President Sleiman and his wife in the VIP lounge of the military airport of Rome Ciampino St. Maron, the "wandering Aramean", permanently installed the Vatican
They loved Europe and Africa, they have adopted America, they have embraced Oceania but have always felt at home in Rome. The day after the Feast of the Chair of Peter, the Maronites suspend their walk years 1600 to take a look at their history and put a stone in the land of God.
While hundreds, Maronites around the world flocked to Rome for the blessing this morning by Benedict XVI, a statue of Saint Maron installed in a niche of the outer perimeter of the basilica St. Peter, Archbishop Edmond Farhat, Apostolic Nuncio, was found Monday the right words to talk about this special moment. Speaking during a conference for three voices in the chapel of the School Maronite Archbishop Farhat found the right words to say the symbolism of the event. "The monk's son, the son of wandering Aramean become a nation, come together from all parts of the world in
"kadech," the sanctuary of Christendom, the Eternal City, to venerate their patron and founder. Yesterday, always ahead of the ceremony, a concert of Eastern and Western sacred music was held in a Roman basilica, under the leadership of Father Toufic Maatouk, the Antonine Order, and with the two soloists Samar Salameh and Ghada Chbeir . The head of state, arrived in Rome late afternoon, attended. The culmination of these preparations is scheduled for today. "After the Feast of the Chair of Peter, they briefly suspend their march to 1600 years take a look at their history and put a stone in the land of God and a statue, a "memorial" in the side of St. Peter, "said the nuncio in Lebanon, before a gathering of bishops from around the Maronite whole, seminarians, journalists and members of the diplomatic corps, including distinguished former ambassador to Italy, a friend of Lebanon, Gabriele Cecchia.
"This stele, they do not want it as a remembrance or as a sign of survival, has launched yet Farhat. They want it as a symbol of constancy in faith and perseverance in the mission. What they reveal is not a block of marble and deaf but hard a memorial to Peter loyalty and incentive to those who watch. . "Leaving Brad, the banks of the Orontes, the son of the hermit monk left the plains of Syria, climbed the mountains of Lebanon, sanitized Ilija caves, and lived Qannoubine Kfarhay, Mayfouq, Diman and Bkerke. They loved Europe and Africa, they have adopted America, they have embraced the Pacific, but mostly they felt at home in Rome, but never forget their origins and tradition (...). Now they are taking a break, they erected a stele. Msgr Farhat had the audacity to add that "what happens today in the Middle East is an expression of yearning for freedom and emancipation, a thirst for truth and justice, a thirst for transcendence, a thirst for Jesus Christ. " A thirst that Maronites are invited to appease "in spirit of service and leadership and banishing all fear."
Sfeir ovation
Incidentally, Bishop Farhat received a standing ovation Patriarch Sfeir, which he compared to a large cedar tree which snow can break a branch, but never prevent the birds are not to overshadow their shelter. With his usual modesty and a sense of humor that never left him, the patriarch responded by hand gestures and smiles to the thunderous applause that followed these words, even though he lives - in the concern, serenity, hope? - Patriarch of his last weeks in office. With Bishop Farhat, spoke Father Abdo Badawi, professor of sacred art USEK and Father Sarkis Tabr. The first painted a fascinating sketch of the history of the Maronites with a French diplomat said that "their butts are made of wood, but their heart is gold." He did not hide their suffering under the Mamluks, who burned their patriarch and his monks to Illiger, or the massacres of 1860 where in the space of a week 360 of their villages were burned, nor those of 1975, the beginning of the war of others on their territory. The second spoke of the Maronite College in Rome as "a privileged place for dialogue among civilizations and religions." We do will repeat often enough that the Maronites were "traffickers" between East and West. A community
proven
Alas, this community experienced in a deeply divided Lebanon, which hosts this solemn moment. In place of honor, of course, serve the President Michel Sleiman, arrived with his wife. There will also be at the forefront, Michel Edde, head of the Maronite Foundation in the world, to whom we owe the global impact of this event. We will see ministers and MPs, Samy and Nadim Gemayel (Phalange), Antoine Zahra (Lebanese Forces), Gebran Bassil, Simon Abi Ramia and Alain Aoun (CPL), Youssef Saade (MARAD). But for these presences, absences How dark? Because they are capable of the best in their courage and generosity, the Maronites are also capable of the worst. Their passion, their individualism, their enmities can play tricks. The atmosphere surrounding the end of his reign decision Patriarch of the discharge of his duties nurtures all kinds of improper conduct. A kind of lethargy closes eyes of the elites, that nothing seems to wake up. The ceremony is aimed at pastors initially, but among them, lay or clergy, some boast of being wreckers, unaware that the dishonor of the head reflects on the whole body and rushed their own shame. Fortunately, the guarantor of the Maronites, the spirit of prayer, that of young and old, standby and remains the guardian of the wild rose. Beatification and canonization to have marked the past two decades is about to add recognition heroic virtues Doueyhi patriarch who, from the Holy Valley, has submitted his intelligence history of the Maronites. Maronites also at ease in the East and West, having been born before the great schism that has torn the church.
In the freedom of the children of God but in the confusion of the children of men, this is not the stone that the Maronites celebrate today, but faith brazen born in Syria under the weather, the forges of the wandering and the steep cliffs of the Holy Valley. No doubt this faith in the grace of God that took them years since 1600 will prevent them "to finish in the flesh what they started in the Spirit. " Tomorrow, we learn, the head of state will be received by the Pope. Many put an irrational hope in a reconciliation process that would pivot the presence of MPs from all sides at the Vatican.
Fady NOUN
hilda.barhoum @ wanadoo.fr
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