Have a Blessed Mar Maron’s Day, Everyone!

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Today in Lebanon we celebrate the feast of Mar Maron, father of the Maronite Church and patron saint of Maronites. May the prayers of the Blessed Virgin and Mar Maron remove from you all heartache and troubles on this blessed day, and may you all find peace in the arms of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Have a blessed day everyone!
Mar Maron, Patron of the Lebanese and the Maronites, pray for us!
Mar Maroun, priez pour nous, qui avons recourse à Vous.
يا مار مارون صلّي لأجلنا، الآن وفي ساعة موتنا . أمين.
 
Thank you!

What special customs do you observe on the feast of Mar Maron? Are there traditional foods you eat or things you do?

Mar Maron, pray for us.
 
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My family and I attend church with other Maronites and sing hymns to Mar Maroun (called trateel in Arabic). Sometimes our Greek Orthodox neighbours join us. Some pious Maronites may undertake a pilgrimage to Saint Maron’s monastery in Aanaya, where Saint Charbel’s tomb is located, and attend Mass in the church there. My family and I sometimes make that trip, but not usually since it’s too far ( it’s a six hour trip there and back).
 
What does Mar Maron mean?
Is that a first and last name, or is “Mar” a title?
 
“Mar” is a Syriac title of respect meaning “lord”. The feminine form is Mart. In a religious sense a more suitable translation would be “saint”. In the Lebanese dialect of Arabic we refer to saints as “Mar” as in Mar Maroun meaning Saint Maron and Mar Boutrus meaning Saint Peter. We also refer to our bishops as “Mar”, the Patriarch of our Church is referred to as Mar. Hope this helps!
 
Salibi, I have a special request. Do you have a collect prayer that you say as part of your liturgy on St. Maron’s feast day? It would be a short prayer to God that goes something like this one for St. Sharbel, basically in the same form.
O God, who called the Priest Saint Sharbel Makhluf to the solitary combat of the desert and imbued him with all manner of devotion, grant us, we pray, that, being made imitators of the Lord’s Passion, we may merit to be co-heirs of his Kingdom.
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If you have such a prayer for St. Maron, could you please post it here in English? I compile them and it’s hard to find some of the saints who are not on the Latin Church calendar. Thank you.
 
I must confess that before your post I had no idea such a thing as a collect prayer existed. The term is new to me, a quick google search enlightened me as to what it is. I’m actually familiar with the prayer you sent, though I never knew it was called a collect prayer until now. I have also never seen the likes of it in Arabic. I’m not sure if there are any collect prayers for Saint Maron, but as I have only just discovered the term it may be that I have heard several without knowing what they were. I can’t think of any prayers in the format you sent at the moment, but I’ll ask a priest about it as soon as I am able to. Perhaps other Maronites on the forums know more?
I think it’s lovely that you compile such prayers.
 
How about this one:
‘O Lord, accept the prayers we offer in memory of our Father, St. Maron.
Bless and protect the people who bear your name. Make us worthy of his
holy legacy that we may carry the message of your Gospel throughout the world.
Grant faithfulness to his people and courage to his inheritance.’
 
Salibi said:
I must confess that before your post I had no idea such a thing as a collect prayer existed. The term is new to me, a quick google search enlightened me as to what it is. I’m actually familiar with the prayer you sent, though I never knew it was called a collect prayer until now. I have also never seen the likes of it in Arabic. I’m not sure if there are any collect prayers for Saint Maron, but as I have only just discovered the term it may be that I have heard several without knowing what they were. I can’t think of any prayers in the format you sent at the moment, but I’ll ask a priest about it as soon as I am able to. Perhaps other Maronites on the forums know more?
I think it’s lovely that you compile such prayers.
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In the Latin Rite, the Collect is the term for the prayer for a particular feast/Saint (in the Mass.) The nearest Byzantine equivalent, I think, would be the Troparion. Maybe there is something unique to the Maronite Quorbono?
 
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Thank you. I try to say the collect for each saint daily. One gets a small indulgence for doing that, and its a good way to get to know saints.
The current Latin Rite calendar for USA has many days with no saint, unfortunately, so I have used other calendars like foreign countries, Tridentine, the various orders, and Eastern Catholicism to find more saints. Also, old missals on places like Archive.org and Google Books often have saints who were venerated centuries ago that everyone has forgotten about. I put the collects I can find into a spreadsheet so I can use them again next year when the day rolls around.
 
Ahh I understand now. In Arabic we call them Trobariya (طروبارية). I believe the word is derived from “Troparion”, or vice versa. Yes, there are some Troparions for Saint Maron, but I can’t recall any at the moment.
 
It’s great to see that in our age there still are people who would go to such lengths for personal holiness. May Christ our God continuously shield you from the attacks of the Evil One. If you want, I can compile a list of Troparions for other Maronite or Melkite saints and post them here for your benefit. I don’t believe the Latin Rite calendar includes collect prayers for such saints, does it?
 
Latin Rite doesn’t usually have them unless the saint is on the calendar for the Latin Rite too. (I corrected this from “venerated” because of course we’re allowed to venerate Maronite saints all we want, they just might not have a calendar day assigned in our calendar.) St. Sharbel is on the Latin Rite calendar for USA, that’s why I had his.

If you want to post them I think they would be wonderful to read. I think it might be a lot of work for you, though, and I don’t want to put you to lots of trouble. If there’s an online source for them, like a couple of pages where they are, just please feel free to post the links. I think we would all enjoy and benefit from reading about Maronite saints and reading the prayers to them.
 
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Today (2/9) on the Byzantine calendar, it’s the leave-taking of the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord. I’ll have to check my calendar & see if St. Maron is commemorated.

O Holy Father Maron, pray to God for us sinners!

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I found a Byzantine Rite troparion and kontakion for St. Maron:

The troparion (4th tone) reads:
“Like Moses, O Saint, thou hast settled on a mountain, filling a heathen temple
with recognition of God and sanctifying it in His name as His church. Like a
second Job, enduring severe illnesses, O Blessed One, thou hast received the gift
of God to heal fevers and ague. Founder of many monasteries, teacher of legions
of monks, thou wast a healer of soul and body, O Ever-Remembered Maron.”

To the right, the kontakion (6th tone) announces:
“Thy asceticism revealed thee filled with supreme power. Thus thou, Saint
Maron, became a grand successor of the true master of watchfulness, Christ the
Lord, and turned to a vast vessel of the charisma of our Consoler. Thy strength
lay in repelling and banishing fever, ague and enemies, and thou wast a hearty
aid.”

My source is this fascinating document: http://maronite-institute.org/St_Maron2.pdf
 
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I went to Mass today for the feast of St. Maron, and we followed Mass with a wonderful Hafli. I hope I get a restful sleep and able to get to Mass in the morning otherwise I hope I make the last Mass of the evening tomorrow: 8 PM.
 
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