#Maronite

[cedarofgod]

Saint Elias Monastery in Hadchit, North Lebanon.

[opencommunion]

"Forced Lent. The Syrian people did not have to wait for Lent to arrive, their lives are already filled with austerity and daily sacrifices.

For 13 years now, our families are living a forced Fasting which is becoming heavier each day, that seems like an endless Calvary.

No heat for the elders, already made fragile by the cold winter, no baby milk for the newborns, a shortage of many medicines aggravating sicknesses and illnesses, extreme poverty. Those are the conditions leading to the death of many.

Once viewed as the hope of the future, the young generation is suffocating and desperate. Poverty, lack of jobs, impossibility to start new families, impossibility to apply for visas and leave the country as consulates are shutting down, eliminating thus their last hope. A total blockade with devastating sanctions.

Facing all the above, many are desperately searching to leave, even at the risk of losing their life by drowning on one of those refugee boats.

Isn't all of the above a form of forced euthanasia that is slowly and surely being imposed on that poor and deprived population?

Let us entrust our concerns to Our Lady of the Resurrection."

Samir Nassar, Maronite Archbishop of Damascus, Lent 2024 On the third day of Lent in the Maronite calendar (Feb 15), the US House passed a bill expanding economic sanctions that contribute to the starvation of the Syrian people.

[secular-jew]

Listen to the indigenous, not the Islamic Jihadi invader colonizers.

[godhound]

hey, I'd like suggestion for (christian) prayers for Palestine, either for Palestine specifically or for protection, health, justice, peace and safety. I've seen a few but I'd like to see if there are other options, and I'm not knowledgeable on prayers yet.

also, if anyone has prayers for Lebanon too, I'd deeply appreciate it, as my family is lebanese and I'm very scared for them as well.

[belleishavingamentalbreakdown]

btw pookies a more aesthetic intro for myself will be coming out hopefully shortly instead of that blab of words that I posted yesterday lol!

It will be titled Belle’s Intro and it’s gonna be pink so be prepared HEHE ����

Guys my grandmother gave me this beautiful pendant with Mother Mary on it and in the back she had her initials engraved into it! We also have the same initials so I was so touched! May the intercession of Our Lady protect her and everyone that’s calls upon her for strength!

Going on a Walk from my Church to another with the church community and MA FRIENDSSS on Friday next week and I’m SOOO EXCITEDDDDD 🥰🙏🏼

Ok good daily update? I think so!

BYE LOVELIESSSSS 🫶🏻

[sidebee-hive]

Kafr Bir'im, Palestine. It was once a village of Maronite Christians. In 1948, they were forcibly evicted by Zionists and not permitted to return. In response to a later court ruling granting permission return to their homes, the Israeli Air Force bombed the village, destroying it almost entirely and rendering in uninhabitable.

[giirlwonder]

maronite catholics of tumblr please talk to me

[dougielombax]

I’ve heard FAR too many people (including many supposed progressives) say that Christians in the Middle East (as in indigenous MENA Christian communities like Assyrians, Maronites and Coptic people (along with others such as Palestinian Christians and Armenians)) DESERVE to die.

No.

They do not.

No people groups deserve to die.

If you think that then it proves that you don’t know shit!

The poor buggers have already suffered enough as it is.

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

ST. SHARBEL CATHOLIC CHURCH,

EL PASO, YX

[pink-fiat003]

Just went to a Maronite church for the first time and the joy I’m feeling is immense. I’m Palestinian and only been to Roman rites, and I’m thinking of doing RCIA in the Maronite rite.

[angeltreasure]

My spiritual director let me borrow one of his books! 😊

Saint Rafqa the Lebanese Nun (1832-1914) Teacher of the Generations and Patron Saint of the Suffers

By Father Elias Hanna (L.M.O.)

[opencommunion]

"Dead are my people, gone are my people, but I exist yet, lamenting them in my solitude. Dead are my friends, and in their death my life is naught but great disaster. The knolls of my country are submerged by tears and blood, for my people and my beloved are gone, and I am here living as I did when my people and my beloved were enjoying life and the bounty of life, and when the hills of my country were blessed and engulfed by the light of the sun. My people died from hunger, and he who did not perish from starvation was butchered with the sword; and I am here in this distant land, roaming amongst a joyful people who sleep upon soft beds, and smile at the days while the days smile upon them. My people died a painful and shameful death, and here am I living in plenty and in peace. This is deep tragedy ever enacted upon the stage of my heart; few would care to witness this drama, for my people are as birds with broken wings, left behind the flock. If I were hungry and living amid my famished people, and persecuted among my oppressed countrymen, the burden of the black days would be lighter upon my restless dreams, and the obscurity of the night would be less dark before my hollow eyes and my crying heart and my wounded soul. For he who shares with his people their sorrow and agony will feel a supreme comfort created only by suffering in sacrifice. And he will be at peace with himself when he dies innocent with his fellow innocents. But I am not living with my hungry and persecuted people who are walking in the procession of death toward martyrdom. I am here beyond the broad seas living in the shadow of tranquillity, and in the sunshine of peace. I am afar from the pitiful arena and the distressed, and cannot be proud of ought, not even of my own tears. What can an exiled son do for his starving people, and of what value unto them is the lamentation of an absent poet?

