The entire week is filled with marvelous liturgies beginning on Palm Sunday. Our parish is quite small (70 families) and the building we currently use is also tiny ... only one aisle. Attendance at Sunday mass (the only one celebrated) can be sparse as parishioners travel throughout the year. The first Palm Sunday I attended in this church, I was amazed .. standing room only! Even more remarkable, was how they dressed. The children wore beautiful gowns, fancy shoes .. even the boys wore suits and ties. The children arrived with pillar candles, decorated with symbols of the season - flowers, etc. It finally occurred to me that "these" are the descendants of those who greeted our Lord on his entry into Jerusalem. Hosanna (Palm) Sunday, for them, is more important than Easter.
You can read more about the "Coming to the Harbor" and other liturgies celebrated that week, at this link:
The Holy Week in the Maronite Church
EWTN’s host of more than one of her radio and television shows, Father Mitch Pacqua, isn’t he Maronite (Eastern) Catholic?
Fr. Mitch is Roman Catholic and a Jesuit. He has a degree in Biblical Theology and reads Hebrew, Aramaic, Koine Greek, et al. There is a Maronite Catholic Church in Alabama and Fr. Mitch was granted Maronite faculties by my bishop Gregory John Mansour. In July 2010, Fr. Mitch invited the two American Maronite bishops on his program, EWTN Live. You can watch the entire program at the following link:
The Maronite Church in America - Fr. Pacwa, SJ w/ Bishops Mansour and Shaheen
If you have the opportunity some time, I would encourage you to attend mass at a Maronite Church. These eastern catholics are very devoted to the Blessed Mother and the pope. In fact, of all the Eastern Catholic Churches, the Maronite Church is the only one that never separated from Rome, and suffered persecution for their fidelity, by other christians. Bishop Shaheen has often cited the Maronite position: "Where Peter is, there is the Church".
Thank you for the links, maybe I will attend a Maronite
Rite. I never knew this... thanks NYer.
...”of all the Eastern Catholic Churches, the Maronite Church is the only one that never separated from Rome, and suffered persecution for their fidelity, by other christians. Bishop Shaheen has often cited the Maronite position: “Where Peter is, there is the Church”.
He is something, I love Father Mitch. And I get after my children, I harp at them, especially our teenager, “dress up, we are goingto God’s house to honor Him.”
I have a friend, he is a pastor of an Orthodox Church, in another city. He knows how to offer the Tridentine Mass, Father learned it in seminary. He has a strong devotion to Our Lady and a devotion to prophecy. I tell him sometimes,
“One day, you will be of great help to fellow Orthodox
priests and Roman Rite priests when divine events take place.”
He is so kind, I can’t tell if he gets offended. I don’t
say much else about the divide, there it is in prophecy,
very soon....no more.