Divine choices healed by love, hope and light, tragic Lebanon

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Divine choices and options - Continue on page 2

I dedicate these lines to those who are so deeply scarred, that they can be healed only by love, hope and light... Joseph Matar

Divine choices and options

I offer you here some sad events that I have personally experienced so as to be deeply moved, actions where I have seen the will of the Good Lord, for which one may judge Him severely, but which however have convinced me of His presence.

Throughout history, there have been many tragic events that have deeply afflicted mankind. Was not the massacre of the Holy Innocents as described in the Gospel of Saint Matthew (Ch. 2:.16,) a terrible example? If these children had been born somewhere other than Bethlehem, would they not have been spared and lived? Further, the historic word Innocent itself calls on God, who through a window of Paradise watches all His creation and is completely free to leave people do as they wish and to choose those whom He would call to join Him. Very often, it seems, He prefers the innocent, the pure, those most dear to us, the great and beautiful souls. How many cases there are, how many tales, how many stories, where faced with unexpected and undeserved death one addresses oneself to God and the question remains always the same: why such a choice, why such a person?

You may well have read Voltaire. In his tale of Zadig, he puts words into the mouth of the hermit, author and witness of incomprehensible dramas: “If you believe in God, an attentive God, almighty and good, you will entrust yourself to His providence and His benevolence; otherwise we fall into total absurdity and our anger has no meaning...”

Those called by the Lord – The First Communion

In 1943, when I was just eight years old, I held my mother by her skirt or by her hand. In the month of May she took me with her to Beirut, along a narrow road, a coastal road running between the capital and the North. On climbing into the bus, like all children, I ran to get into a seat by the window. It was a Sunday morning and at that time the Holy Sacraments were not mere folklore as they are now, when most attention is given to show, luxury, the newspaper headlines and extravagant expense.

I was only too happy to look out of the window and to see the passing countryside and the steady traffic. As we reached Dbayeh I saw a young women holding the hand of a little girl dressed in white, the traditional costume for the First Communion. The weather was fine and sunny, redolent of spring, when suddenly there was tragedy: an automobile, overtaking the bus, ran down the little girl and crushed her. I saw her in her little white dress lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Her distraught mother screamed and beat her breast. A number of people ran up. The bus stopped, for the curious were many and so were those volunteers with a kind heart, courageous and anxious to help. The little girl had been killed on the spot, after having received for the first time in her life the Host, the Blessed Sacrament.

This tragic spectacle has remained engraved in my memory up till now. Things happen that bite deep into our souls and that we analyze and understand in different ways, according to our age and maturity of spirit. Should I always ask why God allows such things? Why this should have happened on the very day of that little girl’s First Communion?

Certainly it was a tragedy and one may well ask God, when one believes in Him, not to allow such a thing. His silence and absence may well make one doubt in Him. But then one recalls that nothing escapes Him and that every brutal event has a meaning. This child run over that day in the tenderness of her First Communion was received into Heaven, and with what grace! That is a matter for God. But for the grieving mother and all the family, and for us who were spectators, who were deeply moved and who mourned, what a great test of passion and feeling was there, with generous help, compassion, grief, anger, resignation, and hope! What a revelation! Reality is not only what is visible.

Annaya under the gateway

This was in the early 1950s. The great Saint Sharbel had revealed his presence and his sanctity to all the peoples of the planet. The Lebanese, believers and unbelievers, of every religion, had come in crowds to visit Annaya, the monastery and the hermitage, taking away relics from the place where the saint had passed his earthly existence, taking leaves from the trees and pieces from the massive old oak under which the hermit had walked and prayed. A bus service took one as far as the monastery and from then on the visits were made on foot. For a long time the place made the headlines in the press and all the talk was about the apparitions and the miracles of the saint.

That day a certain family, father, mother and children, set out for Annaya, now become the main center of pilgrimage in Lebanon. The children were enjoying themselves and running ahead of their parents when suddenly a great doorway forged in iron and placed against a wall, slipped and crushed one of the children, a little child of five. He died instantly. The frantic father and mother did not know what to do, beyond imploring the Holy Virgin and the Saint, crying aloud and weeping. The child could not be taken to any hospital. The nearest, which was at Byblos, could not have been reached in under an hour. The little child, now passed away, lay in the arms of his poor mother, who vainly held the little body close to her breast. All that could be done was to resign oneself and accept the will of the Almighty. God had picked out this little child and made his choice, of a pure soul to sit beside him in Paradise.

