The Announcement to Mary

by Fr Yuhanna Azize

 The Announcement to Mary is the second week of the Maronite Season of the Nativity or the Announcement. When we discussed the Announcement to Zechariah we said something about the calendar and its seasons. Let us go deeper into the annual seasons: the cycle of feasts, fasts, and celebrations presents to us a complete course of the life of the Lord, of salvation history, and of our situation between time and eternity.

If we prayerfully follow the calendar, our minds and hearts are gently turned, week by week, to witness another aspect of God’s action in history; we deepen our knowledge of the Lord, His blessed mother, and His saints; we ponder the mystery of death on the Sundays of the Deceased, and we join in the sadness of the Passion and the joy of the Resurrection.

If we prayerfully follow the calendar, we will always have food to nourish us: food which is familiar but also varied. We have our regular devotions, but not those and nothing else. Just as physically we need a balanced diet, so too, in the spiritual life, we need a balanced diet of prayer. Sorrow in its right time, joy in its right time, teaching of virtue and warning against evil; expectation and fulfilment. The feasts of the calendar deliver all these to us. They present the whole of the faith in a sane and accurate way: the emphasis on God the Holy Trinity, but not forgetting the angels and saints; and we remember saints of many different descriptions: martyrs, scholars, men and women of action, clergy and laity.

The liturgical calendar gives us a direction through the year, and it provides us with balanced spiritual nourishment.

The Announcement to Mary

Once more, let us begin by contemplating the icon painted by Fr Abdo Badwi. It is closely based on five ancient icons. They are all strikingly similar, and yet they are all distinctive.

Fr Badwi wrote of this icon: “The Announcement to Mary is one of the oldest themes in Christian iconography. This icon is from the same inspiration as the previous one (the Announcement to Zechariah). The Virgin is standing in front of the veil of the Temple, symbol of her virginity because she is the Temple in which the Lord was pleased to dwell, whilst maintaining her virginity. She is pulling out a string (thread) from the basket (at her feet). According to the tradition, she is weaving the veil of the Temple with the chosen virgins. Her hand gesture is a sign of reception and submission. There is a spring and a water jar near her. She preserves the water of life and gives it to us. Another Syriac tradition places the Announcement near a well. The Archangel carries a pilgrims’ rod in his left hand, and greets her with his right hand. The Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, is a later tradition in iconography.”

At the top of the icon is written sbartō d.yōl.dat a.lō.hō, meaning “The Tidings of the Mother of God.” As with Zechariah, s.bar.tō or “good tidings” links this feast to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit enters from the top left hand, just as the angel is shown on every single one of the five ancient icons, and this one, entering from the left. The divine therefore encounters us from other dimensions. The Holy Spirit enters from the upper left, while St Gabriel the Archangel, enters from the middle level. Note, his right foot is raised, and his left foot, which goes before him, is flat. So he has arrived from the left, but he is standing higher than the level of the jar which is catching water from the well. So, although Gabriel is addressing Our Lady from eye level, he is in fact walking on the air, and she is standing on a platform. That is, although the divine messenger comes to us, and speaks to us on our level, yet he in himself belongs to the higher world.

Our Lady stands beneath the cupola of the Temple, and behind her is the veil of the Temple. As Fr Badwi said, she is weaving that veil. There is a very ancient Christian legend, known as The Protevangelium of James, although its true name may have been The Genesis of Mary. It is the oldest surviving sustained Christian study of Our Lady. By telling her story, it provides more reverent and uplifting teaching about her than three volumes of theology ever could. It is the oldest source to tell us that her parents’ names were Joachim (Yuwakim) and Anna (Hanna).

