Reconciliation

Culture

In all liturgies I am aware of, there is a reconciliation prayer, where the congregation attending the mystery to reconcile with each other.The shape of the reconciliation prayer rite differs as according to the culture where the church was planted. For example, in Antioch Orthodox Churches, I saw people hand shaking, while they hug each other in a missionary Catholic church at some University. In Coptic (i.e., Egyptian) churches, people sort of hand shake, while at the same time the left hand is covering the back of the other person's hand, withdrawing the 2 hands and kissing the tips of the fingers, a typical form of "taking blessings" in eastern cultures.

Confusion

While the congregation is greeting one another, the priest is praying the prayers that commemorates that God reconciled us unto himself. "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation" (2Cor 5:18). This is a bit confusing. Why are we greeting one another, while we are supposed to recall that God reconciled us unto Him? Isn't that a distraction? Don't "people" so often stumble others in their spiritual way, especially inside the chichi? Those "people" being us. Don't we to focus on Christ in the liturgy and try to talk to Him? So why did our mother, the church, teach us to greet one another? Moreover, it is often the case that I am greeting someone I don't even know! How are we reconciliation then?

The answer is two folds. The first simple one is that we simply follow Christ's will in Methew 4:24: "Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.". The second fold is more profound.

First, we need to understand the meaning of the word: reconcile. According to the About Dictionary, the verb reconcile means: to restore friendly relations between. Clearly if I greet someone I don't know, there are no friendly relations to restore, right? WRONG. And that is exactly why we greet one another, to restore the previously existing friendly relationship. How is so? Bear with me a bit.

The Three Vices

A husband and his wife (or any two persons) has a conflict for, at a high level, one of three reasons. More reasons can be claimed by a more specialized study, but for the scope of this article, these three reasons summarizes them all. Hereafter, I will call these reasons: vices.

The first vice is conflict of interest. I want you to park away, so that I can park my car right where you parked yours. I don't care about your reasons why you want to park here, and I don't bother trying to understand them. We lack the common goal. And we fight.

The second vice, is when we both agree on a goal, but disagree on how we can achieve or reach our common goal. We both agree that our children should receive good education. I think that public schools are the best, but she believes Orthodox schools are the only way. We lack appreciation of each other's opinions. And we fight.

The third vice is called misunderstanding. And we fight. Misunderstanding is typically thought of the simplest conflict, while in fact it is the worst. We don't understand each other because we don't know each other. And we don't know each other because we didn't care enough to do so, nor did we spend the time to get to know each other. Knowing each other takes typically lifetime! We didn't bother going there because we, sorry to say, don't really love each other. It is lack of LOVE!!

Lack of knowledge of each other is, in its heart, lack of love.

Lack appreciation to the other opinion is simply self centeredness, overly consumed loving oneself, and hence lack of love to the other.

Lack of common goal is again not seeing the other's needs, desires, and way of thinking. It is again, lack of love. Because if I love you, I love everything and everyone you love!

Lack of love, is a vice.

The Three reconciliations

That being said, we realize that the solution of any conflict, i.e., reconciliation is simply love. To love the other person is to reconcile with her or him. When love is present, we start to know each other. Like a new couple, once they receive church blessings to know each other through engagement, they start spending so much time with each other, and they grow in knowing and loving each other until they are, eternally, unite in Christ.

Similarly, the treatment of an conflict is to love each other, hence knowing each other, understanding and appreciating other opinions, and eventually sacrificing oneself's opinions and plans for the sake of the other.

Back to the Reconciliation Rites

We, human race, where in love with God, in first Adam. Then a conflict arose: we don't really agree with God on His plans for us, so we ate the fruit He forbid us to. We don't appreciate His plans, so we rely on ourselves. And we eventually became unaware of God existence, so we get nervous, worried and lose our peace. These are the symptoms of the evil vice, we don't really love God from all our hearts. Now, THIS, needs a reconciliation.

If I love you, I love everything and everyone you love. If I truly love God, I love all people. If I don't truly love people, then this is a symptom of lack of true love to God. Then, in fact, the church asks us to great one another as, not a symbol, but rather as a checkpoint for ourselves. So whenever we hear the deacon calling us to great one another, we raise our hearts to God to self inspect our hearts to check if we truly love our savior, or we diverged off our path! This is the very reason why we are called to greet one another.

When you hear

So now, once I hear the deacon invitation to great one another, I should immediately raise my heart to God to inspect it, under His light which reveals everything. I should recall how He serviced my reconciliation to Him, even though it is me who IS guilty . I should then offer a hearty repentance on the spot, for anything and everything I did against our reconciliation.

Once this is done, I can get back down to the earth, to see my brethren waiting for me to great, rather to reconcile with them. I would them leave my offerings on the altar and seek anyone I have conflict with to reconcile with whom first. Only then, my greeting others will be truly in Christ.

Only then, I can go out after Church to the whole world, carrying Christ immaculate peace, and joy. Only then I am compelled and spiritually motivated to serve the people the service of reconciliation, that would be naturally attractive in my granted inner peace and joy, that no one can take away from us.

"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." (2Cor 5:20)