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Short Stories (Stories for the Youth), book by Father Tadros Yacoub Malaty

163- The Servant of Humanity

 

St-Takla.org Image: Saint Virgin Mary Mother of God. صورة في موقع الأنبا تكلا: القديسة العذراء مريم والدة الإله.

When I went to Los Angeles in 1970 to serve the church there, the late Father Pishoy Kamel asked me to go with him to visit one of the Ethiopian brothers as a kind of reconciliation and when I asked about the reason of his anger, Fr. Pishoy said to me, “He was upset when I said that the Blessed Virgin Mary wanted to become the servant of humanity.”

Fr. Pishoy and I went to visit him and we did not leave him until we became friends with him again. Fr. Pishoy told him that he loved the Virgin Mary, mother of all believers and the heavenly Queen who is above the Cherubim and the Seraphim. She is his beloved intercessor.

I remembered this story on the eve of Maundi Thursday this year when I was talking about Judas who agreed on delivering Jesus to the Jewish authorities, asking for 30 silver coins, the price of a slave. That behavior was not strange for a person whose heart loved money. What upset me terribly was that the Master of all and the Creator of all humanity accepted by His own will to be treated as a slave.

Every slave sits down to wash the feet of the members of the family, his masters. He experiences humility and shame as an insult to his humanity. But the Lord Jesus bowed down by His own will asking every sinner to allow him to offer his dirty feet for Him to wash. He asks every person to accept that. This is how the Master of all finds His pleasure and as He washes the feet with water, He washes the hearts with His precious blood. He took the form of a slave and obeyed till death, the death on the Cross. He accepted slavery, which redeems others with its life.

→ English translation of the story here at St-Takla.org: خادمة للبشرية.

+ You accepted to be a slave, You to whom the heavenly creatures bow.

You ask me to give You my dirty feet to wash with Your hands, You the Holy One!

+ Permit me to share with You Your love.

I desire to enslave myself with You to everyone, so I may win everyone.

Grant me to race and run towards You, that I might become a slave with You.

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