ISSUE THIRTEEN JUNE 2023 : simplebooklet.com

6 ICONOGRAPHY ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 Original icon of Our Lady of Elige 321 By Fr Youssef Eshak 27 19 6 8 1 14 1 32 31 1 35 1 INTERVIEW ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 11 ourselves as we are promoting cultural diplomacy and peace through the power of young musicians Young people on social media social media is the most important for us today We have changed radically our thinking and in the beginning we were doing live performances in Lebanon and in Jordan to spread the message But today you find the necessity for this to continue more and more if you base it on the social media the strongest language the song and the message that you can show and give is through music Spoken music not only music I ve continued this to help the church as well as much as possible Church music is the best example of the origins of music especially in our countries and we see this very very clearly We re trying to spread this to the rest of the world And in the Middle East we are the beginning of civilization of music and culture So anyway back going back to Peace and Prosperity this is what it is today We re trying to have cultural dialogue between people to reach peace and prosperity by trying to help as much as possible And through the part of the young artists we started training them officially in I think 2008 2009 and now we have something like 30 artists roaming all over the world and they are excellent at spreading this message Does your firm have any programs for the youth Other than doing our own projects we help other institutions with projects There is a person named Ali Matar he is an organizer for music But his people are different than our artists Because of that the people who are forming all that are the Youth people We are trying through the youth people to gather them through music The youth it s not only the sing ers but everything that goes around as much as possible to get the youth people around you to again to be one part of what you do Our idea is that we have done it for 25 years we are hoping that the youth will take over for another 25 years Do you feel that you ve lost some of your heritage after migrating Look I mean definitely Heritage is something that you keep you should keep on nourishing it more and more because it might disappear and this is exactly what Peace and Prosperity is trying to avoid Why do we talk about Lebanon I started living there in the 50s and 60s Lebanon at that time was the best cultural place in the whole world There was President Chamoun who started the Baalbak festivals and I will never forget what he said still up to this moment He said that we are trying to launch the Baalbak festival from government funding so that we can show the world Lebanon s intellectuality He succeeded and the festival of Baalbek commenced People from all around the world wished to perform in Baalbak This is what we want to keep Our heritage should be kept In the Middle East they try to erase our heritage The Peace and Properity Trust is to keep this heritage going and for the youth to know about it because they have already started losing their heritage I would wish if my mother were still alive for her to tell us stories I m definitely proud of starting this Peace and Prosperity Trust and having so many people come to it even people who have nothing to do with it We want the rest of the world to know Let people know the truth to convey what we are especially in the diaspora

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10 INTERVIEW ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 designers and now I strongly feel that how can anybody build anything without having a project development consultant Not an architect because project developers can handle everything Financing real estate etc it s much wider than just that And that s what we pride ourselves in We tried to bring it in to AUB but it didn t work But eventually this must be so The whole concept of project management was non existent It only became important later When I went back to the Gulf region in 2002 2003 I noticed that because of the developments that they are having many were failing because they didn t know how They called and asked Mr Khoury please come to us We need somebody like you to control all our developments So that s why I pride myself for sure All the young people working with me are being trained by us to do that What about your firm AIC AIC stands for Al Istishariyoun Consultnacy The name was a problem for pronunciation so some American colleagues told me that people are calling it AIC It started in 1973 What about your interest in music this My father said no He said to finish architecture From that time I took music or singing as my first hobby and my second career And ever since I ve been training up to this moment and I felt as time went on that I wanted to differentiate between music and I would get a lot of offers I decided that I will not earn any money from music I will give it all to charity When we got to London in 1980 82 I discovered that I was getting a lot of offers why don t I start a charity of my own And this is how the Peace and Prosperity Trust