Peace and all good!

After approximately a month has elapsed, I would like to update you on the
conclusion of the process of discernment regarding our presence in the
villages of Knayeh, Yacoubieh and Jdeideh.
Your responses to my communication of 1 January 2016
First of all I would like to thank you for the numerous responses that you
have sent, which at times were also moving. I cannot answer them all, but I
have read with attention and meditated on all your observations, reflections
and concerns. Your opinions have been of great help and have rendered less
onerous the decision that we had to take. Thanks once again!
Nearly all of you have expressed clearly the advice that it is our duty to
remain in the villages, without giving consideration to the number of
parishioners (around 400 in all in the three villages) and in spite of the
danger.
Decision regarding the villages
In the Discretorium we have unanimously confirmed the decision that it is
our duty to remain and that therefore a second friar should be sent to
Yacoubieh.
The motivations
The motivations of such a choice are known to you, because in your
responses you have expressed them clearly, but I will try to present them
here, briefly.
The Custody has never abandoned the Places and the population that the
Church has entrusted to its care, even in moments of danger. Not a few of
our martyrs, even in the recent period, have died in circumstances which
were not different from the present situation. A pastor does not abandon
his flock and one does not ask whether his sheep are valuable or not, or
whether they are numerous or young. For a pastor all sheep are important
and he loves them all equally. This should also apply to our case. The pastor
stands on the front lines of his flock. Always. The bishop has added that
our villages constitute the only Christian presence in the area controlled by
the rebels, and they have become a kind of symbol for all Christians in
Syria. If they remain in their villages they will offer strength and courage
to all the others.
We have to add other not less important evaluations to these.

This situation has brought us all to rethink once more the meaning of our
mission and the reason why we are here and for Who we are here, thus
leaving aside the criteria of efficiency and various strategies.
We are here for Christ and for His Church, and for no other reason. We
are religious and our life pertains to Him. When we offered our lives to
Him, we did not place any preconditions, reservations, or percentages of
gratification in our activities. In other words, our mission is not functional
with regards to strategies of success, of acheivement or of who knows what
other result, but it is simply that of staying with Christ. To stay in the
Holy Places, to serve in a parish, or to offer any other kind of service
should be oriented towards giving witness to Him to whom we belong. If we
abandon the villages now, it would mean that we are failing against the
sense of this our mission. It means that we place human criteria before the
freedom, liberty and gratuitousness of our Christian witness, which is asked
of us today.
There should naturally be strategies and also programming regarding the
initiatives of the brothers. But, in special times, these should be
subordinated - I repeat again - to the essential need of giving witness of
our love for Christ, which concretely translates itself in our love for the
Places and for the persons that the Church has entrusted to our care. In
other words, there is a hierarchy of values that we should
respect. Offering life for the communities entrusted to us is the first
testimony we are asked to give now and everything else should
be subordinate to this. Thus, any other consideration would be out of place.
We also need to add that the Custody has always worked in difficult places,
in places which are complicated on the pastoral level, in other words, "on
the borderline". It has always worked on geographical, cultural and religious
borders. That is why we should not be surprised. The Lord is speaking to us
today and is asking of us, in a particular moment in the life of the Custody,
to say the reason why we are here and for Who we are living in this Land.
He wants the answer of our life, not of our documents.
The dialogue with so many friars during these days has been of great
comfort, because it throws light upon the most beautiful part of our
fraternity, within a context in which we see emerging continually difficulties
of all kinds. To ask ourselves questions on the sense of our mission and of
the answer we are to give to Him, who is challenging us, is the most
beautiful thing we can do. As I have said, the answers have all been
diverse, but they were all sincere.

The most elderly among us were curiously rather irritated that we should
give so much time to discussion on a decision which, for them, is clear. "Do
not waste time on discussions on a matter which is already clear: we should
go.
Who will go to Yacoubieh
In the Discretorium we have discussed the issue of who to send to
Yacoubieh. Naturally the first option was that of individuating a Syrian
friar. After careful evaluation, we have verified that the Syrian friars are
all already occupied in Syria, or ready to begin a service in Syria, and that
their brothers are anxiously awaiting them, since they are tired and
physically drained after five years of war. Thus we did not succeed in
finding anyone who could corrispond to the profile that is requested, even
considering the point of view of physical health, and this in spite of some's
availability. We have therefore oriented ourselves on proposing brothers who
are not Syrians. Even though, in the meantime, we have received
communication from high ranking officers of the regular army that they
would not allow non Syrian religious to pass over to the areas controlled by
the rebels, we shall try to convince them to understand our reasons and to
obtain just the same a permit for our friars.
The Discretorium has accepted to send to Yacoubieh brother Louay Bhsarat.
Brother Louay has offered his availabilty to go ever since the start of the
war. We had always kept his request aside in order to give precedence to
others, also because he was occupied in the parish of Bethlehem and in the
studies of specialisation.
Last 23 January the Discretorium has met him to listen directly to the
reasons he presented and to the motivations that have prompted him to
offer himself. It has been an intense moment. Although we still have some
preoccupations linked with his age and experience, after having kept in mind
the motivations that I have referred to before, the Discretorium has voted
in favour of sending him to Yacoubieh.
We hope that he can enter with ease in the region and that he can take
into his hands as soon as possible this service in the parish assigned to him.
On Sunday 31 January he will say goodbye to the parish of Bethlehem and
he will immediately depart for his new destination.
I invite all of you to pray for him, for his parishioners, for all the friars
who are in Syria and for the entire population. May this horrible war end
soon.

Wishing you all good in Christ,

Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa ofm
Custos of the Holy Land