It also tells us that Our Lady was living in the temple complex, and worked at the weaving of the veil of the Temple – the veil which separated the holiest part of the Temple, protecting it from the entry of the impure and unholy. That was the very veil which was rent in half at the death of the Lord on Good Friday. This gives evidence of the very deep thought and spiritual understanding which went into this story, because it connects her action of knitting with her conception of the Lord and His formation in the womb; and it connects the end of her handiwork (the veil) to the death of the Lord. It also connects the Lord to the Temple. In other words, possibly as early as the second century A.D., Christians had been given the grace to understand that Mary’s work was at the end of the Old Covenant and the birth of the New, that by her acceptance, the Temple (the world) was brought to its greatest perfection, and it was embodied in the Lord who died, but by dying, made life eternal. They understood that where the divine and the earthly meet, there is a curtain: the curtain hides, and it reveals: one cannot see past it, but seeing it, one knows that something is hidden. And so the search is over when we reach the final veil, because behind that veil is God.

In terms of Syriac typology, what the Genesis of Mary is teaching, although as a tale rather than as a catechism, is that Our Lord is the true Temple, and because the Temple is the Universe, He is the essence of all the Creation. This also means that when we read the Bible, we can read Our Lord as the Temple, and as all the creation. There is a wide Creation and Temple-theology related to this, but I wish to pass on to just one more feature: the well and the replete jar.

Why, in five out of our six icons, does the iconographer draw the well as if it were a sort of tunnel of blue emerging from a box? That is not how wells look: they are openings in the earth, and in the ancient Near East, they were often circular brick structures with a rope going over the side so that buckets can be lowered in. So why this strange way of drawing the water?

I think that the answer is found in ancient Egyptian art. Although the Egyptians usually depicted water by drawing wavy lines, when they drew pools and wells, they were often depicted similar to what we see in this icon. They usually painted objects by showing them not as we see them when looking at them, but as we do when thinking about them: e.g. showing the entire eye, and not just the little part we see. So here we see the surface of the water, even though it is shown unrealistically above the level of the jar, as if it dripping water into the jar, when in fact the jar would have to be lowered into it. In Reading Egyptian Art, Richard H. Wilkinson explains that water was, for them, “the primeval matter from … all things arose; and the pool could thus signify the primeval waters of the First Time” (137). I think this gives us another clue to the reason water is shown here: according to typology, the waters of the earth are the waters of the creation – and the Lord is about to be incarnated, created in human form. In the presence of Mary, the jug is being filled: the creation is flowing from the source into this world in a special form.

Just as the wool took form as the veil of the Temple, so the water takes form when it flows into the jar. So too, the Lord takes form in the womb of the believing maiden. This icon, then, is an icon of the mystery of creation: through the Holy Spirit, through water, and by the faith of the Virgin.

Turning To Mary

 

By Emily Lattouf, MSCL Postulant (pictured with her siblings)    

Turning to Mary in times of trouble is a lesson I learned from my earliest youth. One of the lullabies my mother would sing is the hymn, “We Run for Protection." This Marian hymn was a source of great comfort to her during the civil war in Lebanon.  My mother told us that whenever there was a bombing near the school, the Sisters would gather the children into the chapel and they would sing this hymn asking the Blessed Mother’s intercession. When my father fled the civil war and came to America as a young boy of ten, he brought with him a picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  

  

Jesus teaches us that we can depend on Mary to be with us when we are experiencing crosses in our life. Christ looking down from the cross saw His mother standing beneath and I am sure this brought Him great comfort. Our Blessed Mother is with us and for us, she brings us comfort and consolation. My parents held fast to this and passed it on to me.

Mary knows and understands our pain. We can turn to her and rest assured that she will take care of us. Mary carries our needs in her heart to the foot of the Cross of Christ. Our crosses may not disappear, but our Mother is walking the road to Calvary with us and she will lead us to her Son who is the Resurrection and Life. 

Mary be a mother to us now.  Our Lady of Lebanon pray for us.

 

Hymn to Mary

We run for protection to you                         

Mary, we come to you for aid. 
We implore you turn not away 
Mother who must be obeyed. 

 

Perfection of the pure 
Mother undefiled. 
By your merit plead for us, 
let us know your Child. 

 

Mary Heaven's gate 
Mother of our Lord 
Through you source of all our hope 
Guiding light has poured. 

 

Look down upon us all 
serving faithfully 
We implore your help and care 
at our Mother's knee.