was formed in 1990 primarily to help young artists from all parts of the world to promote themselves I decided primarily to help young artists all from the Levant area And we opened an official charity It started growing more and more and we were motivating and supporting lots of singers The first person who started with me was the first Princess of Jordan Princess Dina We decided that maybe we can bring royalty and we also chose the Duke of Gloucester Roy Peters and that gave a different setting at least internationally So that s what we do in the Peace and Prosperity Trust You talk a lot about how you want to inspire the young What does the future of this organization entail for the youth My mother discovered that I have a good voice So when I started going to the school of architecture I started taking lessons But you can t take them before you are 18 years old because the voice breaks and in my case it never broke Since I was 16 years old it s more or less the same voice Very unusual voice I was very interested in opera music So I wanted to become a professional singer and I had the opportunity at the age of 18 I had the opportunity of a full scholarship to go and study opera in Vienna who can refuse It s a very interesting question that you re asking because it started with one thing It started at the time where Lebanon was a mess in the early nineties and raising lots of money for charities in Lebanon So we started on that basis and we started through music but the artists were not very important And as we went on we found that if you really promote the artists the artists become ambassadors with the trust And that was the most important for us In a nutshell we are called the Peace and Prosperity Trust But now we consider DOCTRINE ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 7 Ephrem s Mariology Marian Catholic Dogmas By BrElie Zinati OLM Catholic doctrine develops like a tree from a seed and like a river from a stream One might not see the tree when looking to the seed even though the potential is there Yet is it not strange not to assume the existence of an original seed when looking at a tree Thus I would argue that it is beneficial to explore one privileged source of our tradition Thinking of the Marian theology of St Ephrem 306 373 A D retrospectively in the light of the Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church might seem illegitimate because it is anachronistic However it is possible to establish certain connections perhaps by distancing oneself from the usual formulas in the light of the idea of doctrinal development First the Catholic dogma of Mary Mother of God 431 A D means that God was really incarnated through Mary and that the Son of Mary is really our God Incarnate The wording Mother of God is not found in Ephrem s authentic work yet the idea is not foreign to him The Incarnate Word is primarily affirmed divine The Son of Mary is called Lord of the angel the Word of the heavenly King and the strong God of the earth The Magi presents Him with incense for His divinity or with incense as to a God He is life giving as opposed to the son of Eve He is superior to Moses and Elijah and because of His inner greatness it could be believed that he was God The Virgin gives birth to the Word of the Most High the hidden force that broke Satan The Child of Mary while He is silent contains all tongues while He sips His mother s milk feeds all that is alive while He is in Mary s womb in His womb dwelt all creatures and He formed infants in the wombs of their mothers In the womb His hidden Will watched over the universe in the womb as on the Cross Christ is One i e divine and human The uniqueness of the Son of Mary and the divine attributes conferred on him by Ephrem support the divinity of Jesus Son of Mary To this should be added the confession in the True Motherhood of Mary that Ephrem defends in the first place to affirm the reality of the incarnation that is the humanity of Jesus Ephrem affirms that the body taken from Mary is real It is increased by our bread It has sweat and saliva as well as blood and tears That body must be real so that Christ can truly die rise again and save us For Ephrem Mary is the True Mother of the one who is truly our God incarnate Confessing Mary ever Virgin starting from the 3rd c A D the Catholic Church affirms the divine origin of Christ and the transcendence of the salvation He brings Like many Church fathers Ephrem confesses the Perpetual Virginity of Mary without using this very wording Being beyond nature this must be testified to by Scriptures First concerning the virginal conception Ephrem interpreting the Annunciation sees the angel going to Zechariah father of John but not to Joseph who is not father to Jesus On the words of the angel to the Virgin the Son Power of the Father like the fire in the bush purifies sanctifies and preserves Mary from the pains of childbirth Mary is compared to the virgin land from which Adam was born and the symbol of Aaron s fruitful staff became clear by the virginal conception Jesus is the Son of Mary without the assistance of man He was not born of the seed Mary Mother of God in Rabbula Evangeliar a 6th c illuminated Syriac Gospel book