be given to you." So a monk that abides in Christ day and night, he is capable to pray and to be lifted. And it is like this that the power of God is manifested. It is true it is very impressive to see in thirty years what has happened here.
Yes, that is the appearance that reflects the inner life of the father Matta El-Maskine taught his disciples.
And it is full of hope?
Yes to the extent that we continue to live this intense inner life so that it continues to reflect the outer appearance.
Can we return on the specificity of the Coptic Orthodox monasteries compared to what we know in the West about the death of God and the absence of all common rules. Can you detail again to us these notions?
Yes, in the West, you have a multitude of rules, a youth who chooses a monastery he chooses it because of the Benedictine, Carthusian, or Cistercian rule, etc... In the East, we don't have a multitude of rules. We don't have rules at all. All the monasteries are simply monasteries.
It's a beautiful monastery. We choose one monastery based on the spiritual life that is imprinted in the monastery by a spiritual father. It's the spiritual father who takes the place of the rule but in a living rule that does not cease to progress himself and that does not cease to adapt to each monk. The monks are very different.
In our community, we have monks that are very different from one another, however, the spiritual father adpats to each one, and guides each one according to his path which would be much more difficult to do with a rule. Additionally, the spiritual father, himself progressing, makes the whole community progress as well as each one of his disciples. What he would say to a disciple today would not be the same thing he would tell him after 10 years. Why? Because the disciple would have progressed and because the father himself would have progressed.
- And you say that everything is commanded for the love of God, and from that love of God.
Certainly it's this love for God that is primordial in the monk's life which means that the monk would not be a monk if he was not attracted, fascinated by the love of Christ.
This is what Father Mina tells us a bit about when he says: "What do we experience in the desert? It's realy the experience of the love of God."
- It's that. It's especially the novice, the young novice, who takes the bigger step between the world and the desert. This big step, no one can take without being violently attracted by the love of God.
- You yourself, if I may, what did you do before entering this monastery Father Wadid?
- I forgot what I did. It was the old man... Now, I am the new man. We say I was an engineer.
- And one day you met father Matta el Maskine and starting from that meeting you had decided to follow him?
- Not exactly, no. I had met Christ since my youth, since the age of 4 or 6 years. I met Christ in a very intimate way and I decided that I would give him my life, and as you can be surprised and intrigued by what pushed me, for me, it's the contrary. I was astonished to see all the people who knew Christ and had not decided to give Him their lives.
But, afterwards, in 1968, I translated the article of Father Matta el Maskine about the Christian Unity.
I went to see him at Waddi Arrayan where he lived to present him my translation and I asked his permission to publish it. It was the first contact with him.
I found in him a great understanding, an openness. He had understood very well what I wanted and I heard him express what I myself felt I had not yet expressed.
- During all those years, you have been very close to Father Matta el Maskine.
Can you describe him to us Westerners and tell us what in him struck you most?
- Here is something that is very difficult to describe a great personality like Father Matta el Maskine in a few words. However if we want to say that the most important aspect he has is that he is someone who love Christ in a very very intense way since his young age, well before entering the monastery. It's what pushed him to enter the monastic life. However, the love of Christ was really beyond words. We can't describe how Father Matta el Maskine loved Christ during his early years of his monastic life. He himself said it in his own biography.
The love of Christ didn't allow me to sleep.
Often, after an hour or two, he would get up feeling his heart beating with love for Christ. This is the primordial thing in the life of Father Matta el Maskine and without knowing this, we can't understand it at all.
In all his teachings, everythign is centered around our relationship with God, our relationship with Christ, our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
He spoke on various topics, but they were always centered on this. He would never talk about a moral teaching or a particular virtue without referencing it directly with our love of Christ.
Once he began a sermon saying, "Today we will talk about lies and the truth." I said to myself internally, "for once, for the first time we will talk about morality."
He started by saying: "Christ said I am the Truth." That makes you understand the tone of the whole sermon.
He always insisted to tell the young monks to, "cultivate a loving relationship with Christ just as a young mand cultivates a love relationship with a girl to whom he is engaged. "That's what he taught the young monks. It is the most important thing he said to young monks. Fasting can be best understood as a manifestation of the love we have for the Lord. Fasting is nota performace where each ascetic attempts to do better than the other. Absolutely not! Fasting is simply the realization of the love we have for the Lord,for this is not an imaginary love.
It is a concrete love, lived. If theLord endured the Cross for us, it is a small matter to fast, it is the least of things done in communion with the Lord, participating with what He has done for us.
It is a traditional idea in the Coptic church that fasting and prayer are the two means by which the monk or the Christian is lifted towards God.
This light of the desert that is portrayed in this vigil, and has been a major part of the traditions of the desert fathers, should this give us a greater sense of hope for all of Christendom?
Since you speak of light, please, allow me to speak of the light, but not necessarily by answering your question.
It's an experience that a novice often receives as well as a young monk. To live several days seeing everything differently. The sky is more blue than usual, the tree leaves are more green than usually, the sun is more beautiful, everything seems enlightened.
It's the internal feeling that God's presence is reflected on the creation such that God's creation and that the entire creation speaks to us about God.
Many of us have lives this experience.
Some spoke intimately of it, others live it in silence, as for me, I can say that I lived it in the early days when I visited Waddi Arrayan.
I used to say to the father there "How beautiful is the sky here! It's impossible!" All nature seems enchanting, as if from fairy tales. But that is nothing more than the reflection of my internal state, the internal light.
The light is Christ Who enlightens every man that comes into this world and it's as much as we open ourselves to Him that we feel the internal light, and consequently, we see everything enlightened. It means that all the creation speaks to us about God and we see God Himself in the tree leaves.
Christ is the light. The light is a name, one of the many names of Christ such as revealer of the Father, such as the Word, Christ is the light. What means light? Without light, we can't see. With light, we can see. Christ has made known the Father.
What do we know about the Father?
The Father is not material. When you know a person, we can say we know them face to face. The Father is God, is Love; when one knows the Father, one knows the Father's love and this is what Christ has revealled to us.
This is the Light. The light, one who lives in a life filled with the light of Love. Saint John approximates this in his first epistle: that light is synonymous with love.
Christ is the Light because He manifested to us the heart of God, the Father.
He showed us that God is Love and how God is Love. We have seen the love of God by the Light Who is Christ.
Seeing all creation transfigured, it is the experience of the Incarnation, that God became Incarnate. Saint John mentions: "I give you a new commandment."
We expect a commandment to do something. What will this new commandment ask us to do? We are surprised that this new commandment is "the light shines now and the darkness has passed." But where is the commandment here? What should he do?
It is to simply live in the Light,o pen to the Light, see the Light, and be yourself light in the Light.
This is the New Testament. The New Testament is not about things to do and not to do, which is characteristic of the Old Testament. The New Testament, is an event, is the Incarnation of God who came to light this world and this is the new command. The new commandment is not something to do, but instead something to live.
The Light shines so now live in the Light. In the same passage, he equates light and love. Whoever loves his brother is one who lives in the Light. As to your other question: "What is the hope for the rest of the world?"
When you live in the Light, we live in God, and God lives in us. When we live in God and God lives in us, as I've mentioned before, the omnipotence of God shines
in us. Ask what you desire and it shall be given to you.
Saint Paul says: "I can do all things in Christ Who strengthens me." And this is what is the hope for the world as long as we attempt to faithfully live in the Light.
