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Saint Maron…Maronitness…and Lebanon The 25th letter addressed His Eminence and Beatitude Mar Nasrallah Boutros SFEIR Patriarch of Antioch and the Whole East To His children the Maronites clergy and lay faithful On the Occasion of the 1600th Jubilee to the passing of Saint Maron and of the Lent 2010 INTRODUCTION As the year 2010 coincides with the passing of one thousand six hundred years to the death of Saint Maron the hermit, the priest, and the father of our Maronite Church described as “the gilding in the choir of the divine saints “(1); we decided with the council of our bishops to declare this year as a jubilee year starting on the 9th of February, 2010 the feast day of our father Saint Maron and ending on the 2nd of March 2011, the feast day of Saint John Maron the First Patriarch, under the title of “Saint Maron – a testimony of faith and a march of a people.” This Jubilee year aims to pray, think, repent, go back into history, meditate on it, learn lessons, and revive and relive Maronite that allow us to draw a new strategy for our Church in the third millennium . By celebrating the Jubilee, Our Maronite Church is responding to three wants: The time as a dimension for God , the Jubilee as a year consecrated for the Lord and his Saints, and the Synod as one stage among other stages within the History of our church “because the church lives not but in synodality”(2). Time in Christianity is the dimension of God in the act of incarnation. It came about by the entrance of God, via incarnation, into the history of men. Eternity penetrated time: “Is there an achievement greater than that?” This confirms “that Time in Christianity occupies a primary place” (4). It also confirms that the Christianity is a religion rooted in history, as Thaillard de Chardin put it “God met the world through the Person of Jesus Christ”. From the relation of God with time the notion of sanctifying time was generated (5); hence after, times are being consecrated to God: days , weeks, or years, because Jesus Christ is the Master of Time, and He is the same yesterday, today, and in the ages to come (Hebrews : 13/8 ) The celebration of Jubilee years was known in the Old Testament and continued throughout Church History. The Jubilee Year is the year of our Lord Jesus Christ accepted and consecrated to God and his Saints. It is the year of equality, justice and pardon, reconciliation and repentance; the year of special graces for individuals and communities. It is the year of charity and joy, not only internal Joy, but also the joy that shines in outside”(6). (1) Theodorites, History of the selected people of God, Paulist printing Press 1987.P.145 (2) The Maronite Patriarchal Synod Texts and recommendations, preamble, clause 1 (3) John Paul II: The Coming of the Third Millenium ,1994,clause 9 (4) John Paul II: Toward a new millennium 2001, clause 5 (5) John Paul II: The Coming of the Third Millenium, clause 10. (6) Same Reference, clause 16 The Maronite Patriarchal Council as well as the Synod of bishops for Lebanon, reflect the role of the divine providence in preparing for the Jubilee of the Saint Maron to the point where one could say that the Synod and the Council were in fact the introduction to this Jubilee. It is hence a very important Jubilee, not only for the Maronites, but also for Christians and non Christians alike in Lebanon, the Levant, and the countries of Diaspora, considering the authenticity of the Maronites and their position in the course of the universal Church and their role throughout 1600 years of history. Hereafter, if the Maronite Patriarchal Synod is considered the “Pentecost of the Maronite Church”, the celebration of the Jubilee of one thousand six hundred years to the death of Saint Maron could be considered “a new spring for the Maronite Life”. In both cases “each Jubilee in Church history is arranged by divine providence” (7) as properly said by His Holiness Pope John Paul II. …Three titles characterize this Jubilee we need to treat, insist upon, and focus on: First: what does Saint Maron represent to us today? Second: What does Maronitism mean to us? Third: What relation exists between Maronitism and Lebanon the land and the cause? FIRST: SAINT MARON: The holiness, the Saint, and the Church! 1. The Maronite Church is proud to belong to Saint Maron her patron and guide. Holiness first of all is a quality of God and is in God; it is rather an essential characteristic of the Creator. Each time human nature yearns to participate in the divine life, it gets closer and closer to the holiness of God. By doing so, Jesus Christ was the First among the Saints, and all who are baptized in His name are considered touched by His divinity; they are therefore among the Saints... This was the description given the first Christian community and determined its spiritual identity. 2. Holiness is a spiritual relationship between the human being and the Holy God, the most venerated. Identifying Holiness is the beginning of recognizing the saints through the history of the Church. In theological dictionaries, only God is most holy, because holiness is an expression of his power and the perfection of his being. Holiness also implies persons, things, and places that are considered as saintly. God is Holy in himself, while the human being is called to holiness. (7) The Coming of the third millennium, clause 17 According to Vatican II, all peoples are called to holiness by their belonging to the Church; and by sharing in the holiness of the Church they become sanctified by the sanctity poured upon the Church through Jesus the Saviour. At the onset, the Martyrs who incarnated the spiritual bravery as they faced persecution and injustice were the saints; in later stage, the Church determined the principles, bases and conditions to announce the saints! 