The Maronite Heritage

 

 

The history of the Maronite Church is a story of a people who were continually willing to sacrifice their lives and possessions for religious convictions and human liberties. Its origins can be traced to the hermit Maron (350-410 AD), who converted a pagan temple for worship. Over 800 monks later followed in his footsteps, adopted the lifestyle and way of St. Maron, and became known as Maronites.

 

Later with the Arab invasions (7th-10th centuries) and the continuing faith conflicts, the Maronites migrated to Mt. Lebanon, finding natural protection in the mountain havens.  By 687 AD, the Maronite community organized and established an autonomous church with St. John Maron as its patriarch of Antioch.

 

The Syriac Maronite Church was enriched and influenced by 3 centers of learning and culture:

 

·     Antioch –

A center of commerce and education in West Syria, now Turkey, which represented Greek and Syriac influence. This city, where followers of Jesus were first called Christians, gave the Maronite Church its biblical theology and its unique sense of scripture.

 

·     Edessa –

A prominent city where St. Ephrem lived, in ancient Mesopotamia, of Semitic culture and Syriac poetry. Both informed and shaped the prayer and hymnody of the Maronite Church.

 

·     Mt. Lebanon –

A region in present day Lebanon. It provided a haven for the Maronite monastic life, worship and traditions begun by Maron, and nurtured by John Maron, its first Patriarch, and many others.

 

From these three centers in theology, spirituality and liturgy developed and reflected concrete scriptural images and symbolic, poetic themes.

 

Maronite Catholics live in many nations and cultures. Presently, the Mother Church is in Lebanon, and daughter communities exist in different nations. Often the sons and daughters of St. Maron are called by the name BEIT MAROUN, “the house of Maron”.

 

The Maronite Family of faith welcomes you with peace, joy, and love.

 

The Maronite spirituality, liturgy, and traditions come from Antioch-Edessa, Syria. The Aramaic language , used in the liturgy, is the same language Jesus spoke during his earthly life and ministry.

 

The Maronite Church, one of the oldest churches of Catholicism, was led by Maron, a priest (350-410 AD) who devotedly taught the Catholic faith, and ministered to many people with his gifts of healing and counsel. Today in the U.S.A. there are two eparchies (dioceses) made up of about 75,000 Maronite Catholics.

 

MARONITE MUSIC and ART

 

The early ascetical roots of simplicity and poetry echo through its liturgical music and art forms. Most of the hymnody unfolds in short repeated strophes, basic melodies adapted to verses of similar syllable count.

 

Their repetition serves as a teaching tool and memory aid. St. Ephrem, father of Syriac church music, greatly influenced these ancient musical traditions which are still used today.

 

Maronite icons, like windows to creation, image the divine world. Shapes, colors and figures symbolically reflect God’s presence to his people.

 

Syriac icons, the oldest being the RABBULA Gospel Book (560 AD), portray human figures, and manifest them with divine mystery. Persian and classical Greco-Roman art forms are present in this art, and serve as inspiration for Maronite art today.

 

 

 

MARONITE APPROACH TO PRAYER

 

Prayer is cultivating an awareness of God as always beyond our reach yet always present to us. To pray means to see God’s “fingerprints” in humanity and in all creation.

 

For the Maronite to pray is to live, and to live is to pray.  This process, called lucidity or “inner vision”, sees all created things as transparent, God-touched and divinized.

 

 

A MARONITE VIEW OF GOD

 

The Syriac Maronite Church views God as mystery. Since there is a great distance between Creator and creation, no person can fully grasp God. All language about God is fully limited. The process leads to mystical union- the more one loves God, the more one encounters him.

 

Two aspects account for this notion of “mystery”:

·     the Jewish Christian origins of the Maronite Church

·     the familiarity with the scriptures and poetry.

 

THE MARONITE LITURGY

 

The Maronite liturgy of Antioch-Edessa is called the Service of the Holy Mysteries. It invites the worshipper to stay awake on the life-journey so as to undergo a progressive transformation in God, called divinization.

 

 

MARONITE SYMBOLS and ART

 

Antionchene Cross:

·     3 horizontal bars signify the unity of Bishops, Patriarch, and Pope- also unity of the Triune God.

·     The leaves signify the life that flows from the saving cross of Christ.

·     Syriac poets refer to the cross as the Tree of Life.