The Rosary in the Month of October

A reflection by Sr. Natalie Sayde Salameh, MSCL

This month we celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 6. The whole month of October is dedicated in a special way to the prayer of the Rosary. After the Divine Liturgy, the Rosary is my favorite prayer.

Over the centuries, the Rosary has come to be known as the greatest Marian devotion of our times. We can think of countless saints, among them our own Maronite saints like St. Sharbel and Nimatallah El-Hardini, who loved praying the Rosary.

We’re very blessed as sisters in the Convent to have prayer time each day where we can offer a Rosary. 

So what is it about the Rosary that makes it the special and powerful prayer that it is? Many people have often got the wrong idea about the Rosary. I’ve heard it countless times, Sister, how can you sit there and just say Hail Mary, after Hail Mary, don’t you get bored? Shouldn’t you just go straight to Jesus, why do you need to pray the Rosary, it’s a waste of time?

Unfortunately, misconceptions over time have tainted the true meaning and power of the Rosary. The Rosary is fundamentally a Christ-centred prayer. As St. John Paul II in his Letter on the Rosary, “one thing is clear although the repeated Hail Mary is addressed directly to Mary, it is to Jesus that this act of love is ultimately directed, with Mary and through Mary.” 

Mary lived with her eyes fixed on Christ, not on herself, treasuring his every word. Pope John Paul II says again, “Mary’s contemplation is above all a remembering. In the recitation of the Rosary we enter into contact with the memories of Mary.”

The rosary is a contemplative prayer. What do I mean by that? I mean that we are using our imaginative and mental powers to reflect on the various scenes of Jesus’ life. Without this contemplative dimension the Rosary loses its meaning and runs the risk of becoming mechanical, repetitive, and yes, boring. 

A little about how we recite the Rosary, there are 4 main prayers that comprise the Rosary (the Apostles Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be). A Decade is one Father and 10 Hail Mary’s. There are 5 decades in each Rosary and we are focusing on the scenes of each mystery. Briefly, there are 4 sets of mysteries, the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful and Glorious. Each mystery captures different scenes in Jesus’ life. 

The Rosary is both contemplation and petition, where we are asking Our Lady to intercede for those intentions we bring to her. Mary can obtain all things from the heart of her Son. To pray the Rosary is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his mother.

For me, there is no way I could live without the Rosary. I pray the Rosary every day and I can’t tell you how profoundly I have experienced the presence of the Blessed Mother each time I recite a Rosary. There is nothing that I have ever, ever handed over to her by means of the Rosary where I haven’t received a response. When you ask of the Blessed Mother, don’t be afraid to ask too much, because she is very generous. 

The Rosary is the means not only of contemplating the beauty of the face of Christ, but the greatest weapon against the assaults of the evil one. The evil one hates the Rosary, he shudders with fear with each ‘Hail Mary’ and after the name of Jesus, there is no other name he fears more than the name of ‘Mary’.

So let us go to our mother, by means of the Rosary, she is waiting for us with open arms, and is only to eager to embrace us to herself and lead us to her Son.

For how to pray the Rosary visit: Rosarycenter.org

Assumption Pilgrimage 2019 - Ohio

By Sr. Natalie Sayde Salameh, MSCL

We enjoyed several days of prayer and visiting with friends at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, North Jackson, Ohio in celebration of the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God.

The pilgrimage began on Tuesday, August 13, with a Divine Liturgy of the Roman Rite followed by a candlelit procession and blessing with the Icon of Our Lady of Lebanon.

The Maronite Servants had a table in the Cedars Hall where we were able to speak with many people one on one, and see many new (and not so new) faces. It was great to catch up with the people that visit the shrine each year for these solemn days of triduum in honor of Our Lady’s Dormition.  

On both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Sr. Therese Maria and Rosa Calabria spent time in prayer, adoration and fellowship with the MYO, and with their Excellencies, Bishop Elias Zaidan and Bishop Gregory Mansour also in attendance. 

