What justifies war? Everyone has seen the videos/images showing innocent children from the Ghouta "gas attack" East of Damascus in 2013.  But few know the reality behind these images.  Here is Mother Agnes' scathing attack of the "video evidence" put forth in these videos used to justify war.  Mother's work reveals that the videos are "Massacre Marketing". The children laid out in the videos have been moved from place to place, many are not even from Ghouta/Damascus but have been identified by family members as having been kidnapped from Alawite villages who were massacred by jihadists in NE Syria earlier that summer!  She exposes the whole gas attack as a charade.  Sadly this charade was presented to the US congress and designed to justify war, specifically a US/NATO invasion of Syria.  Her evidence here was cited by Secretary Lavrov and others as key in exposing these videos as a disgusting fraud, the lowest form of psychological manipulation.  And thanks in part to this brave report, the first of its kind, the videos were exposed as lies and war was averted, thanks to God.  This website also exposes some of the fake images/videos from the "Ghouta gas attack".

St Elian of Homs, a Great Saint of the ^3rd century was resting peacefully in the monastery dedicated to his name in Al Qaryatain, near Homs (see photos below). That monastery has been completely destroyed by ISIS-bulldozers after they arrived in the town in August 2015. A week ago AFP contacted Mother Agnes Mariam, superior of our Monastery, to tell her that the remains of the Great martyr were uncovered. She then acted quickly to to save the remains and to return them to the Syrian Catholic community. The following is the account of this story.

F. Daniel (Superior or the brothers at Mar Yakub monastery): The actual world is the best one because it can save much more people than ever before. Nevertheless our world is the worst because it kills much more people than ever before. Mankind can destroy now the whole human family and in the same time also the whole planet earth. This is not a possibility for the future but a receipt ready for instant use. And more than ever people want to escape this reality through the virtual world of entertainment and media. (Click on "Read More" to read the whole article of Father Daniel).

Mother Agnès Mariam received the Femida Price in Russia two weeks ago. It is like the Russian Nobel Price for Peace. She obtained this award for her great efforts in the Syrian crisis. We as a community are very proud and thank the Lord Jesus. The Russian tv 1TV.RU came to make a report on her last week. 

In this first part on our series on Christian contemplation Mother Agnes goes through the Bible to explain the relationship God desires to have with man in silence - in contemplation; consider the following excerpt: "After Moses came Elijah, John the Baptist, and John the Beloved.  You have a path, an interior path—coming from the beginning and passing down to us, where there is a reciprocal attraction between God and men.  He attracts us because He loves us.  And surely God would have desired that Adam would have eaten from the tree of life.  But it seems difficult to just eat from the tree of life because we have so many things to do.  We are seduced by so many things.. Clilck on "read more" to continue reading.

Mother Agnes: “Many prophets and saints over time have been grappling in the depths of the mystery of unity with God [which is the goal of the contemplative].  All of them found out that only through Jesus Christ, the path is secure.  There is no contemplation without the coverage of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Any contemplation conducted outside of the coverage of His name will lead us to a false spirit. [The Devil] is so intelligent that he will make us feel very good while he’s leading us astray from the path of life.  We are called to eat from the tree of life.  We are called to live in the intimacy of the Lord, inside the Trinity. 

People often tell us, ‘Read the Bible’. But how to start; with which book should we begin? What would be the proper inner attitude to have towards the Holy writ? A lot of things are hard to understand or just don’t make any sense. I remember I had difficulties reading through the Bible from cover to cover the first time: the laws, the prophets, I couldn’t make much of it. So we need a guide. And that guide is unmistakably the Holy Spirit. The words of the Lord are life and Spirit, they nourish us. But let’s listen to what Mother Agnes Mariam has to say on how to read the Word of God.