November 2012 letter
Dear brethren,
This month we celebrate Thanksgiving, and because the tradition of our church is to begin all prayers with the Thanksgiving Prayer, it is suitable to review some of the sayings or beloved Pope Shenouda about the life of thanksgiving:
- A thankful life implies a life of faith, without faith in God and faith in certain qualities in God, we can not come to be thankful: our faith that God is maker of every good, that He is lover of mankind, and that God is cable of everything. These three qualities make us confident that God always makes every good.
- In addition to these qualities, we are confident that God Almighty, shepherds and cares about us, and He can even transform evil into good for His children.
- Aside from this, we should learn to be patient, because many things turn out to work better in the long run and thus needs patience.
- People may become unthankful when they fall into various sorrows and troubles. The saintly men of God are not disturbed by any of these things, but are disturbed by being separated from God, for all tribulations of this world would not bother them. They live in constant thanks in each case: in poverty and wealth, in the thick and thin, in sickness and in health, in life and in death. Always grateful because their only goal is to abide in God which they did not lose in all these cases.
- But why thank God? The reasons are many, but let’s mention a few of them:
- Thank Him because He created us and gave us existence.
- Thank Him because he created man on the sixth day after preparing for him everything for his comfort. Then after the fall of man, he gave us the great redemption on the cross.
- And thank him because he created us Christians, for many desire this faith and perhaps suffer a lot to get it. Then, with mistakes in life He offers us opportunities to repent.
- We also thank Him because he gave us health, which we value when suffering from any disease. A wise saying: “health is a crown on the heads of those who are well, only the sick can feel it.”
As for the church news, we expect by the time this letter reaches you that the result of the altar ballot would be announced, declaring the name of our 118th Pope, and whose enthronement on the See of St. Mark has been decided to be on November the 18th, 2012. We pray that the Lord grant blessings and peace to His Church, and bless the Prelature of the new Patriarch.
Asking you to remember the church, priest, servants and all services always in your prayers, may the blessing of St. Mary & St. Mercurius be with us all.
Fr. Youssef Halim & Fr. Luke Istafanous 
Belleville, November 1, 2012
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