Join Father Andre as he shares his remarkable journey of survival from the Christian massacres in Mount Lebanon to becoming the founder of the Mission of Hope and Mercy. This episode delves into the essence of gratitude, urging us to reflect on the significance of Thanksgiving and its deep ties to Christian faith and charity. Father Andre discusses the inspiration drawn from the Holy Eucharist, emphasizing the need for action and thanksgiving as means to express gratitude to God.
00:00:05 Introduction to Father Andre’s Early Life
00:00:50 The Role of Thanksgiving in Christian Life
00:03:57 Reflection on Eucharist and Giving Thanks
At age 10, Father Andre escaped Christian massacres by living in caves in Mount Lebanon with his family. Today, Father Andre works tirelessly to encourage American leaders to keep God in the public square, defending religious freedom at home and abroad, so that all might live in peace for the glory of God. Founder and president of the Mission of Hope and Mercy, Father Andre has learned the secret to safety, joy, and peace. Love God and one another. Now, let us spend 33 minutes on the Lord’s Day, retuning ourselves to the truth of love in the hands of God.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I was commenting about a few hours ago this morning when I saw this beautiful Christmas song that somebody did in Europe, it seems, in a place where they were walking on the street and then the entire street lights up and then musicians and then children show up from the windows and they’re singing. I said, music at Christmas is born from angelic inspiration. I believe that the human singing voices, musical instruments and notes come exceptionally to life and become angelically moved through the voices, hands and talents of musicians at every Christmas. Music at Christmas is born from angelic inspiration. With that, what I wanted to tell you in our conclusion for this interview that we had to do as is and due to our limited means of technology, we had to completely stop so the guests can leave. And then we came back to conclude you and us to summon up this show, to summon up Irrevocable in this week of Thanksgiving. There has to be an action that we can do as human beings in order to show thanksgiving to Almighty God. You know, was your life better? Was our life better? Was this earth better? Before we met Jesus, before we met Bible, before we met the New Testament, before the miracles of the saints, before the miracle of the Holy Eucharist. If you come and you make a measured, a measured assessment, what did Christianity leave in the world? You might see that somebody could argue on a positive side. Well, the world, first of all, could not have been without Jesus Christ and nor without his church. You remember that stand on the cross when Jesus was naked and then when he said like a tongue, it is finished, it is done. And he screams and he delivers his soul into his father’s hands. You remember that scene and you’ve read it. When a soldier comes and pierces the side of the Lord with a lance. You know, with that, I think that humanity almost ended there. There was no way for humanity to have survived that moment had Jesus not already issued the pardon decree. for all of humanity, stating, forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they’re doing. And then that forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they’re doing. We as Christian brothers and sisters in the world, we actually have a responsibility to extend Jesus’ pardon to the entire world. Yet, extending that form of pardon comes to us through the sign, the symbol of thanksgiving. This is why thanksgiving is important. This is why giving thanksgiving in its utmost meaning leads us necessarily to the Holy Eucharist, which, as I said and I stated in the beginning of the show, it means simply, as simple as that, the thanksgiving, the bread of thanksgiving. So when you gather with your children, when you gather with your family members, when you gather with your friends during this week in order to pray, in order to give thanks to Almighty God, don’t think about only the food. Think about the one who gave us food. Don’t think about only the drink and the good wine. Think about the one who gave us wine. Of course, in an empirical way and pragmatic way, we thank all those who work in fields of food and dreams and farming, you know, from the earth all the way to the table. There are so many people we need to thank sometimes in our lives. You know, we go and we buy a product that is finished, right? But it takes so many harmonious hands to work together through hardship, through a good system, that they bring that bread to us. From the way it was planted, all the way to when it was grinded, all the way to when it was baked, all the way to when it was packaged, all the way to when it was driven to us, or purchased by grocery stores, so we purchase again. Do you understand the complexity of the food and the drinks packaging and delivery that we have in our hands today? That’s why I always say God bless the United States of America because we can even call for delivery. Not that every place on earth doesn’t do it, but I think we’re the leading society to have started doing it. You know, God bless the United States of America truthfully because the people created commodities for our lives in order to spend more precious time, in