3. The path to Holiness is not determined by time and place, but rather by the dynamic relationship between God and man since seeing God and enjoying the salvation in the company of the righteous and saints is the final aim of every faithful. This path however is full of difficulties, pains, sufferings in the struggle between body and soul in order to reach what is called by theologians “belonging to God not to own self”, and practicing the “ Prayer of the heart “ not “the prayer of the lips”. Thus the faithful climbs, in his person and his practice, to the ideal phase of religion, that is an absolute love of God and a deeper faith in Jesus Christ, a fact that entitles him for complete sacrifice and self denial, which means sacrificing the body in order to liberate the soul. 4. Living Christians virtues in ways that surpass human potentials to the degree of heroism, leads God to grant the saint the characteristics and powers to make miracles. Such holiness raises its possessor to the rank of patron who opens the way to people to accept the grace of God and becomes a beacon in the darkness and in the middle of the tempest who enlightens the road lost and suffering souls so they could find the right way in the march towards God. The Saints, all the Saints live in the deepest and most solid faith that remains limitlessly radiant even they after they are gone. It is a faith that cannot be revealed, rooted, and continuously renovated except by a very strong and simultaneous relationship with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. “It is in fact that deep-rooted faith that formed the foundation of the Maronite Church”. 5. The Historical period in which Saint Maron lived in Northern Syria, and before him Saint Anthony the Great in Egypt, that is between the third and the fifth centuries, was a period of great transformation in the life of the Church as Christianity became the religion of both Roman and Byzantine empires, west and East. At that time emerged “the History of God’s chosen ones”. “Maron was the first to plant the garden of solitary life in the region” (8) through a spiritual adventure launched by Saint Anthony and lived out by Saint Maron, and which is summarized by the fact that some believing souls found themselves unable to reach perfection within society, either because the later is pagan or because it is Christian solely in appearance; so they decided to leave the world so they could meet God directly and vertically, and out in the open. This is the true meaning of the experience of ascetic and monastic lives spread at that time and was for centuries the typical example of consecrated life. This group reached intended to have a complete rupture with the world of “impurity”, and incarnated Christian Holiness at the hands of chosen few of very enthusiastic and devoted people who (8) Theodorites, History of the selected people of God were able to carry the Evangelical message in its original purity. Thus the hermit or monk living his deep faith in God in asceticism and contemplation such as Saint Maron became the defender of faith and the revealer of the greatness of Christianity on one hand, and the living confirmation that the human being for whom God became man through Jesus Christ carries values that are more important than life itself. In this context, and within this vision, the metaphysical or altruistic philosophy of Saint Maron and his disciples, hermits and monks was elaborated during the fifth century. 6. This altruistic dimension founded on a personal talent gave Saint Maron the power to generate a spiritual extraordinary state at the foundation of an atypical Church and outside the typical way of founding churches. So it was not built after a name of a see or apostle, but took its identity from the radiance of a man and a monastery: the Maronite Church. A church of asceticism and adoration attached from the beginning to a solitary man not to a man of rank or a Church leader. With the beatification of Charbel, Rafca and Hardini, the Maronite Church has returned to its own self, its history extended through the eras, to its roots, and to its initial identity with Saint Maron: A church for hermits and saints! Indeed, the first trait in the identity of this Church goes back to uniqueness of the founder and the cornerstone. Saint Maron, a prophetic evangelist in the Paulist sense who, by his vivid faith, his outstanding performance, his ideal life style, his prophetic preaching, and his radiant commitment in his environment, was able to set the spiritual tone to a Church who came to bear his name to the exception of other churches. He became the Head of a Church attributed to him. This exceptional merit to Saint Maron, which granted him the status of the spiritual leader in Northern Syria, then in Lebanon, is due to the biblical roots embodied in his practice of three kinds of heroic virtues: § Apostolic Heroismin guiding the pagans of Syria’s country side and building churches over their temples beginning with Mount Simon: guiding and preaching the Word. § Spiritual Heroism expressed in his attachment to Christian ideals to the point of living martyrdom after the example of