Florence Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana cod Plut I 56 fol 1v of Joseph who is His adoptive father Like the sealed tomb of the resurrection the sealed womb of the Virgin conceived Jesus supernaturally The natural signs of virginity are there and yet the child is in the womb The conception of the Redeemer is compared to the light that enters the eye Then concerning the virginal birth Jesus comes out of the womb as He entered after the resurrection while the doors were closed As he came out of the sealed tomb he came out of the sealed womb Mary in her virginity conceived and gave birth to Christ She was still a Virgin when she brought Him into the world Holy the birth of Jesus is a miracle as his conception is novelty Some of Ephrem s texts speak of a birth in pain others without but never of the loss of virginity Indeed if the pain is related to the curses of Eve Mary is said to give birth painlessly When on the other hand Ephrem speaks of pains he wants to affirm the reality of the birth and of the body of Christ Anyway that birth is a wonder Finally concerning the virginity postpartum Mary had no other child than Jesus She who has been the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit cannot marry a man and she who has given birth in blessing cannot give birth another time in the pains of the curse As Ephrem puts it sacred fire and ordinary fire are not to be mixed neither should anyone mix water and wine Also the jars of Cana do not repeat the miracle The so called brothers of the Lord are so just as Joseph is his father that is not by nature Thus on the Cross Jesus gave Mary to John not to her non existing other sons

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8 DOCTRINE ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 Evil One Finally this purity of Mary is related to a baptism recognized by Ephrem Jesus became mother of His mother and gave birth to her according to a new birth from the midst of the waters Servant and daughter of blood and water she is redeemed and baptized by her Son Ephrem identifies the specific moment at the virginal conception the Power of the Father that is the Son purified and sanctified Mary in a kind of consecration as a temple The eye itself shines as it is penetrated by the light Reading Ephrem might shed light on some aspects of the dogma Mary like every human being needed the salvation brought about by her Son Her privilege is directly related perhaps logically instead of temporally to her divine motherhood She herself undertook a journey of faith which would perhaps not exclude doubt or haste The Annunciation in Rabbula Evangeliar a 6th c illuminated Syriac Gospel book Florence Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana cod Plut I 56 fol 4r Ephrem first among the fathers defends Mary s perpetual virginity Continuing the exploration of the Mariology of Saint Ephrem the Syrian 306 373 A D on the light of Catholic Doctrine we shall touch upon the two so called new Marian dogmas That is of course not to say that the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of the Virgin Mother of God are a novelty added to Traditional faith They are rather freshly reproposed and declared an important part of the Catholic belief We Catholics confess the Immaculate Conception of Mary 1854 A D a dogma linked to that of original sin which finds no equivalent in Ephrem as a hereditary sin I found myself bound to change methodology since I cannot logically pretend that our Saint sustains the nineteenth century formulation Let us first understand what Ephrem teaches and then think about possible connections Ephrem reproaches Mary for the eagerness and haste she showed in the wedding at Cana as well as the doubt after the Resurrection of Christ by deliberate confusion with Mary Magdalene a doubt that is none other than that of the disciples Then Ephrem testifies to Mary s exaltation More than all those whom He healed He rejoiced me for I conceived him More than all those whom He exalted He exalted me for I gave birth to Him And The Maid suddenly became King s Daughter Jesus like an eagle carries His mother Also because of her divine motherhood Mary was privileged with exceptional purity A wall of fire your Conception has become to me Son of the Holy One Mary and her Son are more beautiful than all without blemish or moral staining in the sense of personal sin but also without the influence of the The fourth Marian Catholic dogma 1950 A D is the Assumption of Mary signifying on one hand the effectiveness of salvation achieved by Christ of which Mary is the model In parallel it affirms the exaltation of the Virgin Mother of God Both ideas are present in Ephrem who nonetheless thought his Mariology primarily in a context of Christological polemics as well as for its pastoral implications I quote only to illustrate concerning the effective salvation while the strict meaning of the Assumption is to be excluded Ephrem s Mary says More than all those whom He exalted He exalted me because I gave birth to him In his Paradise of life I am ready to enter and where Eve had failed I will glorify him As for the exaltation of Mary He bore me the Child I carry said Mary He bowed his plumage He took me He placed me between His