order to spend more time with joy, meaningful time, fruitful time, beneficial time. Also, there is a saying in French that says, When you go to the water fountain to fill up your jar with water, think of the source. All of this mechanism of the human operation of bringing food and bringing drink, making prosperity a mean of life that is affordable and allowing us to grow in our freedom, allowing us to grow in benefiting and being able to spend and being able to enjoy the physical and the tangible goods of this life. Do you think any of it was possible if it wasn’t for the hand of the Creator who said, let it be. And it was Vayomer Elohim. And God said, as we say in the Bible, Vayomer Elohim. God said. Please, if your heart is moved, help this week and throughout the Christmas season. If you’re doing your tax breaks before the end of the year, help the work of the Apostolate of Our Lady of Hope, St. Ravka Mission of Hope and Mercy. You can, as I said, you can go online missionofhopeandmercy.org and there you can see on the bottom of the donation page ways to donate, whether online directly or you can also donate by sending physical checks. Our needs are tremendous. Our needs are literally beyond probably what I personally or my little team in Denver, Colorado can expect from people. But we appreciate any little gift that can come our way because we can pack tons of food and to distribute them in Lebanon to families who are truly in need. We would love to pack Christmas gifts and send them to children. You know, our Christmas gift and food distribution program at Christmas by itself cost us anywhere between $30,000 to $50,000. We try to collect the children. We have about 2,500 children that we would like to distribute Christmas gifts to. Our program is always called Feed a Family, You Save a Nation. Feed a family, you save a nation. I experienced this when I was in Lebanon as a child living in a cave, running away for safety, running away to ask somebody to bring us hope. I experienced hunger, even though I am a big belt. But hunger is also an emotional fear. It’s a thing that is in the mind of a human being. I remember in the days in our school, we used to actually… to collect the trash cans every day during the school break, you know, between the sessions. We used to go to the food cans. The nuns taught us to do that. And in the trash cans, we used to look if any of the children who had no sense in life somehow or were not as thoughtful as possible, leftover sandwiches or the wraps that their parents wrapped for them, they threw it in the trash. We used to go. I used to go, we would pick up those leftover wraps and sandwiches. We would clean them, literally. And you know what? We had dozens of children who… In every classroom, and I’m talking about schools that had over 1,500 children, and every classroom had about 30, 35 children. There was always a dozen of children between 10 and 12, 15 children in every classroom who did not have tartine, we called it, a sandwich or a wrap to bring with them that their mothers and fathers could not find the bread to make the wraps. Because during the war in Lebanon, you know, they cut off our food resources. We didn’t have flour. We didn’t have clean water. We didn’t have medication available. It was tough to enter to hospitals. I remember when I had to take a bucket to go to a water fountain, which was literally drained, and guchulas, like small drops of water, would come down from the water faucet. We would stand in line, like you are standing in line on Black Friday in front of one of the big stores, right, to get your discount and to go in at early as 2 a.m., 3 a.m. to the store. I used to wake up at 2 a.m., And I used to go with the other children in the neighborhood to go to the water fountain and stand under the faucet that comes from the mountain to drip by drip, the water would come down into our hands. It would take us like 20 minutes, 30 minutes to fill up one jug of water. We lived in those situations. So you can help in those things. And I remember one time when we went, me and Wally, a friend of mine, and Paul, we were kids, I was about nine years old. We went, it took us about five hours to fill up like those blue gallons of water from a side fountain somewhere near the city in Biblos. On our way back to the cave,
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On our way back to the cave, there was this huge bombing, you know, airstrike from the Syrian military came and they started bombing all around us. We fell on the ground. We fell inside the little creek, as we say, and we lost all the water that we took five hours to fill up. We were dusted. We injured ourselves. We walked.
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We continued going, you know, trying to make our way to the cave. You know, when I tell you about heavy bombing, I mean, per minute, per minute, when they send, we call it regime. It’s a launch of multiple bombers, multiple bombs that they would be going from like one big, like imagine an M16 magazine, but in big bombs, like probably like there is 40, 60 bombs that they will drop in less than 30 seconds or 20 seconds all around us on our head. On top of that,
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sleeping on the ground, trying to hide. And I look up and I see those brown-looking airplanes above us doing airstrikes, unfortunately.