Christ as it comes to physical sacrifice: living in the open and dwelling on a pillar so he could express his yearning to the celestial homeland and get nearer to God opening up to heaven and freeing himself from the earthly things. He did all that after the example of Christ who was crucified and left out in the open. § Human Heroism where faith and humanity meet at the service of God’s people physically and spiritually with the power of miracles Saint Maron achieved inspired and assisted by the Holy Spirit in his capacity as a priest not only a hermit. This radical three-dimensional heroism imposed itself on the socio-religious history of his Era and afterwards made him a founding power in Church and community, that is, it made him a man of the beginnings! This explains the meaning of the combat over where to bury him at that time; it explains as well the continuity of his memorial through time and our celebration of his one thousand six hundredth years Jubilee today. Second: Maronitism: Conscience … Self... and Identity. 7. We can define Maronitism as being “a Christian, spiritual, cultural and renovating movement launched by Saint Maron to personify man’s absolute desire to unite to God, his absolute yearning for freedom, and his biblical role in serving and developing his environment. It sees in ascetic life a direct rise to God and in the Council of Chalcedonia the expression of faith about the nature of Jesus, and in Lebanon a promised land and a stronghold for human freedom. 8. Talking about “Maronitness” is wider than talking about the Maronite Church since it implies multiple and various Maronite manifestations and thoughts that may not enter but partially within the contextual framework of the Maronite Church. Maronites have gone through five consecutive stages, from the individual “Saint Maron”, to a group called the Maronites, to an organized collection called the “house of Maron”, then onto an organized community the Maronitism, its double faces, the spiritual ecclesiastical which is the Maronite Church and the sociological which is the Maronite Community.Thus the Maronitness has climbed to the level of the collective conscience of the community or what is called: Maronite ideology or Maronite doctrine about which one of the historians said: “The Maronites can be considered an autonomous people endowed with ethnic characteristics, one rite, and an old History .They lived for centuries in an enclosed geographic area, spoke a particular language (Syriac) -that still has some traces in their religious books- for a certain time. They preserved some historical facts from the near past, in a addition to an independent political History and life that was transformed in their memory into a national legend. Through all that, the Maronite Church, most stable and steady organization in the history of the Maronite people, played an important role in preserving and developing the idea of national and calling for its adoption.” (9) A scientific approach to the history of the Maronites confirms that the Maronite ideology is the focal axe in the history of the Maronite community in its double dimension religious and social because it serves its interests, reflects its thoughts and aspirations, controls its practices, sets its goals, explains its status past and present, projects its vision unto the future, highlight strategies to reach announced objectives, and makes up the basic criterion that allows to measure its efficacy historically as well as its relation with others. Throughout its history the Maronite community has confirmed its faith in two complementary and integral things that serve as a basis for this ideology and as an expression for the Lebanese cause: (9) Elia Harik, The Political Transformation in the History of the Modern Lebanon, Beirut, El Ahliye Publishing house, 1982, Page 990. spiritual struggle to free the human being, and Lebanon–freedom as a symbol of this freedom which concerns, not only Maronites, but also the whole Lebanese family tissue in all its communities! 9. Maronitism departs from a main source The Maronite conscience. It is a conscience thatwas shaped through history particularly during times of crises the Maronites encountered and continue to experience. Patriarch Douaihy summarizes this historical conscience as follows: “a history of a community, possessing a unique religious structure, living in a large threatening environment at every historical turn, and a people who uprise to defend himself”. To gain a true meaning, this conscience needs a “founding event for the Maronite history”. Bishop Hamid Mourani writes: “regardless whether the Maronite migration happened only once or in different stages, what’s important is that the Maronites place at the basis of their history the fact of fleeing persecution and searching freedom and independence. The conscience of each Maronite gets born from this implication which remains the explanatory principle of all Maronite historical events.”Furthermore, the dimension of faith gives meaning to the Maronite history. The faith lived out by the hermit Maron became the inner strength of a people’s history. “As for the successive migrations from Syria, the Maronites gave them one meaning, that is, giving up land, wealth, and rest in Syria towards a poor land where anxiety and austerity prevail, so they could preserve their faith and remain attached to their freedom... And this event is not a simple historical fact among others... it is the beginning of a new history, the history