By Natalie Salameh
The Maronite Servants of Christ the Light send their love and prayers from Downunder - Sydney Australia. We hope that your journey during this Holy Season of Great Lent will be one of spiritual renewal and steadfastness.
We are on mission, spreading the good news of the Gospel and the latest about our community to our Maronite parishioners.
This week we'd like to share with you some of the highlights of our mission trip Downunder which has been very eventful.
On Ash Monday we were live on the air on the Voice of Charity radio station, on a program known as "The Good Fight". During the program we were able to share about the establishment and foundation of our community, our personal conversion and vocation stories, the Maronite Church in the US and its diversity, and details about our Maronite Catholic Tradition and how we practice it as consecrated religious. 
On Tuesday, Sr Therese Maria led a discussion night on battling temptation during this Holy Season of Great Lent. We were speaking to the all female youth group at St. Charbel's Church who are known as the "Handmaids". The discussion night certainly generated many questions, as the women were curious to know how we as religious practice ascetism and penance during Great Lent.
On Wednesday, we spoke to some of the youth at Our Lady of Lebanon Co-Cathedral about the various vocations that God may be calling us to and the various tools we should utilise for discerning specifically a religious vocation. We also had a number of questions from the audience such as the differences between our Maronite Church in Australia vs the US, and what does it mean to be Maronite Catholic.
On Friday, back at St. Charbel's Church, which also owns and runs St. Charbel's School, we spoke to the seniors at the High School about the Maronite Servants of Christ the Light and particularly the gift of consecrated religious life to the Church. The students were very interested in learning about the run down of our everyday life as a Maronite Servant and what it entails, and about the various facets of our diverse ministry.
We hope to be back home next week.
PS - we certainly missed you, but we did not miss the cold, blizzards and snow storms.