Dear parishioners and friends of St Charbel’s Parish,
On this Sunday of the Wedding of Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine, we prepare to enter the Season of Lent asking the Lord to look upon us and hear our prayers during this holy season. By the good works He inspires, may we discipline our bodies and be renewed in spirit.
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Feast of St Maroun
Today, we celebrate the feast of our spiritual father, St Maroun. St Maroun lived a life of poverty preaching the Gospel to the hermits who lived with him and all the faithful in the area who came to seek his counsel. He lived his life knowing that he was not born for this world, but for heaven.
On this feast, we ask St Maroun to intercede for us and to protect the Maronites all over the world and especially in Lebanon and the Middle East. May he always inspire us to set our gaze on heaven alone knowing that everything else perishes.
Ash Monday
Ash Monday is the first day of Lent for the Maronite Church. As Catholics, we are required to fast on Ash Monday and abstain from eating meat.
Mass times at St Charbel's Parish are 6.30am, 7.30am, 6pm and 8pm (English).
May this Season of Lent be blessed and bring you closer to Jesus.
In God’s Love,
Fr. Dr. Antoine Tarabay
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21st Year—Number 1047 Sunday 10/02/2013
Season of the Lent
Entrance to Lent Sunday—The wedding of Cana
Sunday’s Readings: Roma 14: 14-23 & John 2: 1-11
Revealed his glory“ ‘On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.’ ” John 2: 1-11
Reflection of the Week
Our bond with God
Today we begin the season of Lent with the marriage at Cana in Galilee where Jesus changed water into wine. So, at the beginning of his ministry, Christ is embarking on a new and intimate relationship with his people – like a marriage. Here Jesus miraculously provides wine where later he will provide his own blood.
This Gospel reminds us that God will provide all that we need – better than we might imagine possible. It also invites us to take an active look into our communities and our families to know how effectively we are responding to the call to be united with one another and with Christ our Saviour.
Jesus was invited
Jesus would not come unless he is invited; he never forces himself in. Sometimes we fail to invite Jesus yet we expect Him to do something new in our lives. The fact remains that Jesus can only save those who have invited him to come into their situations and circumstances. If Jesus was not invited to the wedding the account of a miracle at a wed-ding in Cana would not have been a reality. This also explains the words of the Saviour as re-corded by John in the book of Revelation (3:20) where we see the Lord standing and knocking at the door and expecting us to open and have him invited for dinner not at our table but in your hearts.
Mary
Mary is the catalyst for the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. It is in response to her appeal for help that his work begins. Jesus’s ministry is a response to basic human needs. The celebrants at the wedding actually represent all of us. Sometimes in our lives we are at zero point in various ways; we are thrown into chaos, gloom, scarcity and grieving of all that makes life worthwhile. We just need to go to Mary who invites us to be a catalyst in the lives of those we love.
The miracle
The little miracle - water turned into wine - points to the big miracle - life resourced from its divine source. The little miracle is possible be-cause God's creation is not closed off from its Creator; it's open to God's influence and activity within it. Even more, the big miracle - salvation - means that God's creation is not closed off from its Creator; its life can be reconnected with its divine source, it can begin to live out of God; it can begin to become the new creation when there will be no more death because all creation will be alive with God's life.
Our bond with God
The wedding at Cana points to our marriage with God which is all about being one and connected with Him. This is where the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor.12:4-11) draws its strength. For St. Paul we are different parts making up a body and to each a special function is given. We are simply instructed that as members of the body of Christ we should be responsive to our particular callings and to contribute our share in the growth of the church. Our unity as members of the Church is reflective of the marriage union where a man and a woman becomes one.
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Wine
Wine gives everything just that little bit more vitality, people enjoy everything a little more, it enhances the experience of life. So if one wants to imagine life enlivened, enhanced, lifted to a new level, given a new quality, lived with a new joy and intensity and awareness and openness to God and to people and to creation - wine is a good image.
That's why the prophets so often imagined abundance of wine as a feature of the messianic age to come. This is why the miracle of the wine at Cana is the first of Jesus' miracles. It declares: the messianic age has come. Jesus is introducing into the ordinary life of people like those at the wedding feast that messianic enhancement of life that the prophets predicted. The luxury of the miracle - the extravagant abundance of remarkably good wine - is the whole point. This is God's extravagantly generous provision for human salvation.
Wine gives everything just that little bit more vitality, people enjoy everything a little more, it enhances the experience of life. So if one wants to imagine life enlivened, enhanced, lifted to a new level, given a new quality, lived with a new joy and intensity and awareness and openness to God and to people and to creation - wine is a good image.
That's why the prophets so often imagined abundance of wine as a feature of the messianic age to come. This is why the miracle of the wine at Cana is the first of Jesus' miracles. It declares: the messianic age has come. Jesus is introducing into the ordinary life of people like those at the wedding feast that messianic enhancement of life that the prophets predicted. The luxury of the miracle - the extravagant abundance of remarkably good wine - is the whole point. This is God's extravagantly generous provision for human salvation.