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We live those things. I don’t come to you to make you during this week to feel obligated or to feel guilty. I come with privilege to share with you those stories that many Christians in the world actually live this type of life. and they are persecuted for their faith. Nobody can deny this. We have so beautiful many ministries in the world helping all people regardless of course of religion and we do that as well. But the persecuted Christians have been forgotten. The persecuted Christians have been a number of over probably 350 million Christians today in the world are under severe persecution. It is very important that you and me, as brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, will tend care to these children of the Lord, to these little brothers and sisters of the Lord. So please help me. Help the Mission of Hope and Mercy. Share this little conclusive video that we just did in the end of our live broadcast today. And I’m very thankful to Almighty God that about 9,000 people watched that interview with Father James and Mother Miriam. But now this little appeal that we are concluding with on the show, I wanted to maximize it as much as possible, share it, and tell the people to assist and help with the work of the Mission of Hope and Mercy. Again, you can go on our website, missionofhopeandmercy.org, Or when you go there, you can send us physical mailing. And I want to thank Felicia. And now I see what she has for us to leave us with. And I want to tell you happy Thanksgiving from me, from the Mission of Hope and Mercy. Remember, every Sunday, 11.30 a.m., Mountain Time, that is Denver Mountain Time, we also broadcast the holy sacrifice of the Mass, life from our little chapel, Our Lady Queen of the Apostles and Queen of Peace. And thank you, Felicia. Thank you so much. And I’ll let you conclude. Peace be with you. My name is Father Andre Mahana, president of the Apostolate of Our Lady of Hope, also known as St. Ravka Mission of Hope and Mercy, a USA Denver-based non-for-profit organization. Right now, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Christian individuals, families, widows, orphans, youngsters, who are refugees that are hungry, displaced, and in desperate need of hope. I know firsthand what does it feel like and how does it feel to be rejected and to be persecuted, to be pursued somehow by evil and by people who want to harm you. Myself and my family, along with many other families, we actually had to hide inside a cave and we lived inside the cave for a while. My bed was a Phoenician tomb. Yet I learned at a young age that I wanted to make a peace in the world. I read the Bible three times before the age of 12, and I looked for every word that will give me hope, that will sustain me, to be the protector of my mother and my father my brothers my sister my family my land and all the people of god in the world i wanted to bring to the whole world the message of peace and forgiveness and pardon of the lord and savior jesus christ there is no a better occasion than now to tell you and to share with you this message of hope, to tell you how important it is for you and me that we together can be these instruments that the Lord Jesus Christ chooses us in order to go and give hope to other people who are brokenhearted, who are being massacred, killed, rejected or discriminated against because of their faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. From a young age, I decided to be a Maronite monk, a young priest. And when I came to America, I knew that we will have to bring the East and the West to meet together in the love of God and the love of the neighbor, to save the world from calamities, from wars, from violence, from death, and from evil. and to, along with many American people, be the instrument of peace for the glory of God, the salvation of souls, and the salvation of the lives of many in the world. To continue this good work, we need first and foremost your prayers. Please pray for peace. We also need love and donations. Your financial gifts will help us keep providing emergency food and essentials to families, urgent medical care, sustain our refugee relief efforts, and keep families safe in times of tribulations and persecution. The St. Raph Commission of Hope and Mercy is a 501c3 in good standing as an organization and donations are tax deductible. We have a four star rating on Cherokee Navigator and 96% of your dollar goes directly to our programs and to families that we serve. We have two ways that you can show your support. One, you can visit our website at missionofhopeandmercy.org. That is missionofhopeandmercy.org. And please click on the donate page. Or visit our special Give Sand Go campaign. That is Give Sand Go campaign. Will you give now and be the hands and feet of Christ? For he tells us, for I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. A stranger and you welcomed me. Naked and you clothed me. Ill and you cared for me. In prison and you visited me. And then they said, Lord, when did we do these things? And the king will say to them in reply, Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me. When we had last year, I was in Lebanon still and there was a bombing, as you can tell, in South Lebanon. So we took actually the Christmas gifts with us and we went all over South Lebanon and there were airstrikes on top of us. We took mattresses, we took water, we took Christmas gifts, we distributed thousands of food boxes to families. There is such a joy. When you are in an adventurous place where there is war, where there is a disruption of a peace happening, yet you know your aim, your goal is going there to feed the people, to give them something, to help them, to