Monday, September 14, 2009

Catholic Lebanon: the Maronite Rite

"Gloria Libani Data Est Ei!"
This is a photo of the facade of the Church of the Holy Family located in St. Paul, Minnesota. 
As a college student I used to attend here the Divine Liturgy in the Maronite rite.  The best was Holy Week.  To hear the holy language of Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, was a real highlight.
Then this past summer I made a stop here and found the church closed and abandoned.  Surprised, later at a dinner party I asked a former parishioner (in his early twenties) and in anger he complained that the pastor had just purchased an old Protestant parish in a first ring suburb and is now selling this wonderful old church to whomever can pay (but likely to East African Orthodox).
We have so few historic churches in the new world and a pity to see us always sell them (consecrated buildings!) for the same never new reasons: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_13319518.

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