On Wednesday evening, August 14, we were blessed to celebrate a Byzantine Divine Liturgy, offered by His Excellency, Archbishop William C. Skurla, of the Metropolitan Archeparchy

of Pittsburgh, PA. Following Divine Liturgy, the Byzantine Tradition has a very beautiful ritual of burying the Mother of God on the vigil of her Dormition, a ritual they call the “Funeral of the Theotokos, the Ever-Virgin Mary”. We processed behind the tomb and shroud of the Virgin Mary, which was later placed in the chapel for all to venerate.

On the day of the Feast of the Assumption, Thursday August 15, we had the great privilege of celebrating two Divine Liturgies. The first at noon, known as the “Healing Mass”, where all the faithful afflicted in mind, body or soul are given the option to be anointed by the Bishops or priests with blessed oil. In the evening, we celebrated the Maronite Pontifical Liturgy outside beside the shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon. The Liturgy was followed by a huge candlelit procession around the entire shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, with a great number in attendance. The procession concluded with a beautiful display of fireworks above the shrine, and festivities in the Cedars Hall.

We remembered you in our prayers during these holy days of pilgrimage at the Shrine. Our Lady of the Assumption, pray for us.

She Who Trusted!

A Reflection on the Announcement to Mary by Sr. Natalie Sayde Salameh, MSCL

In the Maronite Church, we are in the Liturgical Season of the Happy Announcements (Syriac: Sooborey), which are six Sundays that prepare us for the Glorious Birth of Our Lord. We celebrated this past Sunday, the Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary, also known as the Annunciation (cf. Luke 1: 26 – 38).

Speaking personally, I know that I am so familiar with the story that sometimes I can gloss over its great significance, especially when I look at the person of Mary. 

By her ‘yes’ to God, her yes, I will be the Mother of Your Son, Mary made a total gift of herself to God and humanity. She held nothing back, she gave all – body and soul, and she gave without hesitation or delay. I think what I often miss in this Gospel story is that underpinning Mary’s ‘yes’ was her complete trust in God. 

Trust! That is difficult for us humans to do. As a result of sin and its consequences, we struggle not only to trust God, but each other. Now Mary was sinless, but that’s not why she had complete trust in God. I’m sure on a natural level, a human level, she had questions, “How is Joseph going to take this?”, What about if I become the object of slander and gossip in Nazareth?”, “What about if I bring shame on my elderly parents?”, “Who is going to help me raise this baby?” and so forth.

All of these questions would have crossed her mind at one point, but she silences them all with her deep trust in God, who she knows intimately as a Good Father. “God will take care of me, He will take care of everything because as the Angel said to me, nothing is impossible with God”. The Angel’s words to Mary must have been a great comfort to her, as they are to all of us today.

Sometimes, when I am faced with a difficult situation, or a trial, or a problem of some sort, I can be torn between two very different reactions. On the one hand, there is one part of me that says, ‘go and take this issue to God, He will take care of it because it is beyond your control’. But there is another part of me (a very human part) that doubts and questions when I consider the magnitude of the problem or trial I am facing, ‘How is God going to fix this? Is He even listening to me?’

When these kinds of doubts and questions arise, it becomes very difficult for me (and us) to give a wholehearted ‘yes’ to God as Mary did. The remedy is TRUST. I’ve discovered that trust is a choice, it’s a decision that has nothing to do with feelings or emotions, and it’s like a muscle that needs to be stretched and exercised like any other. 

I make little Acts of Trust everyday and I encourage you to do the same. When even a small, seemingly insignificant inconvenience arises in your day (as they do in mine), like being stuck in traffic, or spilling your coffee, or getting caught in the rain without an umbrella, make an Act of Trust – “Jesus, right now, I want to trust You. Jesus, take care of this situation for me. Mary, help me to trust God right now with this issue”. I repeat this prayer every time I feel myself becoming worked up or anxious about the same issue that keeps bothering me. I’ve personally noticed that the more I flex my ‘trust muscle’, the more I have seen God intervene in a truly wonderful and personal way, as He did for Mary, and I know He will do for you.

Happy Sooborey!             

Visit to Our Lady of Illige - Mayfouk Lebanon

Mary in the Month of August

The following homily was given by Fr. Herbert Nicholls at the Mother of Light Convent on Wednesday, August 22.