Sixty-five years after this happened I visited a member of this family who was still alive. He was the little child’s elder brother, who at the time of the accident was seven or eight years old. He was an elderly bachelor, in a luxurious residence near the former college of the Marist Brothers.

“We were with our father and mother,” he declared to me, “We were running around in the corridors of the monastery. A massive iron door was badly propped up against the wall. In a fraction of a second, it slipped and crushed my little brother. You may well imagine how my mother, who was shrieking madly, called in vain for help. Death had been immediate. Yes, I have faith, but what is that little one doing up there in Paradise? Do the souls up there have the same worries and programs as on earth? Why should it have been that particular day at the monastery at Annaya when we were celebrating the saint?
“‘Such things are hard,’ said Victor Hugo, ‘One needs much study in order to understand them!’ Our parents and we young ones, without understanding anything, were resigned. It was yet again a poet who said, ‘Desiring what God desires is the one thing that gives us peace...’”

Faraya, the cliff

Years ago, when we were young, we used to pass our summer vacation at Faraya, up in the mountains. We rented a small house, a room, a terrace, just a place for shelter, one that was by no means always luxurious. We lived out of doors, surrounded by nature. We entered the room only to sleep at six o’clock or a little later. We used to cook under a tree and eat under a vine, while we did our summer homework near a river. The countryside was picturesque then though now the place has been turned into a ski resort and become polluted like all the large towns.

At Faraya there is a great cliff forming a very high arc around part of the village, with waterfalls, rocks, steep slopes and terraces. We went for unforgettable outings with our classmates who also came to spend the summer there. The Marist Brothers had a holiday center where many of their pupils came for the summer, especially the boarders whose parents were in America or Africa. The young ones organized outings and spent the day surrounded by the natural beauty near the springs of water and returned only late in the evening.

One particular student, much liked by his companions helpful, smart, athletic and studious, was called John. All the young ones knew him well. But during one of these outings when walking along the high cliff John slipped and was crushed a hundred feet below.

What a terrible catastrophe! What was to be done? What was happening? John was fifteen years old, a model pupil. All the village ran up and the life-savers scrambled up the rocks to bring back John, now a lifeless and inert corpse. His soul was surely received by the Lord. The fall had ravaged his earthly body. “Our friend John is in Heaven,” everybody said. We younger ones aged eleven felt crushed by this sad accident.

Are the happenings written beforehand in the signs of the heavenly Zodiac? When the chimes of the heavenly clock ring out, the timekeepers on earth have no power to change the hour of destiny inscribed in space.

One might dream of what this young man might have become, he who was so gifted and was suddenly taken away without reason while there are so many wicked ones who succeed in life and prosper. This was the subject of a famous Arab tale: “Son,” said the wise spiritual guide to his pupil disturbed about one who was said to have been erring from the straight and narrow path, “God knows what He does; what happened to him was the best for him. Adore God’s holy Will.”

Philip and the rock

It was the end of July in the year 2009. There was a lively wedding ceremony going on not far from the monastery of Saint Maroun at Annaya, accompanied by much celebration and with hundreds of guests taking part. Preparations for the marriage had been going on for more than a year in the residence of a very rich friend. Usually, marriage, being a sacrament, is celebrated in the church, just like baptism, Holy Communion or an ordination; but one may obtain the favor of permission to celebrate it at home. There seems nothing against it since our Sacred Mysteries are being transformed into folklore, a social festivity, where huge sums of money are thrown away in showing off so as to be the subject of gossip and to appear in the “glossies”, while there are so many poor and deprived in the world...but enough!
An altar was set up specially for the occasion and tables arranged on the terraces, with a sumptuous decor under the trees, worthy of some great palace. There were brilliant lights facing the monastery, and a leading restaurant service to provide a bountiful and epicurean dinner. Everything was just as it should be, for the arrival of the couple to be married, the reception, the music, and the bishop who was to give the blessing. The cream of society was there, in fashionable and formal dress, and all the perquisites.

