Sunday of the Priests
Brothers and Sisters,
Our Liturgy guides and reveals our Maronite Identity and Charism. The next three weeks of Commemorations in our Maronite Liturgy prepare us for Great Lent. This Sunday we remember our Priests, next Sunday we remember the Righteous and Just and during the final week of the Commemorations Tridium we remember all of the Faithful Departed.
These threeSundays reflect how we as Maronites piously remember and never forget our deceased and pray for them to a significant extent. During this Season the priests start wearing and decorating the altars with the colour purple. Purple symbolises pain, suffering, and therefore mourning and penitence. It is the liturgical colour for the Season of Great Lent.
During this week of the Priests, all the priests of our Eparchy together with His Excellency Bishop Antoine-Charbel Tarabay will attend the annual clergy retreat. This will give us time away from our parishes to renew ourselves both spiritually and pastorally through prayer, reflection, rest and appraisal. It will help us to focus on our mission as priests and discern the theme of the retreat and of this Jubilee Year of Mercy: “Merciful like the Father.” It will hopefully give us time to start anew and renew our priestly journey in vigour, strength and fervor. During this week, there will be only one daily Mass celebrated at 6pm by Father Charles Sleiman who is visiting from Lebanon. I ask you to remember us in your prayers this week and always.
On the last day of the retreat on 22 January, Our Lady of Lebanon Co-Cathedral will present three of its own sons to be ordained as Sub-deacons for the Maronite Eparchy of Australia. They are Joe Maroon, Danny Nouh and Nehme Khattar. I ask you to pray for them as they receive the first order on their journey in the service of the Maronite Church.
I also ask you to pray that the Lord of the harvest may grant us “wise and prudent” labourers to continue this important ministry in our parish, our eparchy and in the world because the “harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few.” Today is also the Feast of Saint Anthony the Great and the anniversary of the passing of a priest who is very dear to our hearts and who served this parish for many years – Father Elias Ayoub. Please join me in praying for everyone whose name is Anthony, Antoine, Tony, Antonious, etc. and for the soul of Father Elias and all the deceased priests.
Fr Tony Sarkis