When you do a little research, it’s interesting to find how customs begin and develop over the course of time. We usually associate Mary with its beautiful fresh flowers as the month of Mary and would hardly thick twice about August.

Yet two of the greatest feasts honoring Mary occur this month. Her assumption into heaven on the 15^thof August. In earlier times it was referred to as the Dormition of Mary or Lady Day. It was the custom of the Bishop or Pastor to bless the fields and collect the harvest of flowers and first fruits.

On the Octave, our Blessed Lady is honored in the Coronation as Queen of heaven and earth. Certainly this is a more fitting day for the crowning of statues and honoring of Mary as queen and mother rather than the first Sunday of May which more often than not precedes even the Ascension of Jesus; thereby introducing confusion and ambiguity into the Liturgical calendar.

There are many other feasts during the month honoring devotees of Mary such as St. Dominic, who according to tradition received from the Blessed Mother the Rosary and instruction on how it is to be prayed. This tradition has been encouraged and continues to our present day.

Dominic was originally ordained as an Augustinian Monk, later organized his own society called the Order of Preachers. Along with a contemporary, St. Francis of Assisi, who began his Order of Friars Minor in the Chapel of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, where he also died. The chapel has a liturgical commemoration on August 2^nd.

On the last day of July, we remember St. Ignatius of Loyola, who like St Paul was a soldier. He was not particularly religious. Wounded in battle with a shattered leg, he had a lot of time during his recovery to read. Unable to procure his more desirable romantic reading, he settled for the Scriptures and the lives of the Saints. He was also gifted with a visitation from Mary, in which she directed him to make a pilgrimage to her shrine in Montserrat. There he stayed for 11 months studying with the Dominicans. In 1534, Pope Paul II approved the formation of the Society of Jesus.

A little more than a century later, Alphonsus Liguori was born. He was a brilliant scholar and became a masterful lawyer in both civil and canon law. In 1726, he too was ordained in the Dominican Order, but 6 years later founded the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists).

He was given a powerful ministry in moral theology which he reformed in light of Sacred Scripture. Among his famous works is his masterpiece, The Glories of Mary. His feast is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, August 1.

Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney was born in 1786. He was a slow student who experienced great difficulty with Latin. Ultimately overcome all obstacles and was ordained a parish priest and assigned a pastor in the village of Ars. A small town of about 500 lapsed Catholics. It was a very difficult assignment. The people were content and happy with their irreligious and materialistic way of living. His preaching seemed to fall on deaf ears. Then one day, John Vianney, reading the words of the Gospel: some devils can only be driven out by prayer and fasting, he began an intense vigil of prayer and fasting, eating only one potato a day. Slowly at first, they began coming to confession. To their amazement he often told them the sins which they had not confessed to him. Quickly word spread, and soon people came like flocks of sheep from all over France to make their confession to this holy man. He often spent 16 hours a day hearing confessions and reconciling sinners. His feast is also observed on the anniversary of his death on August 4.

August 5 commemorates one of the oldest liturgical appointments. It is the anniversary of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, built by Pope Sixtus II following the Council of Ephesus and the decree of Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God.

When the Holy Father in prayer asked our Blessed Mother where the Church was to be built, legend says that she showed him with a localized snowfall on the Palestine Hill. To this day, the Church is affectionately referred to as Our Lady of the Snow. Although the present edifice is the third building on this spot, it marks the site of the oldest Church in the western world dedicated to Our Lady.

So you see how one day in the future, the month of August may come to be celebrated as Mary’s month and May can be recognized for what it is – the month of her Son’s paschal mystery and the sending of the Paraclete.

There is room in the Church for all kinds of devotions and Vatican II did not intend to abolish them except for some which made frivolous, inauthentic and extravagant claims and were more superstitious than faithful. 

So now is a time like no other to praise and honor Mary as our Queen and Mother, to bring flowers of the fairest and fruits of the rarest and crown our August Queen.

“Joseph’s Yes” -- Fatima Day of Prayer

 

By Sr. Natalie Sayde Salameh, MSCL

On Saturday, May 12, the Maronite Servants of Christ the Light participated in a day of recollection and prayer on St. Joseph presented and facilitated by the “Living The Fatima Message” Group at Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River.