A number of well-dressed children were playing around, enjoying themselves, jumping over the rocks, running from one terrace to another, each wanting to show off and demonstrate his own daring, when a rock weighing several tons lost its unstable balance and came down crushing young, Philip, a boy of about ten. The other children were appalled and called for help, but Philip was already crushed, and in any case none of the party could have lifted such a massive block of stone. How many in our present-day society would be capable of doing such a thing? However, one of my workmen was present, a man called Najah, and he instinctively seized a wooden cross with a strong beam put for the occasion and used it as a lever to raise the rock a few inches, pull out the motionless child, take him in his arms, and rush him to the emergency ward of the nearest hospital. The man confessed to me later that there was blood everywhere. Philip had left this earthly marriage to the people of the earth and gone to meet his Lord for celestial celebration with his Heavenly Mother and the saints. So did God wish him there for his wedding?

At Cana the wedding was certainly a beautiful one at which Christ showed his divinity. Christ and his Mother were the stars of the feast. Did Philip see his Mother, Star of the Sea, and wish to join her? Among so many children, dozens of them, why did God choose this pure and innocent Philip, with his bright and luminous spirit? Did the Good God need this child in Paradise?

O destiny, destiny! In how many accusations and prayers are you named! Destiny, you settle our fate beforehand, taking no count of our wishes. You de not depend on our will. Destiny, you have no heart, no eyes, no ears, no blood in your veins? Are you inhuman? Saying your very name leaves us breathless. Say no more and put a full stop! Destiny, you are the sovereign lord of our existence, both sword of Damocles and flower of love, blazing light and shades of darkness Our only consolation is our faith and our hope.

Destiny, what you write nobody can know, illegible for us poor men. Your ways are unknown, so are men wrong to judge you when they know not the least thing about you? You are always unexpected, showing yourself during the serenity and calm happiness of our stay here below. You are like the thief of whom speaks Our Lord, coming perhaps in the morning, the evening of our time, at midnight or any other moment?

I have known the unhappy father of Philip, who could not get over what had happened, and was dying of grief. As for little Philip, I never knew him personally but I loved him like my own children. He belonged to another world, having an unusually original personality. He was like no one other than himself. His father was his ideal, to whom he wished to give satisfaction, before whom he wished to prove his heroism and whom he loved.

All our holy books deal with this matter, with Job unjustly chastised and Jesus Christ unjustly sacrificed. But they also give us hope that one day we shall understand. Christ said, “I shall return.” We think of the American general who during the Second World War had lost everything during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. “I shall return!” he said, and we know what energy and brio he put into his return! All is not said and done because there is misfortune. “I shall return!” said McArthur!

The Boat

Here we are at Byblos, cradle of the alphabet and of civilizations. From here the triremes furrowed the Phoenician Sea, later to be called the Mediterranean.

At present Byblos is an archaeological tourist attraction and a little port for fishing and for pleasure. There are many religious sects represented here, Shiites, Sunnites, Maronites, Greek rite, and Armenians, living side by side and sharing in the work. In particular, two families of fisher folk, those of Ali and Antoun, who worked together, went to throw out their nets either together or each in turn, but the important thing was that they divided the profit equally.

Antoun fell seriously ill. Ali took his place, feeling that he was under obligation to Antoun, who sometimes gave him all the profit from their fish. Now Ali went fishing every day to step up their income so he could help Antoun.

Working by himself was tiring for Ali, so his children came to his aid. Their little boat was propeller-driven, with a small diesel engine; therefore there was no need for rowing, but Ali kept two oars stuck in the boat in case of an accident or of the motor breaking down out at sea.

One day, Marwan, Antoun’s youngest child, wished to go out with Ali. They went to cast their nets at night to haul them in early next morning. Ali held the tiller while Marwan unfolded the nets and threw them overboard. Once the job finished, they went to sleep in the boat, leaving a strong light to attract the fish.

At daybreak they began to haul in the nets, which held plenty of fish. Marwan dived into the water in order to pull up a piece of rope. As he swam round the boat he came close to the propeller, just as Ali was starting up the engine. Marwan was cut up by the propeller and screamed aloud. Aghast at what had happened, Ali jumped into the water, tore the young man away and heaved him into the boat. But the poor fellow was already in another world, in the throes of death and unconscious.

Deeply distressed, Ali steered the boat full speed to the coast. Other fishermen who were not far away noticed that Ali was in trouble and on hearing his cries rushed to join him. Everybody along the shore mourned the young man who had been so full of life, fun and kindness as his body was taken lifeless to his home. Did God have need of this poor fisher lad? Do they go fishing in Paradise?

