The Lebanese Maronite Order celebrates the feast of Saint Anthony the Great in Ghazir

The Lebanese Maronite Order celebrated the feast of Saint Anthony the Great, the father of the monks, with a mass held in the Church of the General Presidency of the Order in the Monastery of Saint Anthony of Padawani in Ghazir, presided over by the Father General of the Order, Hadi Mahfouz, where the Father General and the monastery audience renewed their eternal monastic vows with the participation of Bishops Antoine Bou Negm and Paul Matar and the administrators. The generals, the public officials, the abbot of the monastery, the townspeople, and the neighbourhood.

Mahfouz delivered a sermon in which he pointed out that these days we are experiencing great spiritual joy in Lebanon with the election of His Excellency President General Joseph Aoun as head of our republic, and we see events proceeding well, which calls us to be optimistic and herald many positive things. We call on believers to keep up with them in a positive spirit and complete transparency.

He said: Our Christian faith always calls us, with depth, essence and foundation, to a lot of joy and hope, as joy and hope were witnessed by Saint Anthony throughout his life and he worked for them by saying, “God is our hope,” and this saying is the beginning of the deep Christian concept: Oh, the hope of the righteous and the righteous.

He added: I wanted to discuss this idea with you because God is our hope, and this is what His Holiness the Supreme Pontiff Pope Francis chose to be the title of this jubilee year under the name “Jubilee of Hope.”

Regarding Saint Anthony, he said: All Christians know the story of his faith and how he chose for his life to live in the desert in a difficult way, in austerity and asceticism. Some may wonder how a person in the desert can live in peace, without problems and with hope. With this way that Saint Anthony chose to live, he wanted to express his love and passion for Jesus. The way of living in its harshness is to express his love for Jesus, Jesus of love, peace, and hope. For that, the call to each one of us, wherever he may be, in the priesthood, in daily life, or in society, wherever he may be. He must realize the paths that lead to his attachment to God, where there is peace in the heart, joy, goodness, and the will to transfer them to others. This is the true measure for a person to know the extent of God’s presence in his life. And his relationship with him. Let the essence of our love in our society be like the essence of Saint Anthony’s love and the strength of passion for him. Whatever our lifestyle, we must realize the way we chose Jesus in our ways of living, as in the monks who captured from his way of living the essence of God’s love for man.

Mahfouz concluded: We are happy to have you with us today, as we emphasize the importance of attachment to faith, our monasticism, and the human relationship. For this reason, we feel the importance of maintaining this relationship – the message. The message of Saint Anthony is the message of hope and true faith, and that this hope is stored in our hearts with joy, love, and faith.