of the Maronites.” (11) 10.A main trait out of many Maronite attributes is the self, the Maronite Self which finds its expression in the Maronite Identity. The Second Chapter of the Patriarchal Maronite Synod (2006) text deals with “the Identity of the Maronite Church, its vocation and mission”, to see in it: 1)“A Syriac Antiochene Church with a special liturgical Patrimony; 2)A Chalcedonian Church; 3)A patriarchal Church with an ascetic and monastic Characteristic; 4)A Church in communion with the Roman Apostolic See; 5) A Church incarnated in its Lebanese and eastern environment; 6)And a Church existing in countries of expansion.” Further to these belonging elements, the impact of the Maronite Church was revealed in the facts that: 1) its founder is a man, Saint Maron;2) it was not founded on Ethnic, racial, geographic, or autocratic basis; 3) its particularity appeared in its capacity to move from the precept-monastery to the precept-nation; 4) and also from contemplating God inside the monastery and over the pillar, to contemplating Him on the mountain top, and from in its ability to join the limited (monastery of Maron and the stylite style) to the universal (the world & the Horizontal Line) due to its catholic faith, its expansion all over the world, and its cultural expressions in the various languages of the World. 10) Antoine Hamid Mourani, the Lebanese Chapters issue Number 5, 1981, page 50 11) Antoine Hamid Mourani a speech in the International Maronite Congress in Kaslik, February 1979. Thereafter, thanks to joining the six belonging elements of the Maronite Church and the four elements of its identity, it seems evident that the Maronite community has reached a distinctive stage of self fulfilment, a cultural and historical self that has its own life, components, and characteristics, a matter which allowed the Maronite Church to have its pioneering and central role in bringing the fore front the Lebanese cause and in shaping the pact that materialized the cause. The Maronite identity is not the Lebanese identity; it is rather a principal component of the latter. The Lebanese Identity is made up of several identities, those of the different religious communities. It is the synthesis of various and diverse identities living harmoniously by a pact of common life granting Lebanon its particularity and making her an exception in the Arab world with her Democratic liberal system which allows for personal and collective freedom and adopt democracy and respects human dignity. Lebanese are therefore fortunate that totalitarian and ideological forces, national as well as religious fundamentalist, have not arrived to govern Lebanon. And it is the duty of conscious Lebanese to struggle to avoid such a tragedy from happening to their country. Third: Maronitism - Land …and Lebanon –The Pact 11.The Maronite prosperity represented by the worldwide expansion, and in the diverse cultural fields throughout continents, could have been disintegrated, even the Maronite personality itself could have been splintered, “if there were not a centre of gravity prepared to secure the unity and tenacity of the Maronites, this Centre is Lebanon”. Actually, the historical aim of patriarchs in moving their see all over the Lebanese geography, from Kfarhay to Yanouh to Elige to Kannoubin to Bkerki, in addition to the security requirements, was to consolidate and bless this indissoluble marriage basede on love between the Maronites and the land of Lebanon” (13). Yes, Maronitism wrote its first real history, not in books of papers, but in the book of its land turning it into a land of giving, adoration, and defending own self. “It is the main expression of the independence of Maronites and the sole horizon of their life” (14). The First Maronite time was a vertical time that is the time of the Lebanese Maronite land in its natural geographical borders. That is why Maronitis has tied its land to heaven, introduced it in its faith, and gave it a trait of holiness. The land of Lebanon became an horizon and a departing point for Maronites, which means there is a coherent association between the land of Lebanon and the history of the Maronites. 12.The Lebanese Land is “a heritage through and on which the historical Maronite Identity was constituted”, and whatever they do in the world, the (12) Texts of the Maronite Synod ,Second Chapter ,clause 5 . (13) Father Michel Hayek “The Maronite Church and the land “ in French ,The Maronite Congress ,1981 (14) Bishop Antoine Hamid Mourani ,the mentioned source . Maronites remain in need of the land that incarnates their own identity and keep them attached to their admirable history, the history of holiness, struggle to survive, and bearing witness to faith and human values (15). The Maronite history has been attached to Lebanon as a land and a state, the land that takes its worth from its experienced values and civilized existence. The name of Lebanon was tied to the Maronites as “an integral part of its historical and political being”, and wherever the Maronite moved, settled, and interacted with their new countries, they never forget the land of origin, the land of Lebanon which remains in their conscience the land of their ancestors and saints and the symbol of their unity, the Patriarchate” (16)... Also, “preserving the land means safeguarding identity, and safeguarding the identity means preserving entity and insuring perpetuity. (17). 