Ten days had scarcely passed and Ali and Antoun were once again going out in their boat to earn their living. What reasons did they find? Both, after all, were believers and both surrendered themselves to God’s Will. He alone knows and decides. We are on one side of the setting and whatever God is bringing about on the other side of the stage will one day be known to us. “In this faith I wish to live and in it to die,” said the poet Villon in 1465 to his aged mother who was to see him hanged.

The Palm tree and the child

It was early in the 1980s, but for the exact date, the day and the hour, I must go to the registers of the school of the French Holy Family in Jounieh. My two daughters were pupils in this excellent school, which stood scarcely three hundred yards from our house. A neighbor of ours walked them to the school, taking the sidewalk under the trees and avoiding the traffic light crossings. There was only one set of lights in the town at that time and there was always a policeman standing by. When my occupation permitted, I would take them in my car.

This particular day there was a storm beating down on the bay, a tempest such as had never been known before. The wind blew so strong that it carried away small cars, tiles from the houses, windows, and even whole roofs. The two girls knew from the advice that I had given them that when there was a storm blowing they should seek shelter in the entrance of a building or in some place well protected.

On this occasion waves many feet high were breaking furiously over the coastal road and on all sides people were rushing to get home. I was anxious for my girls. Normally, I listen to the radio only when I am driving in my car, and during the troubles the speakers would inform their listeners about the general state of affairs, about check-points, explosions, kidnappings somewhere or other, and various dangers. Suddenly we heard a weather report telling us about the storm, roads that were not safe, bad visibility, trees uprooted, electric pylons down, power failures – and then news about a palm tree blown down at the Holy Family college and crushing a little girl of six or seven.

This newsflash struck me like a blow, like a thunderclap! I drove madly at top speed, parked my car up on the sidewalk in front of the school, and then rushed inside. Classes had stopped and the children were running to their respective buses, while parents were desperately searching for their offspring. I met a teacher, one with a doctorate in History, an old colleague of mine, who said, “Don’t worry, I have just seen your two daughters with the lady who comes with them. They are under the playground shelter waiting for you.”

This calmed me down to some extent, but still I wanted to learn about this poor little one whom I did not know, who had sought shelter under the palm tree, thinking that its great trunk would give her protection. But the palm tree had been torn up by the wind and the little girl crushed beneath it. Pour little innocent! In the tales for children the palm tree is a decoration, an upright line countering the flatness of the desert, a tree to illustrate the flight of Jesus and the Holy Family into Egypt.

I was heavy of heart, I was oppressed and I suffered as if I had lost one of my own. I spent a whole week in a state of deep melancholy. I went to see the palm tree, uprooted and lying on the ground. I asked about the parents of the little victim, whom it turned out I knew.

Could not this poor innocent little child have hidden herself under the playground shelter or inside the school? And why did this palm tree fall when there were so many other palms, fig trees, eucalyptus trees and others?

From among the thousands of pupils in the school God had made his choice. The little innocent, the pure soul, went to Paradise to tell the angels what they did not know. Little girl on earth, princess in heaven!

I had to find words to console these people, the nuns, and their pupils. I turn again to Victor Hugo, mourning his daughter just drowned at Villequier, or to Lamartine speaking to his daughter in Beirut: “We never see but one side of things. One day we shall understand.”

The Story of Latouf

I got to know him quite recently, just four years ago, a fellow of medium height, brown, and on the thin side, a person discreet, helpful, reserved, and noble, distinguished, smiling and affectionate. I felt however there was some sadness about him, some wound unhealed that ceased not to bleed.

There was no question of asking him about his misfortune. He kept his sorrow to himself, sharing it with no one. His optimism and faith in God were unshakable. I had a feeling that this Latouf had long been known to me.

