Can Light sound melodious?
What can I, an ignorant, fake deacon say about the Melodious Light?
A friend of mine called to share thoughts about the void we felt, upon the
We found ourselves weeping, smiling, hoping, gazing, at a great man who was in our lives “a corner stone”, yet a presence we took so much for granted; and now, his physical absence has just become unbearably and loudly omnipresent.
Sayyedna Elias, now lies at the origin of all melodious lights, he rests in the Peace that dissolves all tunes into one, the glory of God beaming in our ears through to our hearts.
The light which brought him to clergy, which led every step of his life, which bestowed upon him the grace of the glow of the LORD, still shines on St. George’s cathedral. It mingles with the rays of the sunset on Deir El Natour, still shines on Koura’s olive leaves that bow to the grace with which this shepherd used to walk among us.
What do we remember from our childhood in the church, asked my friend? How did we grow attached to its sounds and words, meanings and melodies, smells and lights? The light of the candles and the melodies of the choir with the intermittent ring of the bells, perhaps but there is much more to it, I answered. The sweetness of the psalms chanted by the choir suddenly interrupted by the majestic presence of our beloved Bishop Elias at the door of the iconostasis,
announcing the dazzling beauty of the Holy Light of Gethsemane that dissipated the darkness on Easter Mornings. This marvelous melody, going out of his lips, we believed was chanted by the angels through him. With his affirmative powerful and deeply convinced and convincing Al Massih Qam…”, there was no possibility for a shadow of hesitation.
He filled the air with the Melody of Light , he filled the churches with choirs; often in our liturgies, we wondered whether we were standing in Heaven or still on earth.
Can you hold back your tears?
We were taught about the word becoming a verb and His Eminence taught us about the melody becoming light. Through him, Angels played on the chords of our entire being, poured the chants on our hearts and taught us to pray! When he appeared at the Royal Door holding the five candles , we felt that the doors of Heaven were open , we were almost sure that our ‘vineyard ‘ will be guarded by the tenderness of the Holy Light in answer to his plea; and indeed it did for forty seven years.
We were prayed with him for long hours, we never felt time go by ; it was so ‘good’ to be there together, there was this blessing of inner voices of prayer, not too strong, not too dull, something called may be tenderness that gave us the
unexplainable certainty that with this king praying, in firmness and simplicity , we were almost in tune with the angels: God is amongst us.
Oh, and I forgot the smell of the incense spread by his hands like a laborer spreads his seeds to grow into odorant aromatic flowers. His prayers, carried by these blessed melodies entered our hearts and minds, filling us with the essence of the love and message of our Lord. His singing was his distinctive way of preaching, I know protestants who venerated Mary, the Mother of God, listening to his chanting the Acathyst.
Yes, my friend, Light can be melodious, like the seed becomes a tree, like a word can become an act. You who are all over the world, from Boston or New York and from Koura or Tripoli, all around the Antiochian world, feel and miss the presence and the absence of Sayyedna, keep the legacy of this archangelic voice, he taught us the communion of eyes, ears, mouth, body and soul.
It is the communion in oneness, the noble humbleness of the king servant, the igniting sparkle lighting the burning faith that elevates our hearts and bend our heads, chanting our thanks giving to the Lord. Wherever he went, he reassured everyone with his grace, his commitment and his chants.
What can I share with you? His blessings, as he shared our lives. He was there when I got baptized, when I got married, when he baptized my child, when he mourned my father praying that the angels greet him in the Kingdom. Is this not the case of all of our generation? A multitude of us were very young when he came to us, he reared us in the Melody of the Divine Light, he just left us, he must have felt or at least hoped that we have become adults in faith.
He was just there every time, all the time, everywhere, now we know that the Lord commissioned him to be there and indeed he did.
He carried our sorrows and our sins, our laughter and our tears, our deaths and our births but more important, he was there; like the sunrise every morning with the beauty of light and the melody of life. Can’t you feel him now?
The warmth emanating from his smiling eyes still resonates with the beauty of his chants, not only in our world but in our lives.
Can you hold back your tears?
Can’t you hear his voice echo in your heart?
This, my brothers, it is the melody of the Light that he dedicated his life to serve.
God bestows His gifts on everyone but God gave him something more. He gave him the way to be there, to confort, to listen, to share, to guide, to weep, to doubt but also to have faith in the Resurrection and most of all the gift of spreading this faith, simply through the voice. We never knew if he had ever felt that this ‘voice’ of his was anything more except to serve more in spreading the Eternal Light.
The only instance when he, probably, felt something different was when he started his favorite address to Mary, the mother of God identifying his words with the Angel Gabriel announcing to her the Resurrection of her Son , praying Her to Rejoice .
No wonder that he insisted on getting to church on Easter mornings with the last minutes of the night, he meant to announce the Light Eternal before the natural light of dawn.
Rest in peace, father Elias, the angels are coming to meet you, greeting you with the chants you might have taught them , leading you to the Light which must have taught you.
Yacoub Riad Al Sarraf
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