assist them. This is a type of assistance the Mission of Hope and Mercy does every time. So with this, our needs for this Christmas are, of course, again, we would like to send food to about 3,500 families. our needs for Christmas this time. We have many, many, many children in Lebanon who are in need for educational aid, believe it or not. This could be clothing because they may not have enough sweaters on them. So we would buy them clothing to go to school. We consider this an educational aid and help. Many of them don’t have even the good shoes and able to go under rain. and to go to school. Do you know that Lebanon has four seasons? I do not know if you know that. And winter is tough. Winter, we say it’s pretty because we have snow, but winter is very watery in Lebanon. comes with heavy loads of high wind and lara rain and windy cold weather but of course because it’s an average mediterranean weather still is a nice winter but it is a strong winter at the same time so children for instance don’t have sometimes enough notebooks sometimes we send food to their families or in the school to support, subsidize for the food that the children needed at school because many of the children come to the school. without the actual food. In our Christmas toy drive, for instance, we send Christmas gifts to the children. And of course, these are educational gifts. These also could be gifts of surprise to children by paying a tuition for them so they can continue to afford their education. Because in many circumstances in Lebanon, if you are Christian and you’re not attending a Christian school, meaning you’re not attending practically Christian schools, predominantly are the Catholic schools that we have in Lebanon, the Orthodox schools, the evangelical schools, beautiful schools, high level of education. But education in Lebanon is very costly, but it is the bread and butter of a Christian family in order to give a good inheritance of intellect, of mind, of critical thinking, of a potential and possibility of bright future for the children. Well, today the Lebanese population is suffering from a tremendous consequence of the Beirut explosion, the banking corruption that happened in the 2020 Beirut explosion as we all have seen it as a matter of fact. But also there’s something else that Lebanon is suffering from. You all remember the situation after October 7, unfortunately. And President Trump and Israel and the Palestinian government and Egypt and Qatar and Turkey and Saudi Arabia and the Vatican And many nations, probably France and Great Britain, every one of them, all these nations, basically, on one end, they drove their battleships to the Middle East. And on the other end, they went to the Middle East with initiatives of peace, initiatives of trying to finish the problem, to return the refugees. And it seems that this situation is not ending. As we are speaking, as a matter of fact, Lebanon now is going even on a more abrupt unknown destiny. And there are more heavy bombings in Lebanon. Christians have nothing to do with it. When I say Christians, I speak about the poor family. I don’t talk about the corrupt leadership. I don’t talk about the official government. I don’t talk about the political affiliations for the Christians in Lebanon. But I know for a fact that the Christian families in Lebanon who have no stake in the fight, They have nothing to win, but they have everything to lose in this fight between corruption, violence, religious persecution, and this inter-religious dialogue and no dialogue at some times, tolerance and no tolerance at some times. It’s tough. They need support. They need help. Do you know that the average salary of a Lebanese person since 2020, after the Beirut explosion, and after the banking corruption in Lebanon, and after Hezbollah came and they stole all the funds, they seized the individual funds of the Lebanese people. Do you know that the individual income per family came down to $35 per month? You heard it right. $35 per month. Since 2020 until today, the families in Lebanon, the individuals, the business societies, the business people cannot access their money. Whatever money they saved in a bank before 2020 is gone. Till now, this money has not returned. and the Lebanese society and the Christian people in Lebanon who existentially are the most influential Christian group that we have in the Middle East. They are influential because they can make a peace. They are influential because they establish the best universities. They establish the best schools. They establish the best hospitals. They establish the best hospitality services and beautiful hotels. They make life beautiful around them. But unfortunately, if they’re not sustained by us, the economic cycle in Lebanon will get interrupted and then the other power comes and take over the Christian assets, the Christian real estate. Christian hospitals have shut down, Christian schools have shut down, you know, Christian families have migrated. There is about 450,000 visa applicants today. On the Christian side alone from Lebanon, to migrate from Lebanon, 450,000. It is sad to see that this situation is happening. So now Lebanon is in the eye of the storm again. And between Israel and the United States, and hopefully the ceasefire will hold, but we know for a fact that Israel decided to, for whatever reasons that they have, in their fight against Hezbollah, Hezbollah on one hand, is rearming it seems and then Israel on the other end is making sure that Hezbollah doesn’t arm itself and how are they going to do this bombing the hell out of the infrastructure targeted bombing sometimes and many times But many times they disrupt the life of the people. You can’t go to school and feel safe. You can’t cross