Ref: frbonnie.wordpress.com
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Saints of the Week
Saint Valentine,
Priest and Martyr (+268)
Maronite Feast Day: February 14
St Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterward to be be-headed, which was executed on the 14th of February. Pope Julius I, is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to his memory.
Valentine's Day or Saint Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people throughout the world. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
Saint Charbel’s Entering
the Hermitage (1875)
Maronite Feast Day: February 15
Only one thing mattered to St Charbel — to obey the voice of the One who summons: Come, follow Me. When his uncle and tutor, Tanios, tried to persuade him to return from entering religious life, he could not succeed; and his mother, who had accompanied her brother, taking his hand in hers, and shaking it energetically, said to him: “Well then, if you should not be-come a good religious, return with me to the house!” He received the habit one week after entering the monastery, and chose the name of Charbel, a martyr of the Antioch church in the year 107.
There followed two years of a severe novitiate, completed in the monastery of Annaya, which on its mountaintop seemed to breathe the stars. The young monk was sent to prepare for the priesthood farther away, at Saint Cyprian of Kfifan, where he was ordained six years later at the age of 31.
He returned to Annaya afterwards, where for sixteen years he was in every way a model of perfection.In 1875, at forty-seven years of age, he retired to its nearby hermitage, where he would remain until his death. In that hermitage, he grew closer to God each day through his prayers and fasting. He desired to be there alone with God more than anything else and each day he lived a special union with Jesus. In the silence he heard the word of God and it guided him ever closer to a perfect relationship with Him
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COMMUNION AND WITNESS
APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION for the MIDDLE EAST (17)
PART TWO (7)
Young people and children
62. I greet with paternal solicitude all the children and young people of the Church in the Middle East. My thoughts turn to the young who are searching for long-term human and Christian direction for their lives. At the same time I think of all those whose youth has been marked by a gradual move away from the Church, leading them to abandon the practice of religion.
63. Dear young people, I encourage you to cultivate a true and lasting friendship with Jesus (cf.
Jn 15:13-15) through the power of prayer. The firmer that friendship becomes, the better it will serve as a beacon to protect you from youthful failings (cf. Ps 25:7). Personal prayer is strengthened by frequent recourse to the sacraments, which make possible an authentic encounter with God and with one’s brothers and sisters in the Church. Do not be afraid or ashamed to bear witness to your friendship with Jesus among your family and in public. In doing so, always be respectful to-wards other believers, Jews and Muslims, with whom you share belief in God, the Creator of heaven and earth, as well as lofty humane and spiritual ideals. Do not be afraid or ashamed to be a Christian. Your relation-ship with Jesus will help you to cooperate generously with your fellow citizens, whatever their religious affiliation, so as to build the future of your countries on human dignity, which is the source and foundation of freedom, and on equality and on peace in justice. By loving Christ and his Church, you will come to discern wisely those values in modern culture that will bring you fulfilment and those evils that gradually poison your life. Try not to be seduced by materialism and by some social net-works whose indiscriminate use can lead to a distortion of genuine human relations. The Church in the Middle East counts greatly on your prayer, enthusiasm, creativity, know-how and deep commitment to serving Christ, the Church, society and especially the other young people of your age.[64] Do not hesitate to take part in every initiative that will help you to strengthen your faith and to respond to the particular call that the Lord addresses to you. Do not hesitate to follow Christ’s call by choosing priestly, religious or missionary life.
64. Dear children, need I remind you that, in your journey with the Lord, particular honour is due to your parents (cf. Ex 20:12; Dt 5:16)? They are your educators in faith. God has entrusted you to them as a marvellous gift, for them to care for your health, your human and Christian education, and your intellectual formation. For their part, parents, teachers and guides, and the public institutions have a duty to respect the rights of children from the moment of their conception.[65] As for you, dear children, learn how to obey God here and now by obeying your parents, as the child Jesus did (cf. Lk 2:51). Learn also to live the Christian life in your families, at school and elsewhere. The Lord does not forget you (cf. Is 49:15). He is always at your side and he wants you to walk with him by being responsible, courageous and kind (cf. Tob 6:2). Bless the Lord God in everything, ask him to guide your steps and to make your paths and plans prosper; always remember his commandments and do not let them fade from your heart (cf. Tob 4:19).
65. Once again I would like to stress the education of children and young people, which is a matter of the utmost importance. The Christian family is the natural setting for children and young people to grow in faith, their first school of catechesis. In these troubled times, educating a child or a young person is not easy. This indispensable task is made all the more complex by the particular socio-political and religious situation of the region. That is why I want to assure parents of my support and my prayers. It is important that children grow up in a united family that lives its faith simply and with conviction. It is important for children and young people to see their parents pray. It is important that they go with them to church, and that they see and understand that their parents love God and wish to know him better. And it is especially important that children and young people see their parents’ charity towards those in need. In this way they will understand that it is good and beautiful to love God; they will enjoy going to church and be proud to do so, for they will have experienced personally that he is the solid rock on which they can build their lives (cf. Mt 7:24-27; Lk 6:48). For those children and young people who do not have this good fortune, my hope is that they will find authentic witnesses on their journey through life, friends who will help them to meet Christ and to discover the joy of following him.
Next Sunday: PART THREE
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