One day he told me that he had just two sons and that they held good positions working in the Gulf States. But he did not tell me his whole story or speak of his great source of sadness. We used to visit each other but I felt that despite his kindness, his generosity, his warm welcome and his devotion, that his cheerfulness hid a certain bitterness., a deep sorrow on which nobody else could lay their finger. Later, a friend of mine who knew him told me that in the past Latouf had been much more at ease, more sociable, going out and about and visiting people. But suddenly he had cut himself off from the world, remained a month without food, tense and seemingly in despair. He was lost, without direction, battling at the bottom of a gulf from which he could find no way out, all this following the death of his third son at the age of twenty-three in a motor-car accident

I had been acquainted with Latouf’s wife and children, a real model family, believers, and good citizens liked by those around them for their courage and their devotion to others, in all, a God-fearing family. All of a sudden the Master was to test his subjects and the chose was made. The son was chosen, the one who was called to be close to his Creator.

On learning all this I understood the crisis that Latouf had undergone; I hadn’t known the son well but he was in the image of his father. I have never let on to Latouf that I know about his misfortune and suffering. We see each other quite often but talk only about things in general without ever mentioning him who has gone above. I feel deeply with Latouf although I knew his son only slightly and had not been informed at the time about the fatal accident. Latouf is a convinced Christian believer and ready to accept what Providence has in mind for us.

He drops in on me for a short visit quite often, in fact, nearly every week, and makes no secret of his friendship and of the peace of mind he finds in my company. He passes unnoticed, like zephyr, always the father of three sons; one of them has simply changed his place of residence, one might say ambitious to exalt in the shining face of Christ in Heaven.

If his faith is such, why remain overwhelmed? Job said, “What God has given, God has taken away!” This poem of undeserved suffering is eternally true, even if Job and his small and brilliant advocate Elihu did not go beyond mere resignation. But any Christian can go beyond this, as Saint Paul said to the Philippians (Ch.3: 20, 21), “Our conversation is in Heaven.”

A Place of death

A married couple, friends of mine, had two boys and a girl after six years of marriage and I had been the godfather of one of the children. Their father had been one of my students and they all came to visit me together; the father was prouder than Napoleon at Austerlitz when he was surrounded by his children. He loved to show himself in public, at Mass, at ceremonies, at the houses of relatives, with his little flock all smartly dressed. His children were his glory, his victory; he was deeply attached to them and loved them beyond description. He said to me that he felt himself a child, that he liked children’s games, children’s films, and candies and ice creams as if he were a child himself. He was little René and wanted to grow up with his children through every phase of their lives. If one of them had the least sign of fever or indisposition, there would be any number of telephone calls to doctors and child specialists and my friend would be unable to sleep at night.

One Sunday they all put on their very best clothes and trooped off to Mass at Saint John’s, the cathedral of Byblos. After the Holy Mass they were driving towards Batroun, a little town on the coast not far from Byblos, half way to Tripoli, when suddenly a truck completely out of control plunged towards their car. Usually the children took their places on the back seat, but on this particular day the youngest one had wanted to sit in front on his mother’s knees. Under the shock the skull of the little one was crushed, as he cushioned his mother. She, poor woman, hugged him to herself, unable to realize what had happened. Both father and mother were taken to hospital, while the little daughter and her brother were cared for b their aunt. Later the little victim was buried in the presence of his parents. Their grandfathers, grandmothers and uncles took care of the arrangements for the funeral, which was deeply moving. Later I chanced to read the police report, which gave various details such as the driver of the truck being drunk.

Once back to health, the father came to me to sob his heart out in my studio, saying, “Why didn’t the Good God choose a lamb as he did for Abraham, instead of allowing my little child to die so suddenly. What plan or principle does He follow? I would rather have died myself instead of my child!” My poor friend lamented like Jeremiah. I did my best to calm him down and urged him to concentrate on the education of the other two little ones. After all, the child had saved his mother (awful argument!) and from Heaven where he was he would intercede for them all.

I am aware that such resignation needs a generous dose of faith, but I know people who live their lives with such conviction and whose memory of a lost little one is a strong motive for a nobler and more constructive kind of life.

A Window on Byblos

Over the last ten years there has been a tremendous development here of the tourist sector, with restaurants, cafés, stereos, night clubs, bakeries, sandwich bars and drink. Entire streets have been lined with restaurants of every imaginable kind, Chinese, Italian, Russia, Spanish and Brazilian, with Lebanese, Turkish and Moroccan food. One would need a whole day just to read the billboards and see the endless fish, seafood and sushi establishments all thriving on the snobbery that would have us taste everything that is new and fashionable.