13.The Apostolic Exhortation describes Lebanon as the “cradle of a great culture, one of the lighthouses of the Mediterranean; none could ignore the name of Byblos to indicate the beginnings of script”. In Lebanon Christianity became “an essential element in the culture of the region”, “and its diverse communities have become a fortune of singularity and an obstacle at the same time... yet its revival is a common task” (18). Christians generally and Maronites specifically have worked to realize two correlative objectives all through their history: § Establishing Lebanon the state and the entity, safeguarding her, and confirm her perpetuity; § Confirming their presence in Lebanon and playing a major and efficient role inside this entity. As long as the nation has two dimensions: presence in space and continuity in time, her land is “a mother that, poor or rich, has to be loved. This is the nurturing land storing treasures of history after having watched occurrences, accompanied generations, and impressed all who were born in it and embraced them in their old age, so the successor can tell the predecessor what history he did in his life (19). Therefore “those who abandon their land by selling it, especially to non Lebanese, they abuse the purity of their country and particularly of those who are resting in its layers in the hope of a happy Resurrection”. (20) 14.In spite of our attachment to Lebanon the holy land and the symbol in the Maronite history, Lebanon who confirms that and justifies it religiously, philosophically, and historically remains after all “a Pact for a Cause”. _________________________________________________________________ (15) The Maronite Synod : The Maronite Church and the Land,clause 10 (16) Same source ,clause 11 (17) Same Source ,clause 12 (18) New Hope to Lebanon ,clause 1 (19) Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir the twenty second encyclical message 2007 Regarding the love of the Nation ,Page 11 (20) Same source page 10 “Lebanon has no right to exist haphazardly, she either is a cause for humanity in the East and the world or she ceases to exist” (21). That is her historical calling, and that is the meaning of “Country-Mission” as described by his holiness Pope John Paul II. This pact among Lebanese communities is in essence an act of will and an act of freedom at the same time. It is the incarnation of spiritual interactive values. It is a matter of development and promotion of the Lebanese–Arab-Eastern human being, not merely a bilateral settlement as some people imagine! It is Lebanon the bet, not only on the land, but also and especially on the human cause that our distinctive existence poses and whish has no similar in the whole world. In that, “Lebanon is not a pact between Muslims and Christians but a pact among civilized minorities revitalized in human communities”. (22) 15.The pact is an act of confidence in the Lebanese cause drafted and adopted by the Lebanese communities when they fled here, led by the Maronite community who lost everything except for its spiritual patrimony that was safeguarded. Since their settlement in Lebanon, these communities realized that they came to protect this patrimony. That way the pact became a part of their inner consciences, so every minority coming to this land agreed on it before it was shaped in a written agreement or even non-written way during the independence phase. And because it is an expression of faith, truth, and honour, “such a pact should not be written, because its sole guarantee is the belief in God and the trust in the human being”(23). This cause represents the greatest challenge to totalitarian, racial, fundamentalist, and radical autocratic regimes of the region, this challenge drove such ideologies to declare their hostility to our cause and our existence as a people, entity, state, and a political regime. And the hostility continues! A challenge that places on all of us a historical responsibility to protect and save the pact of communal life among all Lebanese Communities, so it remains as it began an act of will and of freedom at the same time. ____________________________________________________________________ (21) Father Michel Hayek, Jesus, Lebanon, and Palestine – Conferences of Saint George Cathedral –Beirut 1973, Page 51. (22) Father Michel Hayek, Christ, Lebanon, and Palestine page 70 (23) The same source page 77 Conclusion Saint Maron gave to our Church, our people, and our nation one main component and justification to have a cause, rather to be, we as Lebanese the cause: the mother cause. It may be sufficient to point out that it is a human, cultural, and theological cause materialized in the pact between the Lebanese and became, in its diversity, richness and scope “the greatest human initiative known by peoples”. The pact among the Lebanese has three faces: the first looks at the human being, the second into history, and the third towards God. By that, the pact has transformed Lebanon “from a refuge to a stronghold and from an exile to a country, since she “became a country of minorities as humans and a country of majorities as civilizations. Lebanon became thus the summary of the East and the elder heir of the eastern fortune. As for the theological meaning of Lebanon, it poses the issue of relation among religions, their dialogue, and their interactivity, particularly the meeting and dialogue between Christianity and Islam: this Lebanon symbol, model, laboratory, and the country of interactive values through the pact, will fall from its height if the pact swings from its essence and becomes mere conflicting