Beloved Parishioners and Friends of St. Maron,
I pray that this letter will reach your hands and find you in good health of spirit and body with your loved ones. I extend to you my warmest wishes for a very blessed and healthy 2021. I ask the Lord to pave your road with peace, health, and security.
For sure the year 2020 was a challenging year in many different ways and I hope that the pandemic will be gone soon and our life will start returning back to normal. We pray that all those who been affected by covid-19 may regain their health and those whose businesses have been affected may also recover soon. We thank God that we are all alive, but we need to pray for those who are still suffering from the COVID-19. Until the vaccine takes its effect and slows down the pandemic we just need to continue to be careful and to make the best out of every day. Every day is a good day and every year is a good year, and many of them are great. 2020 was a good year, but we hope that 2021 will be a great year for all of us. Cherish the moments that you spend with your loved ones. Appreciate everything that you have, as we now understand that even the old days that we had were incredible days that we didn’t realize and often did not appreciate. As of now, most of our social activities are on hold, hopefully not for too long. Meanwhile make sure that you put your efforts and time in to attend Divine Liturgy because we still need Jesus more than anything else in life. I thank all of you that have been making the effort to attend liturgy, and for those of you who are vulnerable at home for making the time to join us virtually on-line. I encourage you to be careful and to be patient and ask God for wisdom to be able to do the right things to please him in this life.
I invite you to join me in prayer on Thursday, January 21, 2021, for the intentions of Deacon Mikael Jalkh, who will be ordained a priest on that day in Lebanon with his family and loved ones. We have been blessed for the last 7 months with Deacon Mikael among us and we pray that the Lord God may continue to shower His grace upon him, especially on the day of his ordination. Once the newly ordained priest returns to us in the spring, he will celebrate a liturgy of thanksgiving here on our altar, and you will have the chance to congratulate him.
Although we are not able to gather socially in a high number I highly encourage you to reach out to your friends and members of our community, even with a phone call, just to tell them that you are thinking of them and praying for them. This is the most important thing that we can do for each other at this time.
I, from my side, assure you of my daily prayers and ask you to remember me in your prayers and hope that very soon I will be able to see your faces again in church.
Wishing you God’s grace, I remain,
Devotedly yours,
Chorbishop sharbel Maroun
