We feature excerpts from: The 25th letter of His Eminence and Beatitude Nasrallah Peter Cardial Sfeir. On the Occasion of the 1600th Jubilee of the passing of Saint Maron. Full text of this letter can be found at the Eparchy website: stmaron.org
Introduction
As the year 2010 coincides with the passing of one thousand six hundred years since the death of Saint Maron the hermit, priest, and father of our Maronite Church described as “the gilding in the choir of the divine saints,” we decided, with the synod 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 spiritual journey of a people.”
This Jubilee Year aims to pray, think, repent, go back into history, meditate on it, learn lessons, revive and relive our Maronite faith that will allow us to draw a new strategy for our Church in the third millennium.
By celebrating the Jubilee, our Maronite Church
Time in Christianity is the work 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.” It also confirms that Christianity is a religion rooted in history, as Teilhard 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; hence all time is consecrated to God: days, weeks, and years, because Jesus Christ is the Mater of time, and “He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)