interests, negotiations, and bargaining, put simply a compromise and poises; then appears confessional fundamentalism as the most dangerous conspiracy against the Cause tumbling the bet on openness and dialogue and inflicting isolation, mercantilism, and feudality. Our existence is indeed based on the pact and justified by it, and the Pact is an interchange, an act of loyalty and trust. In doing so, we confirm ourselves without taking anybody’s assurance. The assurance for Lebanon is to have faith in it as a pact for a cause. It is one of the most honourable causes of the century, because it is the cause of particularity humanly, theologically, and geographically. In this geographically flat east, unified culturally and similar politically and authoritatively, Lebanon is an exception at all levels: a mountainous areas far from being desert as geography, pluralist in culture, diverse in religion, and democratic in politics. Lebanon is pluralistic in everything, and that is what makes up its uniqueness and forms her added value and the reason of its existence. For over fifteen centuries, the people of Lebanon and her land have been the axis around which the destiny of Maronites is rotating. Even though Maronitism was not born in Lebanon, and although the majority of Maronites live presently in countries of expansion throughout the world, this fact changes nothing from the truth present in the heart, mind, and conscience of each Maronite, or is supposed to be so, that their real country, as willed by Saint Maron, is first of all a spiritual space, and that Maronitism is a freedom project with Lebanon for its symbol. The Maronite project resembles the project of all Lebanese: liberation of the human being, and this a project raised at the meeting point of three continents to determine the destiny of all the East : destiny of its tormented, its distressed, its marginalized and persecuted in their freedom, where their wishes and expectations towards freedom and a land meet in the country of the cedars. With Saint Maron and the Maronites, and with all the spiritual families who came to Lebanon consecutively and still are, the legitimacy of Lebanon the Entity was realized before its political borders were drawn, in brief: “Lebanon is the only country in the world that made from its existence a cause for which it existed and will exist or cease to exist, without which there is no need for its existence and with it its existence becomes an international need”. Yes the perfume of Saint Maron’s holiness was and will remain the living yeast and the exquisite odour for the continued and renewed spring of the Maronites through history! For this Jubilee year to give its expected fruits, we have appointed a central Committee Chaired by his Excellency Bishop Boulos Emile Saade with the membership of their Excellencyies Bishop Youssef Anis Abi Aad, Bishop Semaan Atallah, and Bishop Youssef Mahfouz; and with Monsignor Mounir Khairallah as Secretary General, father Karam Rizk to represent the Maronite Lebanese Order, father Abdo Antoun for the Maronite Mariamite Order, father Sarkis El Tabar for the Antonine Maronite Order, Father Marwan Tabet for the Association of Lebanese Missionaries, father Nasser Gemayel, Father Hani Matar, Mother Dominique El Halabi, Sister George Marie Azar for womanly Orders, Doctor Nabil Khalife, Doctor Antoine El-Khoury Harb, and Doctor Antoine Saad. We asked this committee to make all necessary arrangements, to accompany celebrations and religious, spiritual, cultural, and social activities inspired by the Holy Spirit in walking in the footsteps of Saint Maron and in transmitting the evangelical message, and witnessing to Christ. We invite all our Maronite children, wherever they are, in Lebanon, in the countries of the patriarchal zone, and in the countries of expansion; we also invite dioceses, eparchies, parishes, religious orders, universities, schools, Church and civil institutions and associations, groups, clubs, and leagues, to celebrate this Jubilee year in conformity with the plan drawn by the Central Committee and with what corresponds to the status of each in terms of presence, circumstances, and testimony in their respective countries, urging them to transmit the Good News of the Gospel with the ascetic flavour of Saint Maron. We invite you all to organize religious celebrations, processions, ceremonies, and cultural and social activities, and to organize pilgrimages visits to holy Maronite places and patriarchal sites. We designated the sites in which absolution is granted during this Jubilee year as follows: monastery of Saint John Maron Kferhay, monastery of Our Lady of Elige, monastery of Our Lady of Kannoubine, monastery of our Lady of Bkerke, Site of the Saint Maron in Brad near Aleppo. Hoping God will answer us through the intercession of our father Saint Maron and all our Saints and we offer Him this prayer: Lord God, you called your chosen one, Saint Maron, to the monastic life, perfected him in divine virtues, and guided him along the difficult road to the heavenly kingdom. During this jubilee year, commemorating 1600 years since the death of your chosen one, Saint Maron, when he was called to the house of your heavenly Father; We ask you, through his intercession, to immerse us in your love that we may walk in your path, heed your commandments, and follow in his footsteps. May his holy example resonate throughout our lives. With your love, may we achieve that final destination reached by our father, Saint Maron, |