Catholic Maronite Readings

The home of Nazareth is the school where we begin to understand the life of Jesus – the school of the Gospel. The first lesson we learn here is to look, to listen, to meditate and penetrate the meaning – at once so deep and so mysterious – of this very simple, very humble and very beautiful manifestation of the Son of God. Perhaps we learn, even imperceptibly, the lesson of imitation… How gladly would I become a child again, and go to school once more in this humble and sublime school of Nazareth: close to Mary, I wish I could make a fresh start at learning the true science of life and the higher wisdom of divine truths… First, then, a lesson of silence. May esteem for silence, that admirable and indispensable condition of mind, revive in us, besieged as we are by so many uplifted voices, the general noise and uproar, in our seething and over­sensitized modern life. May the silence of Nazareth teach us recollection, inwardness, the disposition to listen to good inspirations and the teachings of true masters. May it teach us the need for and the value of preparation, of study, of meditation, of personal inner life, of the prayer which God alone sees in secret (Mt 6,6). Next, there is a lesson on family life. May Nazareth teach us what family life is, its communion of love, its austere and simple beauty, and its sacred and inviolable character. Let us learn from Nazareth that the formation received at home is gentle and irreplaceable. Let us learn me prime importance of the role of the family in the social order. Finally, there is a lesson of work. Nazareth, home of the ‘Carpenter’s Son’ (Mt 13,55), in you I would choose to understand and proclaim the severe and redeeming law of human work; here I would restore the awareness of the nobility of work, and reaffirm that work cannot be an end in itself, but that its freedom and its excellence derive, over and above its economic worth, from the value of those for whose sake it is undertaken. And here at Nazareth I want to greet all the workers of the world, holding up to them their great pattern, their brother who is God. He is the prophet of all their just causes, Christ our Lord.

maronite readings – rosary,team

Let us go to meet Christ, all we who fervently honour and venerate his mystery; let us make our way towards him with all our hearts. Let everyone without exception take part in this encounter and let all bring their lights along with them. If our candles give off such brightness it is first of all to demonstrate the divine radiance of he who comes, he who makes the whole world resplendent and bathes it in an everlasting light, scattering the darkness of evil. But it is also, and above all, to show with what brightness of soul we ourselves should go to meet Christ. Indeed, just as the Mother of God, the most pure Virgin, bore the true light in her arms to meet “those who lay in darkness” (cf Is 9,1; Lk 1,79), so let us, lit up by their rays and carrying in our hands a light that all can see, make haste to encounter Christ. It is clear this mystery is our own, since “the light came into the world” (Jn 1,9) and shone upon it when it was bathed in shadows and since “the daybreak from on high has visited us” (Lk 1,78)… So let us run together; let us all go to this encounter with God… May we all be illuminated by it, my brethren; may we all be made radiant by it. May none of us remain outside this light like a stranger, nor any one of us insist on staying plunged in the dark. Let us rather go forward into the brightness; let us go radiantly to meet him and receive, together with the aged Simeon, this glorious and everlasting light. Together with him let us rejoice with all our hearts and sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, the Father of lights (Jas 1,17), who has sent true brightness to us to draw us out of darkness and make us radiant. God’s salvation, “which he has prepared in sight of all the peoples” and manifested for our glory as the new Israel, behold! we, too, “have seen it” (Lk 2,30f.) in our turn, thanks to Christ. And all at once we were set free from the night of our sins just as Simeon, when he saw the Christ, was set free from the bonds of this present life.
maronite readings – rosary,team

Would you like to know the faith of this woman? Well, just think at the time she does such a request…The cross was ready, the Passion immanent, the crowd of enemies already in place. The Teacher talks about his death and the disciples are worried: even before the Passion, they tremble at the simple mention of it; what they hear startles them, they are overcome by agitation and fear. At this same moment, this mother leaves the group of the apostles and comes ask for the kingdom and a throne for her sons. Would you like to know the faith of this woman? Well, just think at the time she does such a request…The cross was ready, the Passion immanent, the crowd of enemies already in place. The Teacher talks about his death and the disciples are worried: even before the Passion, they tremble at the simple mention of it; what they hear startles them, they are overcome by agitation and fear. At this same moment, this mother leaves the group of the apostles and comes ask for the kingdom and a throne for her sons. What did you say, woman? You hear him talking about the cross and you ask for a throne? It is a matter of Passion and you wish for the Kingdom? Leave then the disciples with all their fears and worries of danger. But how could you think of asking such dignity? What– of what has been said or done- makes you think about the kingdom? I see – she says – the Passion, but I foresee the Resurrection. I see the cross set up and I contemplate the open skies. I see the nails, but I also see the throne…I heard the Lord himself say: “you shall likewise take your places on twelve thrones” (Mt 19,28). I see the future with the eyes of faith. This woman anticipates – it seems to me – the words of the good criminal. He, on the cross, made this prayer: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk 23,42). Before the cross, she made the kingdom an object of her supplication…What a desire plunged in the vision of the future! What time hid, faith revealed.

maronite readings – rosary,team

     “As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms, and fondled in her lap; as a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you,” (Is 66, 12-13). The mother embraces her children and we seek out our own mother, the Church. Anything weak and helpless, whose weakness needs supporting, is sweet and vulnerable and endearing: God does not refuse his help to anything so young. Parents devote particular gentleness to their little ones;…in the same way, the Father of all creation gathers to himself all who take refuge in him, regenerates them by his Spirit and adopts them as his sons. He knows how gentle they are and they are the ones he loves, helps and protects; that is why he calls them his little children, (cf Jn 13,33). The Holy Spirit, speaking through the mouth of Isaiah, applies the expression “child” to the Lord himself: “For a child is born to us, a son is given us…” (Is. 9,5). Who is this child, then? This newborn infant in whose image we, too, are children? Through the same prophet, the Spirit describes his greatness: “Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace,” (v.6). Oh great God! Oh perfect child! The Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son. How could the teaching this child gives not be irreproachable? It includes us all to guide us all, his children. He has stretched out his hands to us and we have placed in them all our faith. To this little child John the Baptist himself also gave testimony: “Behold,” he said, “the Lamb of God,” (Jn 1,29). Since Scripture has called children ‘lambs’, it has called “Lamb of God” the Word of God who became man for us and who wanted to become like us in all things, the Son of God himself, the child of the Father.

maronite readings – rosary,team

“I lost myself and was found” The one who walks in the love of God seeks neither gain nor reward, but seeks only to lose with the will all things and self for God: and this loss the lover judges to be a gain. Thus it is, as St. Paul asserts: “For me death is gain” [Phil.1:21], that is, my death for Christ is my gain, spiritually, of all things and of myself. Consequently the soul declares: I was found. The soul that does not know how to lose herself does not find herself but rather loses herself, as Our Lord teaches in the Gospel: “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:25). Should we desire to interpret this verse more spiritually and in accord with what we are discussing here, it ought to be known that when a soul treading the spiritual road has reached such a point that she has lost all roads and natural methods in her communion with God, and no longer seeks him by reflections or forms or feelings or by any other way of creatures and the senses, but has advanced beyond them all and beyond all modes and manners, and enjoys communion with God in faith and love, then it is said that God is her gain, because she has certainly lost all that is not God and has truly lost herself.
maronite readings – rosary,team