Father Isa
speaker
24 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2025
last heard 24 Dec
Father Isa’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 1.
Appearances
So when Mary and Joseph came from Nazareth to Bethlehem, it was an old house. Actually, it was barely places that you can see, like houses, small houses, and it's not actually, you can't live in it. So they found no place as to give birth in it. So they found just in a place which is stable for animals.
And that's why they went inside there. But it has a reason for that. So as to God born in a place for like to be as with the poverty people and to simplicity, to live with simplicity. And that's why the door of the church of nativity is called humble door. So when we bow inside as to go inside for the place for the king of the kings was born in a place like in a stable of animals. So all the other religions, they were...
pharaohs and emperors that's right he could born in here's the king of kings born in a stable exactly and that's the meaning of that it's just to live as a simplicity as it is to live with love and peace because from nothing that we can be something so it's in the bible says and you bethlehem will not be small so and bethlehem is this was a small town and now we can see it actually all the eyes of all of the world looks in this
small city of Bethlehem and that's that's where Jesus was born as to give this love and peace and so if we can say like now it's it's same Bethlehem we can we can see all the houses we can see the cave where Jesus was born and we can see the simplicity people and hospitality of Bethlehem that they're still living and continue the message of peace and love
That's right. And that's why we still, actually, we are the living stones. I call the Christians community in Bethlehem the living stones, not the church. The church may be 2,000 years and still exist, but the church doesn't mean anything with the faithful people, the Christians, who keep it alive, you know, with the prayers every day, to keep the services and liturgy, and helping people coming from all over the world to visit this place.
That's why we are daily services in the church where Jesus was born, exactly in the spot where the light shines all over the world. We just celebrate masses every day for Christians like Orthodox, Catholics, and Armenians.
And we continue to celebrate this because in Bethlehem it's almost like Christians and Muslims living together and we are united. In Bethlehem as one, like when you see like last two weeks ago when we lit the Christmas tree, all people together were Christians, Muslims from different backgrounds.
They were celebrating Christmas and loving as to see like the love, charity of people, happiness of them, like after two years, you know, no celebration, no festivities. It's just amazing to find this Bethlehem again, back again.
Can you tell us about Saint Joseph? Saint Joseph is the best because he took care of Mary when he knew that the one that she's holding in her womb is Jesus Christ. So he never actually noticed because he was suspicious about it. But after this, when Gabriel told him that you have to take care of her because this is from God,
And that's why he continued, actually, to take care of this woman that he never actually know before. But this was actually the... And it was scandalous. Exactly. And embarrassing. Embarrassing, for sure. But this is deep in your heart. Like, you think when God just put things, like, to think wisely, with love, with respect. And this is how he dealt with this issue. People must have been looking at him, laughing at him, mocking him. That's true.
For sure. This is what people actually usually do when you are in the right place and you're doing the best thing. So that's why we have, as Christians or as a young man, to have to look at St. Joseph, how he dealt with this issue and how he continued because he knew he has a vision. Jason? And this vision actually... Yes, Jason.
Like in Bethlehem, since I was born, actually, I can tell that we live Christians and Muslims together, side by side. As you can see, backgrounds like the mosque in front of the church. And which is meaning that we are actually together. We're living in Bethlehem, just neighbors. And we actually share the life of Bethlehem people here, the same together. Like in the church, we have people like police helping us. They are Muslims and they are taking care of this church. They are security.
And we have also, and many people, we are actually grow up with them, neighbors side by side, and with the same difficulties, the same problems, and with the same happiness. So as I said before, when we laid the Christmas tree, it was many people from Muslims' backgrounds, and they were actually celebrating with us. They were happy. And we actually joined together like during Easter time, during Ramadan, and during Christmas time, we share together, we greet each other in these feasts, and we are,
here one family. This is only in Bethlehem, because you know, it's just where Jesus was born. I have to say, I was shocked last Christmas, Steve, when I was the only person not from Bethlehem here, but there were so many Muslim pilgrims in the Church of the Nativity. Is this something that's normal? Yes, it's normal. Many people actually during these two years, we didn't have any kind of visitors or pilgrims, only we have Muslims who are coming from
All the Muslims area around, they were coming, visiting the church with respect. They light a candle for peace. And this is what means a lot for us as Christians to see Muslims coming and respecting the place where Jesus was born. And they are actually happy about this. For 750 years, the Orthodox Church was living within the Caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate.
It's good questions, actually, because, you know, survived Christians' community, especially the Orthodox one, from the Ottoman time and past, not just only Ottoman, Crusaders' times, British times, and many happens in, like, the Holy Land.
But still, Christians communities still exist and they're rooted in the land because of the help of the, you know, Patriarchate, Jerusalem. We know about the church itself, of the people who are around us to help and to maybe command the faith of their people. The Christians community still resist in there and they're rooted in the land.
but maybe some of them like christians lived like with fear you know with no hope with uh they need freedom they need justice they need dignity and some of them actually even palestinian christians community they have left this this place because of uh have no freedom no dignity no justice and that's why in many christians communities even in iraq or syria or any place they are leaving immigrations and
That's right. And we're talking about this and still, actually, people are, Christians are immigrating and still living. Syria, Iraq, and even Palestine, even in Bethlehem, many people left because of these difficulties, living under difficult occupation or difficult situations.
Is it important for Christians to stay in the Holy Land? For sure. I call them the living stones and we need to continue our rooted like in Bethlehem and we could continue because Bethlehem without the Christians means nothing. We need them to continue living in there and call them living stones and we need, that's why it's my vision, my role in Bethlehem as a young priest.
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