Were I an ear of corn grown in the earth of my country, the hungry child would pluck me and remove with my kernels the hand of Death form his soul. Were I a ripe fruit in the gardens of my country, the starving women would gather me and sustain life. Were I a bird flying the sky of my country, my hungry brother would hunt me and remove with the flesh of my body the shadow of the grave from his body. But, alas! I am not an ear of corn grown in the plains of Syria, nor a ripe fruit in the valleys of Lebanon; this is my disaster, and this is my mute calamity which brings humiliation before my soul and before the phantoms of the night. This is the painful tragedy which tightens my tongue and pinions my arms and arrests me usurped of power and of will and of action. This is the curse burned upon my forehead before God and man.

And oftentimes they say unto me, the disaster of your country is but naught to calamity of the world, and the tears and blood shed by your people are as nothing to the rivers of blood and tears pouring each day and night in the valleys and plains of the earth. Yes, but the death of my people is a silent accusation; it is a crime conceived by the heads of the unseen serpents. It is a sceneless tragedy. And if my people had attacked the despots and oppressors and died rebels, I would have said, 'Dying for freedom is nobler than living in the shadow of weak submission, for he who embraces death with the sword of Truth in his hand will eternalize with the Eternity of Truth, for Life is weaker than Death and Death is weaker than Truth.' If my nation had partaken in the war of all nations and had died in the field of battle, I would say that the raging tempest had broken with its might the green branches; and strong death under the canopy of the tempest is nobler than slow perishment in the arms of senility. But there was no rescue from the closing jaws. My people dropped and wept with the crying angels. If an earthquake had torn my country asunder and the earth had engulfed my people into its bosom, I would have said, 'A great and mysterious law has been moved by the will of divine force, and it would be pure madness if we frail mortals endeavoured to probe its deep secrets.' But my people did not die as rebels; they were not killed in the field of battle; nor did the earthquake shatter my country and subdue them. Death was their only rescuer, and starvation their only spoils.

My people died on the cross. They died while their hands stretched toward the East and West, while the remnants of their eyes stared at the blackness of the firmament. They died silently, for humanity had closed its ears to their cry. They died because they did not befriend their enemy. They died because they loved their neighbours. They died because they placed trust in all humanity. They died because they did not oppress the oppressors. They died because they were the crushed flowers, and not the crushing feet. They died because they were peace makers. They perished from hunger in a land rich with milk and honey. They died because monsters of hell arose and destroyed all that their fields grew, and devoured the last provisions in their bins. They died because the vipers and sons of vipers spat out poison into the space where the Holy Cedars and the roses and the jasmine breathe their fragrance. My people and your people, my Syrian Brothers, are dead. What can be done for those who are dying? Our lamentations will not satisfy their hunger, and our tears will not quench their thirst; what can we do to save them between the iron paws of hunger? My brother, the kindness which compels you to give a part of your life to any human who is in the shadow of losing his life is the only virtue which makes you worthy of the light of day and the peace of the night. Remember, my brother, that the coin which you drop into the withered hand stretching toward you is the only golden chain that binds your rich heart to the loving heart of God."

Gibran Khalil Gibran, "Dead Are My People," written during the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon, in which 200,000 people were starved to death by a blockade imposed by European forces to weaken their Ottoman opponents in World War I. The man-made famine killed one in three people in Beirut and the surrounding Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate (which encompassed today's North, Keserwan-Jbeil, and Mount Lebanon governorates). This peasant population was strangled by threefold oppression: from the European imperialist war machine, Ottoman Turkish imperial oversight, and the local capitalist class. The boom and bust of the global silk industry, monopolized by France, destroyed Mount Lebanon's silk-centered economy shortly before the war, leaving the population impoverished and vulnerable. The famine was key to the European victory which led to the occupation and partition of the Levant and enabled the colonization of Palestine. The partition placed Lebanon under French control, fulfilling a longstanding French colonial desire for Lebanese land and labor.

Further reading/listening: Graham Auman Pitts, "Was Capitalism the Crisis? Mount Lebanon's World War I Famine" and "A Hungry Population Stops Thinking About Resistance: Class, Famine, and Lebanon's World War I Legacy" Kais Firro, "Silk and Agrarian Changes in Lebanon, 1860-1914" Melanie Tanielian, "The War of Famine: Everyday Life in Wartime Beirut and Mount Lebanon (1914-1918)" and The Charity of War: Famine, Humanitarian Aid, and World War I in the Middle East The Fire These Times, Lina Mounzer and Timour Azhari, Legacy of the Great Lebanon Famine (audio)

[gouachevalier]

[godhound]

ID: A mural inside a church of Our Lady of Lebanon. She has light tone skin, green eyes and long, light brown, curly hair, and wears a crown, a white veil and a long, white dresses. She has her arms wide open, standing over a rock brick structure. Around her are many trees, including lebanese cedar trees, and behind her are white mountains and a blue sky. /End ID

Mural of Our Lady of Lebanon in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lebanon in São Paulo (Pindorama). Source

[belleishavingamentalbreakdown]

Just out of curiosity! What’s everyone’s favourite Bible quote or parable, book, etc. I’ll start first!!!

My favourite verse is Romans 8:31! My favourite book is Revelation!

I would love to hear everyone else’s preferences because sometimes when I read my Bible I miss certain things also I thought this would be such a wholesome way to bond and connect with my brothers and sisters in Christ!

God bless lovelies <3<3<3