Good Friday Mass in Beirut

Arriving at Saint Mary's for Good Friday Mass

In good traditional manner, it rained on Good Friday in Beirut. But this only added to the solemnity of the day that is celebrated here with devotion, passion and great community spirit.

I have already mentioned that Holy Week and Easter is my favorite season of the year (Off to Beirut in time for Easter, 16 April 2011). I haven’t been in Beirut during Passion Week for more than 20 years. I wanted to participate in the traditions that my mom Vicky and I used to enjoy so much.

So it was off to Good Friday Mass at Mom’s parish church, St. Mary’s Orthodox Church of Dormition in Makhoul Street off Hamra. Arriving in time for the 6 p.m. start, the church was already completely packed. Accompanied by my cousin Lillian, we were lucky to eventually get a seat, the mass lasting more than two hours.

The packed church

Jesus' symbolic coffin

St. Mary’s, better known as Saydeh, is the parish church of the Greek Orthodox community in Ras Beirut and currently counts around 400 families. It is one of the 11 parishes that constitute the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Beirut. The present archbishop, His Eminence Metropolitan Elias Audi, was elected by the Holy Synod, to the See of Beirut in 1980. The See of Beirut covers the Lebanese capital area and the town of Souk el-Gharb, the Metropolitan's summer resort.

The Greek Orthodox community is the second largest Christian community in Lebanon and the Greek Orthodox Church of Beirut traces its history back to the year 66 AD when Quartos, one of the 70 disciples, founded the Church of Beirut. 

 

The priest spraying the congregation with blessed rose water

There was no Orthodox church in Ras Beirut before the year 1860. Land to build a church with a cemetery and a school for parish children was donated by the Rbeiz and Bekha’azi families, the largest Orthodox families in Ras Beirut. And it is in fact there that many friends and family members are buried.

Kissing the symbolic shroud at the end of the Good Friday Mass

The Good Friday mass was an occasion for the community to gather and meet. Despite the many tears in the congregation that the mass stirred up, there was also a festive atmosphere. People were going in and out to give their places to others. There were families, children, and a lot of Aunties that reminded me of Mom.

My Good Friday flowers

The ceremony was long, more than two hours, but it was full of symbolism and tradition as you can see from the pictures. And you leave with a feeling of peace and thanksgiving… and blessed flowers that were distributed at the Church gates. I now have these next to my computer.

 

Fairouz sings Good Friday hymns on TV

I was also pleased to catch the Good Friday Mass hymns on TV by Lebanon’s Grande Dame, Fairouz.

Happy Easter!

Christmas Dolls

The Xmas Dolls: 2007, 2006, 2008 and 2009 (in blue)

The "silly season" is nearly upon us with more and more people bringing up the "C" word. Yes, there are only some 100 days left to Christmas, i.e. the season to wallow in gifts, emotions, gourmet meals, fruitcakes, puddings, pies, cheeses, drink -- well, practically everything.

But the spiritual side of December 25 is eroding little by little every year, swamped by gadgets, smart and mobile phones, iPods, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, apples, digital cameras and totally useless toys that are conked out before the turkey is carved and could have fed a family elsewhere for a month.

The shopping frenzy resumes with the Boxing Day sales, which end up taking us nearer our credit card limits. You can probably guess that I don't like Xmas much as I hardly ever afforded its trimmings.

The St. Louis Cathedral in Carthage (Wikipedia)

Until a few years back, Christmas meant Midnight Mass. I used to attend it with my late father at the beautiful 1890 Roman St. Louis Cathedral in Carthage, Tunisia. If I were visiting my sister, Asma, when in Mougins, in the South of France, we would walk around the village and attend Midnight Mass at the 17th century chapel, Notre-Dame de Vie. In London, there was a little church behind my flat, off Cheyne Place in Chelsea, where Xmas carols invariably reverberated on the Kings Road. But there too, the number of people attending Midnight Mass dwindled as the years went by.

Worshipers at St. Mary's in Dubai

But I was pleasantly surprised to see the number of people out for Midnight Mass on my first Christmas Eve here in Dubai. I went with friends to St. Mary's in Oud Metha Street, Bur Dubai. It took us an hour and half to get close by and park. By the time we did that, it was so packed that churchgoers were spilling over unto the street. But loudspeakers allowed them to hear the mass outdoors. The atmosphere was electrifying. St Mary's Catholic Church was founded in 1966 and inaugurated in 1967 by the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum (then Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai). It can now accommodate more than 1700 worshipers. There's also a second church in Jebel Ali, St. Francis of Assisi, which was inaugurated in 2001.

I have been fortunate to always spend Christmas with loved ones -- if not family, then very close friends. Which brings me to the Xmas gifts and the whole point of this story!!

The present I look forward to receiving at Christmastime is a very special one from Asma. The tradition began in 2006, the year of my first Christmas in Dubai. She sent me a doll  -- a rag doll sporting a funky dress. She has been repeating this every year since. They are special edition dolls that a drugstore in Cannes, where she now lives, put out every Christmas. So I have four ladies who take pride of place on my bed. and I can't wait to see what the 2010 edition will look like.

And so it is that while walking a friend's dog around Jumeira recently I spotted a little playhouse outside a villa. I thought it would provide a great setting to take pictures of my dolls. When I finally saw a car trying to park at the villa’s driveway, I hurried and rang the bell to ask permission to take photos. To my great surprise, Suki -- a lady I met about two years ago -- answered. We had lost contact and were both ecstatic to see each other again.

Music by Fairuz singing Jingle Bells (via Jarjoura.net on YouTube)

So I took the dolls out early last Friday morning to introduce them to you. They looked so small once they were off my bed!

Each one means a lot to me and is treated with the love it was forwarded with. Yalla Asma: I'm waiting for this year's Christmas present! So this week's Haiku is dedicated to you:

Bunch of love 
Every Christmastime
A doll and a bunch of love 
I will get from you...