The concurrence of the Christian and Muslim fasting

From time to time, people need spiritual moments that leads to refinement of personalities, calls for repentance, and return to the Almighty God. One of the most bountiful and most purifying moments is the annual fasting season during  which religious teachings jointly agree on its importance for the spiritual growth  in its capacity as a companion to his physical growth.

One of the happy concurrences this year is that the two fasting periods coincide. I mean the Muslim fasting of Ramadan and the forty-day period of Christian fasting. The coincidence of the timing is an image of the congruence of the people who worship the one, merciful, and loving God.

This is not the first time that this coincidence happens, but this year's coincidence  enjoys social media reactions as several officials have congratulated their followers in relevance to that as  propitious Lebanese President tweeted saying, "It is beautiful that the onset of the holy month of Ramadan of our Muslim brethren coincides with the beginning of Lent for Christians, so that the Lebanese, regardless of their sects, share the meanings of the spiritual values ​​embodied by fasting, which is considered the highest expression of will."

It is also beautiful to note that the fasting coincides in the churches that following the Julian and the Gregorian calendars, as people jointly begins fast together this week, and they will jointly celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection (Easter) on April 20.

Religious rites remain the focus of the fasting season, as prayers intensify in mosques and churches, and the fasting people come under the impression that fasting alone is not sufficient to fulfill the requirements of this holy period, so they associated it with intensifying prayers that have a special taste and beautiful rites that we have become accustomed to since childhood which we hope that the Lord will enable us to hand them over as a trust to future generations.

Fasting and prayer are coupled with charitable work, or giving alms, so activities increase whose proceeds are collected for the poor, individuals, or families. In our pastoral work with our dear families, we realize that the Almighty God has willed that there will be well-off families and poor families. We are not in this regard intended  to discuss the scourge of poverty and its bitter reality, but we see at this time an opportunity to think about others; "whatever you save by fasting is not yours, but rather the right of your poor brethren." This is a slogan that we launch annually in churches which receives great approvals.

While we wait for next Friday to read the Vatican's congratulatory message for the month of Ramadan, as is the case every year (on the first Friday of Ramadan), we focus on the message of fasting this year, which was issued by Pope Francis, may the Lord heal him, while he was in his bed three weeks ago which is titled, "Journey Together in Hope."

In this message he mentioned three ideas for the Lenten season this year: Firstly, the Jubilee slogan "Pilgrims of Hope" asks us to be faithful to the principles of our religion, and to perform our rites during this period actively free from and not sluggishness. Secondly, it is a process of freeing ourselves to go around the Almighty God and towards brotherhood, and not to be introvert, and thirdly it is a call for repentance and return to God after the commitment of numerous sins in wars and the individual sins from which no human being is immune.

Have a blessed Lenten season for Christians in the world, and on their behalf we extend our best wishes to our Muslim brethren in our Arab homeland and the entire world for a blessed Ramadan for everyone.

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