The Maronite Servants were asked to be exhibitors at this event, where we were able to meet many people and show case our charism. The day was absolutely beautiful, and included the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, adoration and confession; four different and inspiring workshops; the recitation of a living Rosary in a number of different languages, and concluded with Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

The keynote speaker were Sr. Guadalupe and Sr. Faustina of the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth who spoke on the exemplary life and virtues of St. Joseph as depicted in Sacred Scripture. The sisters pointed out that while we do not hear St. Joseph utter a word, he is a man of great action, and his deeds speak much louder than his words. His deeds depict a deep love, respect, reverence and awe of his Spouse, the Blessed Virgin Mary and his Son, Jesus.

I personally attended two very informative workshops on the day. The first by Deacon Peter Cote of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Fall River and Chaplain of Catholic Memorial Home. The Deacon gave an excellent snapshot and overview of St. John Paul II’s ‘Theology of the Body’. The second workshop of the day was offered by Fr. Thomas Kosik, Parochial Vicar of Santo Christo parish in Fall River. Fr. Kosik spoke beautifully on the parallels between the Patriarch Joseph of the Old Testament, and those of St. Joseph, Chaste Spouse of Mary in the New Testament. 

One of the highlights and common threads of both workshops was the need to turn to St. Joseph as part of the Living the Fatima Message. Our Lady revealed to Sr. Lucia of Fatima that the last battleground between God and Satan would be the family, and we see this so vividly in our time with the high rates of divorce, abortion, and the attacks against the dignity and sanctity of married life. We have no better refuge than the bosom of St. Joseph, Patron of Family Life and the Universal Church.            

Assumption Pilgrimage – Ohio

By Sr. Natalie Sayde Salameh

We enjoyed several days of prayer and visiting with friends at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, North Jackson, Ohio in celebration of the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God.

The pilgrimage began on Sunday, August 13, with a Divine Liturgy of the Roman Rite celebrated by His Excellency, Bishop George Murry of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, followed by a candlelit procession and blessing with the Icon of Our Lady of Lebanon.

On Sunday afternoon, before Divine Liturgy, Mother Marla Marie gave a presentation to the pilgrims on the message of Our Lady of Fatima, in honor of the Centennial celebrations.

As usual, we had a table in the Cedars Hall where we were able to speak with many people one on one. This year the layout of our table was a little different. Once again, as at NAM this year, devoted parishioner, Cecilia Romero of St. Joseph’s parish, Atlanta, had crocheted an assortment of baby items which she generously donated to the sisters as sale items on our table. We also promoted the pro-life message with magnets and precious feet pins that we gave away. 

On both Sunday and Monday nights, we spent time in prayer, adoration and fellowship with the MYO of the parishes of Youngstown and Cleveland with their Excellencies, Bishop Elias Zaidan and Bishop Gregory Mansour also in attendance. Both Bishops spoke to the teens on the virtues of Our Blessed Mother and the various apparitions of Our Lady in Guadalupe and Brazil, respectively.

On Monday evening, August 14, we were blessed to celebrate a Byzantine Divine Liturgy, offered by His Excellency, Bishop Bohdan Danylo, Bishop of the Byzantine Eparchy of St. Josaphat Parma, Ohio. Following Divine Liturgy, the Byzantine Tradition has a very beautiful ritual of burying the Mother of God on the vigil of her Dormition, a ritual they call the “Funeral of the Theotokos, the Ever-Virgin Mary”. We processed behind the tomb and shroud of the Virgin Mary, which was later placed in the chapel for all to venerate.

On the day of the Feast of the Assumption, Tuesday August 15, we celebrated the Maronite Pontifical Liturgy outside beside the shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon. The Liturgy was followed by a huge candlelit procession around the entire shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, with a great number in attendance. The procession concluded with a beautiful display of fireworks above the shrine, and festivities in the Cedars Hall.

We remembered you in our prayers during these holy days of pilgrimage at the Shrine. Our Lady of the Assumption, pray for us.