Tag: Melto D’Moronoyo

Goodness, truth, and beauty are joined to our souls through the uniting power of love: that is its fruit. Love is a divine impulse. It comes from God in its perfect form, and as it reaches us, draws us higher, uniting us to all which is united with God (and so frees us from all which is separated from him).

We all have a yearning in our hearts to be united with God. Whatever we may own or enjoy in this world, to be joined with God exceeds them all. No one who seeks God has to feel that they are missing out on the least thing, or are settling for second prize.

“Who can fully comprehend God as Holy Trinity? So great is this mystery far beyond our scrutiny!” We sing these words in the entrance hymn of the Divine Liturgy of the second Sunday of Pentecost, the Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity.

We have entered the season of Pentecost, the time of the Holy Spirit that comes alive in us and awakens us to our deeper sense of being in the world and to our ongoing relationship with God. In our Maronite Church Pentecost spans 16 weeks. It is the longest season in the calendar and rightfully so, as Pentecost bursts onto the scene 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection.

For modern Catholics running businesses or working in offices, the feast of Our Lady of the harvest might seem like an agricultural celebration from a previous time. Thought to originate from pagan agricultural feasts where people would make sacrifices to fertility deities for a good crop, the feast is one of three Maronite Marian feasts: 15 January for the seeds, 15 May for the wheat harvest, and 15 August for the grapes.

“Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). It must, then, be possible to became pure of heart and thus to see God. Perhaps we can say that to be “pure in heart” means that internally we have regained the original state of cleanness, openness, and innocence which we were intended to have.

The presence of God should be the goal of every Christian. We yearn to be able to stand in the presence of God, enjoying the beatific vision for all eternity; to be suffused and—in some manner we cannot understand—united with his goodness, truth, and beauty.

In the Maronite Liturgical Calendar, the fourth Sunday and week of the season of the Glorious Resurrection is being celebrated. The encounter that is portrayed happens after Jesus appears to Thomas who doubted He had risen.

The week after Resurrection, according to the Maronite Lectionary, is titled ‘New Sunday’ and the readings are taken from Isaiah 52:7-12, 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 and John 20:26-31. It is also Divine Mercy Sunday. In the Maronite Lectionary the title ‘New Sunday’ is based on the understanding that Jesus’s death and resurrection have forever altered all things.

Although I am passing on the joy of Hosanna Sunday to my children, through our simple traditions like decorating Hosanna Sunday candles, I am more committed to helping them “get closer to Jesus.”

In the poetic Syriac tradition, Jesus Christ is called the “divine physician.” St Ephrem the Syrian wrote, “Inside I am not what I appear to be; Heal me.”

By Anne-Marie Boudib According to the Maronite Lectionary, the third Sunday in Lent offers us the reading of the haemorrhaging woman. It follows the trend...