Pascendi, living in the Diocese of Albany, I hear you! My introduction to this diocese came 12 years ago when my daughter entered 1st grade at one of their most prestigious catholic elementary schools ... and, it was! In October, a notice was sent home inviting "everyone" to attend the bishop's "kick off the new school year" mass at a church in Schenectady NY. This diocese was all new to me (but I had been forewarned by someone who dropped out of the seminary that the Albany diocese was ultra liberal). At the time, that did not register. I had no basis for comparison.
And so, in utter faith, I packed up myself and my daughter, drove to the church named in the newsletter and picked out a pew. When the bishop processed in, he was proceded by altar girls. This was my first exposure and I was caught off guard. When the tiime for the Consecration arrived, I looked down, saw no kneelers in the recently 'wreckovated' church, and knelt on the tile floor. Looking around me, though, I noticed that the other participants at this liturgy remained standing. I was shocked!
After 12 years of this nonsensical approach to contemporizing the liturgy in this diocese, what pushed me over the edge, was that day in February of this year when an EEM accidentally dropped a consecrated host on the ground. She truly had no idea as to how to deal with this situation! My heart sank and I choked back tears as I watched her pick up the host and toss it back into her Pyrex glass salad bowl. That was it! I walked, compiling a list of other Catholic churches within proximity to my home. On that list, I included two Eastern Rite churches - one Maronie and one Ukrainian.
When I walked into the Maronite Church one Sunday, I was overwhelmed by the simplistic beauty of a Tabernacle, a Crucifix and the Book of the Gospels. There, illuminated before me, were the elements of our catholic faith. The liturgy moved me to tears, as Father repeated the words, in the same language as our Lord, Jesus Christ, that were spoken at the Last Supper. It reminded me that Christ was a Jew, not a Roman. During Lent, Father held an Adoration of the Cross liturgy. During that, he would elevate the large Crucifix, while acolytes incensed it and we chanted the prayers of devotion. How my heart and soul devoured these beautiful devotions. At the culmination of this devotion, Father kissed the Crucifix and lovingly replaced it on its stand.
For the past 3 weeks, I have spent my Saturdays at an old protestant church that Father has purchased for this congregation. Their own church burned down many years ago and they operate out of a small shrine.
When our pastor chose us, 3 years ago, he was freshly ordained. As you know, a parish community provides for its pastor. That is not the case here. This priest arrived with no place to lay his head. He rents a room in a rectory operated by the Diocese of Albany and commutes to church. He used his personal funds to purchase the car he drives! He has worked with this very small Maronite community, to acquire a new church which is more than 150 years old and has been boarded up for the past 50 years. It was all he could afford with the monies raised by the parish community. The church comes with a parsonage. Where has Father placed his greatest effort? In the church. Each weekend, he is over there, tearing out overgrown shrubs, trees, and other debris that accumulated on the property over the past 50 years. By noon, Father is usually soaked through to the bone with perspiration and covered with dust and dirt. Today, he and I cleaned up one of the stairwells that was packed with broken plaster, chipped paint and years of dust. We did that to accomodate a fellow freeper who is handicapped and will visit us within a few weeks to examine and help restore the pipe organ that no longer functions.
I am absolutely sick and tired of the recent abusive accusations that fly against the Maronite priests in this forum!! In my entire life, I have NEVER met a priest who has prostrated themselves in service to a community as I have with our pastor. Last Sunday was this year's major fundraiser - Cow Patty Bingo. The idea came from one of the parishioners. At 7:30am on Sunday, Father and two other men from the parish went to a field adjacent to the Elks and , using a limestone spreader, mapped out a grid of more than 2000, 2' x 2' boxes. The weather was deplorable; the temperature was pushing 90 degrees and the humidity was at 100%. Having mapped out the field, Father drove back down to his rented room, showered, changed, drove back to the church, vested and began the Divine Liturgy. While that was going on, it poured rain, washing out the entire field. After mass, Father, along with some helpers, drove back to the field and relaid the 2000 2' x 2' boxes for the fundraiser.
In all my 55 years, I have NEVER met a priest who devoted himself to this extent to supporting a community and personally investing himself in the effort of growing that community into a new church ... NEVER!
Rod Dreher, a columnist with the Dallas Morning News, was once a columnist with the NY Post. He and his family, disenchanted with the masses offered up in the Diocese of Brooklyn, began attending the Maronite Divine Liturgy at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Brooklyn. When the catastrophic events of September 11 turned our lives around, Rod Dreher posted the the following in one of his columns.
"I live on the Brooklyn waterfront, just across the harbor from lower Manhattan. On that horrible morning on September 11, my father phoned me from Louisiana to tell me to look out my front door, the World Trade Center was on fire. It was, and I ran down to the basement to grab my reporter’s pad. Then I heard the explosion from the second crash and scrambled upstairs and out my front door.
Monsignor Ignace Sadek, the elderly pastor of the Maronite cathedral near the Brooklyn waterfront, went to the promenade park overlooking lower Manhattan and prayed for absolution for the dying as the towers burned. When the first building crumbled, and the terrible cloud of smoke, debris, and incinerated human remains began its grim march across the harbor, Monsignor Sadek remained at his post praying. The falling ash turned him into a ghost. Still, he stayed as long as he could. This is a man who came through the civil war in Lebanon, and he doesn’t run. "
Some of the trads in this forum derive great joy from bashing those who adhere to the Novus Ordo Rite. As if that was not enough, they have not expanded their attacks to the Maronite Rite. For those who believe that the Maronite priests are in collusion with the NO, I would challenge them to show a similar reaction from their clergy on September 11. The only prelate standing on the Brooklyn pier praying for the lost lives in the two towers was a Maronite priest who is not even an American.