Two cases of fasting coincide

Brethren live side by side, and each one of them goes to work. They head to mosques and to churches with vigor, and with humble and repentant hearts to the merciful Lord pleading with Him to bestow His righteous people with a blessed fasting and glorious feasts at the end of the fasting periods.

I recall that at the end of the last century how celebrations marking Christmas and Eid al-Fitr coincided, and consequently we had decorations showing the crescent of Ramadan and next to it the Christmas star. This coincidence became an annual norm exposed from Jordan to say that the Almighty God wants His believers and monotheists to care for their brethren through thick and thin.

 This year, the Muslim brethren mark the advent of the blessed month of Ramadan, while their Christian brethren have marked their 40-day of fasting weeks ago. The conditions and rituals of fasting are different in both religions, but we are fully aware that worshiping God in spirit and truth is manifested in the honest and upright heart, where the people address their Creator, saying: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, an renew in my gut a righteous spirit.”

 This year, we thank the Almighty God for the blessing of the almost total recovery, and the restoration of the preceding normal life as it had been before the emergence of the virus that impacted the extended human family which was united in pain, and is nowadays united in the hope of full recovery, so that people can move again on the path of technical progress on the one hand and on the moral one on the other.

Humanity nowadays witnesses a new war during which humans kill their fellow brethren, as if the Corona virus was insufficient, so the Ukraine crisis erupted to urge the world to awaken conscience and issue a sincere call for the sake of humans and humanity.

 As the world commemorates the International Day of Conscience on April 5, Pope Francis raises his voice in the Western world urging the Russian patriarch to join an international chorus calling for peace based on dialogue and peaceful negotiations instead of resorting to deadly weapons that forcibly displace people causing a new wave of displacement that follow the ones in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and others.

 At this holy time, Jordan focuses attention on noble Jerusalem. What burdens the custodian of the holy places and the one who was bestowed the Award for Human Fraternity is freedom of access to mosques and churches. His Majesty King Abdullah II addressed the president of Israel stressing the necessity that the pious and the worshipers should never be prevented during the month of Ramadan or Easter time from having free access to Al Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

As the two cases of fasting coincide this year, we convey heartfelt wishes and greetings to those who fast the 30 days of Ramadan while joining their brethren who are fasting for 40 days. Best wishes are furthermore conveyed to the extended Jordanian and global families.