The Maronite community came together in a spirit of joy and gratitude for a Divine Liturgy to mark the closing of the Golden Jubilee Year, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on Friday 8 December at Our Lady of Lebanon Co-Cathedral.
Celebrated by His Excellency Bishop Antoine-Charbel Tarabay, the event was an opportunity to reflect on a year-long journey of blessings, spiritual growth, and new beginnings. In his homily, Bishop Tarabay remarked, “It is also only fitting that we close the Golden Jubilee Year – which opened on the Feast of St Maroun, at the site of the first Maronite Church in Australia, St Maroun’s Cathedral Redfern –with this feast for our Mother Mary in this beautiful Co-Cathedral.
“The Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the perfect occasion to look back in gratitude, for the grace-filled journey we have undertaken together as a community of faith over the past year.”
The Golden Jubilee Year has been, for the Maronite community, a time of grace, and a testament to its enduring strength, renewing its commitment to holiness and openness, and experience the blessings of the Holy Spirit in its midst in so many ways.
Events ranging from the national tour of the relics of Maronite and Australian saints across five states, to the visit of 33 Catholic Bishops of Australia to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Maronite Eparchy with the Our Lady of Lebanon Co-Cathedral Parish community, to eleven ordinations, various parish events, the opening of a new school building at the Antonine College in Melbourne (VIC), the blessing of a new aged care home in Harris Park (NSW) and the consecration of three new churches for the Eparchy, one of which the first in Western Australia.
In all of this, the pinnacle week was the historic visit of the Maronite Patriarch, His Beatitude and Eminence, Mar Bechara Boutros Cardinal Rai to Melbourne and Sydney in September 2023, during which time he also celebrated a public mass with over 7000 faithful attendees participating at Ken Rosewall Arena in Homebush NSW on Sunday 24 September.
As the Maronite Eparchy closed the Golden Jubilee Year, His excellency Bishop Tarabay expressed gratitude to the clergy and religious whose commitment was instrumental to the success of the Golden Jubilee. He also extended heartfelt thanks to Eparchy and parish staff, volunteers, community members, Eparchial choir, and sponsors for their selfless dedication, and added, “As we close this Jubilee Year and look ahead to the future, let us carry the spiritual lessons learned and the graces received into our daily lives.”
His Excellency concluded with a fervent prayer for continued blessings, invoking the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and entrusting the future of the Church into the hands of the Almighty.
