THE OTHER WING

Written by:
Father Zachariah El-Souriany
Torino, Italy


In the Holy Gospel which St. John wrote, he refers to himself with proud humility as "The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved." Our Lord would have him present with St. Peter and St. James at his Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1), and His Agony in the Garden (Matthew 26:37) and He showed St. John other instances of His affection just as He did to the rest, so that it was not without reason that the wife of Zebedee asked the Lord that her two sons might sit the one on His right hand and the other on His left in His Kingdom (Mark 10:35).


"If you walk with an evil companion from the Church to the cell, he will pull you back one year, but if you walk with a good companion he will progress you six months." And for you my beloved brother, I present this very real story that happened between two monks in one of the monasteries in our contemporary time. It provides strong evidence of the influence of friendship in the life of every person.

Sitting in a calm meeting with my spiritual father, at the evening of every day, I was a disciple at his hands and learned the principles of the spiritual way that leads to eternal life. Usually at these times, he spoke to me about the early monastic fathers, their sayings and teachings. But this time he sighed deeply and said to me in a very emotional voice, "They were great days!" Then he kept silent and began to think of beautiful memories. The love of knowledge made me ask him about these beautiful days.

He kept silent but I repeated my question one more time, so he said to me with great compassion:

"I used to have a strong, loving, friendship bond with one of the monks. Each one of us was longing earnestly to see his brother and enjoy talking with him. We spent together many beautiful spiritual nights walking in the desert on the faint light of the moon contemplating in the Psalms of David the Prophet, or discussing many spiritual concepts that were beneficial to our life or reflecting on the principals of the monastic way of life. We used to spend long hours in meditation; sometimes contemplating on a single spiritual topic took from us several continuous nights."

After we finished these hours of meditation, each one would return back to his cell, usually after midnight, while our hearts were beating from inside with many unutterable deep spiritual words and feelings that made us not want to sleep but very little. After that, upon hearing the Midnight Praises Bell, we would go quickly to the Church to attend Midnight Praises, Divine Liturgy, and partake of the Holy Mysteries.

We used to encourage one another with spiritual words. If one of us went through a really hard time, his brother used to support him spiritually reflecting on the spiritual meaning of long suffering, patience, forgiveness, and love. Thus, we solved our problems in a very spiritual way. Because of this we learned how to earn the love of our fathers, the monks in the monastery, how to comfort everybody and not to grieve anyone even those who caused problems to us.

We learned neither to judge nor to gossip about any monk, but rather we learned how to love everybody and to see the good virtues in every monk. Thus our hearts were full of love toward every monk, the monastic life, and the monastery itself. We reached a conclusion that was very helpful to our spiritual life that "to live as a monk in the monastery, a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ, was much better than to live as a king in the world."

But this spiritual friendship with my brother did not last long. They called my brother to the service and to be a priest of a church in this world. Thus I had lost my OTHER WING whom my spirit used to fly to God.

It was very hard on me to see him leaving and I started searching for another companion to help my spirit to fly to God. After a long time of searching, I found another spiritual friend.

Each time we met together we would discuss stories of the saints, the beauty of the monastic life, the blessings of the spiritual warfare, and long suffering. Thus, I found this OTHER WING by which my spirit could high upward to Heaven with.

My father continued to talk for a long time about the memories of these beautiful days that he lived. I did not feel the time at all because I enjoyed listening to these memories and after he finished I asked him to be my OTHER WING to fly with my spirit to God.

And you my brother, do you have a friend like this one who elevates you to be united with God? Or a friend that moves you down to be united with the world and sin?

Do you have a friend that talks with you about God, His love, and the love of the brethren, or a friend that gossips with you about your brothers, judging them, discussing their pitfalls and makes you angry with them?

I will leave you, my brother now after you read these words to search for your OTHER WING (your friend). But don't make this choice in a hurry lest you choose a friend that disables you instead of enabling you, and thus will break the wing that you have instead of being the OTHER WING for you.