Old houses, antiquated but picturesque, are being restored and redecorated in order to make attractive new places. This activity has reached a point where thousand-year-old olive trees are being transported and replanted in the new establishments to give them the veneer of a historic past. It was said that in Ancient Greece anybody who tore up an olive tree would have his head cut off. But now nature is respected no more and the most sacred values are polluted and prostituted.

Richard’s people were trying to buy some ancient house with its arcades in an effort to revive artificially days long past. Between the towns of Amsheet and Byblos was a site where one of these houses from the past was being transformed into a modern restaurant. The façade made up of three arches was to be grouped within a framework of fine wrought iron artistically forged by a master blacksmith. This was already completed and it only remained to fix it into position, weld it and ensure its solidity.

One evening, negligent workmen left this ironwork leaning against the wall without any protection. The children of the proprietor were taking a look at the future restaurant that very evening and as they approached the iron screen for some reason or other it slipped and one of the children was crushed under its weight, to the accompaniment of a hideous crash. A part of the stone columns collapsed with disastrous results. All Byblos was a-buzz with talk of this accident, especially during the funeral, and commenting on the negligence of the workmen.

I myself wondered, supposing this child had been elsewhere at the time, would he have died any differently? If his name, the hour of his departure, his fate, the number of his days and his appointment with death had all been fixed in advance, what else could have happened to him? I was vaguely acquainted with the boy’s parents and I know that they finished transforming the old house and made it into a flourishing restaurant. Perhaps they make sweets and cakes for the little angels in Paradise. This piece of bread and drop of water had to be offered to Elissar for the final salvation of us all. Can one forget this unhappy little drama and carry on as though nothing had happened? This is the secret of these people. It does not leave out the possibility of an inner sadness, prudishly hidden from the public gaze, and transformed after all into generous service.

Fate on the bridge

In 1987 I was head of the department at the School of Fine Arts. I was responsible for practical matters, drawing and painting, with a deciding voice in every section 0– Architecture, Interior Design, Painting, Theater, instructors’ programs, works, students, judgments, remarks and grades. My eldest daughter, Marina, who was studying Architecture, had a friend from the time she was at the Sisters’ school who was doing Theater and Dramatic Art. They often made the journey between Jounieh and Beirut together when I was not taking Marina with me in my car.

At the Fine Arts, the students often stayed up all night, particularly before they had to present their projects to be judged. The standard was very high. Our graduates were much in demand from business houses in Lebanon, the Gulf Emirates, Europe and around the world. I put all my energy into ensuring an excellent level despite the turbulence of certain students and the intrigues of certain partisans of political parties who wished to lay their hands on everything. Despite all the difficulties the results were good. As for myself, I was like the priest who celebrates the religious offices not knowing any of the faithful around him.

Aida, Marina’s friend, was a young lady full of energy and very open. One rainy November evening early in the university year Marina wished to accompany me and took leave of her friend. We left and finally went for a drive between Jounieh and Byblos, visiting my brother and some other people. That evening Aida set off for home alone. Before leaving the University she called her mother, asking her to wait for her before dinner. Arriving at a pass-over, she went over the slope and on going down the other side found herself face-to-face with a car parked in the middle of the road and blocking all access. It belonged to a very rich industrialist returning from Beirut. The tragedy happened at the bridge at Antelias. The industrial had burst a tire and stopped the car in order to go and telephone for help. It was then that the accident occurred. Aida was rushed to hospital in a coma hanging between life and death.

As for the industrial, he was quite safe, but he went almost mad. He offered his own private aircraft to take the young girl to Europe to be cared for and declared he was ready to spend all his fortune to save her. He was sincere and considered himself an involuntary criminal. The encephalogram reading was flat and Aida remained in coma for three weeks, after which it was decided to unplug the machine. Aida was declared dead. Her mother, who had visited me several times, was the mater dolorosa, and never got over the shock until her dying day. I knew all the members of the family, and all said, Thank God that Marina was not with Aida, for she would have been killed as well. However, I disagree. When one’s hour has been fixed nothing can change the course of events.

Voltaire said that God is the Timekeeper and the Universe is a piece of clockwork that ticks. In one way this is true but not in every way. One must speak of Providence and submit to it with respect, humility and, if possible, gratitude. God knows what is right for us here and He is good! “None is good but one, and that is God,” said Our Lord to a questioner. (Mark ch. 10: 18)

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