the bridge and feel safe. God help us because, you know, the terrorists, they end up living inside neighborhoods of the people and the people may not know where they are. All of a sudden you see an airstrike or those air drones strikes or an actual airstrike coming in the heart of Beirut and hitting or in the middle of remote village that we did not know how. and unfortunately those infiltrations could happen actually inside the Christian areas. This is a case, this is a cause, and on top of that, we have the dream for Africa, the advocacy for Africa. The Christians in Nigeria, the Christians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Christians in Sudan, and the Christians now in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania who are suffering. My friends, the platform and the territory for the persecuted Christians is large. It’s such an existential problem and it’s very big. On behalf of the Mission of Hope and Mercy and myself, Father Andre, who we have been in this field, we have been trying to serve and to help and to assist the persecuted Christians. I want to thank every donor, every potential donor who since our foundation in 2015 until today have committed on a monthly basis to assist us or have did what we call a planned donations, informed donations. I thank you for the $50, for the $10, for the $25. I thank you for the gift of offering a talent just like Felicia offers her professional talent. Can you believe she does all of that that we’re doing in our podcast for free without no charge? It’s my privilege to say that I don’t mean to put her on the spot. But we have another lady. Her name is Victoria. She takes time to edit every content of what we do for free. And those people are busy. They have an entire life. So the donations of time, the donations of talent, the donation of treasure, the donation, we need a marketing company, for instance. We need a fundraising company or fundraising abilities or people. in order to take that message of the mission of hope and mercy to save, educate and aid about the persecuted Christians in Lebanon, in the Middle East, in Africa and maximize it. It is my wish and my desire before God and before you, my brothers and sisters, that God will move your heart. and the Holy Spirit will come in and inspire you through the gifts of prayer, time, talent and the treasure the way you choose and you decide to adopt through the mission of Hope and Mercy a program of food, a program of medicine or in general support the programs of the mission of Hope and Mercy. This concludes our podcast for today. This concludes what I wanted to share with you today. I want to ask Almighty God in this week of Thanksgiving to make sure everyone have a safe travel to come home and arrive safe. Because I know this is the busiest week in U.S. in travel. And I know that all of you are looking forward to sit together as a family. Come back home, not only to your physical family. Come back home to your home church. to your home church. As Mother Miriam said and Father James Altman, I say to you as well, it is time that Jesus is born inside your homes, inside your heart. Embrace your families and look at them as your members in the mystical body of Christ. You will have them living for eternity. And if you hate your family members, you don’t love them, look at them with the eye of Jesus Christ and forgive them, pardon them. Use this week of Thanksgiving to restore, to restore not only the joy that you miss, not only the time with the family that you miss, not only the good food and the delicious flavor of the turkey and of the food that comes with it on beautiful Thanksgiving menu, that you miss, not only the time of warmth with the family, not only the time of the early Black Friday where you go and you start your early shopping, but this time help us restore the Christian hope in the hearts of the most persecuted, neglected, dejected, weary and isolated. So turn the Black Friday to a wonderful White Friday. White Friday by means that imagine your donation going to support the Christian brothers and sisters. According to the means that you give us, we will maximize the effect of your donation to assist to the maximum we can through food, through medicine, through housing, through the emergency programs, through the charity and education that we do, and the urgent surgeries that we have actually a list of people that needs them. Give them life during Black Friday. give them life during the time and season of Advent. Through that little gift, allow them as well to see in the most concrete acts of charity, in the most elaborate and concrete and genuinely heartfelt gift that you would give to the mission of Hope and Mercy, that Christ comes in an Advent not only with the physical bread that you allow us to bring to them, but they also can turn back up to God and look upward and say, Thank you, Jesus. I thank you, Lord Jesus Christ. May Almighty God bless you, protect you all from all evil. forgive you your sins, and bring us all to the peace, joy, and victory in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And may God bring us all to the joy of Advent and the season of Thanksgiving and to everlasting life. Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day. To hear previous programs, visit the show page at missionofhopeandmercy.org. Listen to Father Andre every Sunday morning at 7.30 on KLZ as he speaks on the unity of Christians, religious freedom, and the biblical foundation of Judeo-Christian values and traditions. Join him in bringing hope and freedom to people across the globe while also strengthening your own faith, family, and community right here in Colorado. Reawaken the spiritual strength of America. Go to missionofhopeandmercy.org.