wings in the air He flew away and promised me Heights and depths will be your Child s We have looked at Catholic Marian dogmas in the light of the Church father who has most deeply thought of the Virgin Mother in the mystery of her Son I would sustain that this should have certainly provided clarity on our Marian faith today Yet there is much more to learn from this father s Mariology Saint Ephrem s spiritual worldview as well as his poetic style forbode him from expressing his Christian faith in strict dogmatic formulas Nonetheless the humility of his approach before the wonderful mystery of the Son Incarnate conferred strength and depth to his testimony of the Christian experience an experience which is necessarily mystical and symbolic and of which the holy Mother occupies an essential place INTERVIEW ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 9 RAJAI KHOURI Founding Consultant AIC Group of Consultants and Founding Trustee The Peace and Prosperity Trust Did you have any further education in London No I didn t My problem is I graduated 1968 and I started working in Beirut with a British company There were two British partners And then I still wanted to continue and take my master s degree in Beirut but the work started And the British started saying you re not allowed to work in Lebanon you should open your practice and we will help you So I opened an office in Beirut and they helped me I always wanted to do it But the experience that I have is tremendous especially from the British architects city I worked with Excellent How did you come about your occupation What was it that drew you to architecture or to study it Where did you grow up in I was born in Jerusalem and I was two years old when we left Jerusalem and went to Damascus The reason why I went to Damascus was because my uncle was the Prime Minister of Syria Fares Al Khoury So he said come and it will be sorted within a few months and you will go back It lasted for three years After we decided to come to Lebanon because this is where my father and mother were I started at elementary school for a while and I graduated from the international college until 1982 We decided to come to London Between 75 and 82 we kept going to Jordan and back and then finally we settled in London I was around 30 years old At that time I had already started my practice I graduated from AUB in 1968 and I started an architectural practice in Lebanon and I built a very big architectural practice it was a big office with around 400 people Unfortunately we had to bit by bit dismantle in Beirut and build more in London How was your education I mean from AUB I graduated with very good path I was in the English section not the French section so my French is not as good as my English even though in Shaam we started out with French education AUB is an excellent school of architecture So as education it was I think very good One of the best educations that my father and mother could give me Interesting I never wanted to I wanted to be a pilot and my father said What pilot I said fine in that case I will do aeronautical engineering to design planes That was my interest and he said in Lebanon they will just make you work in Middle East Airlines at most as a mechanic As an aeronautical engineer you need to go to America So I shifted into designing buildings I think it s one of the nicest occupations architecture We really had good training and good clients The clients we had were Americans and British And because we were in Lebanon a lot of our deals were with banks and they were all wonderful clients When I came here it was a problem with rules and regulations We opened what we refer to as a project development consultancy which is more than architecture It is real estate development The clients that we used to design houses for in Beirut they put their money here to do developments in this country That s what we do as a business Is there anything in particular that you re proud of There were many things that I felt were excellent we did introduce lots of things but again it s not only me it was also the British that were working with me Like the first building that we did in Lebanon that I was responsible for the American Life Insurance Company on the way to the airport was the first building ever designed in the Middle East to have an open plan system and the air conditioning and the heating were mixed That was the first one And so that s what I think we pride ourselves with in being avant garde as well I m proud of the whole concept of project development it did not exist We created this with some American

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12 HISTORICAL ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 HISTORY OF THE ROSARY By Leila Ammar P h ot o C red i t C athol i c Tr u th S o ciet y Apart from the Eucharist there is no more popular prayer in all the world than the Rosary The word Rosary means Crown of Roses that every time people say the Rosary devoutly they place a crown of roses upon the heads of Jesus and Mary Being heavenly flowers these roses will never fade or lose their exquisite beauty Where and when the Rosary began is unknown The use of beads as an aid in prayer has a long history both in the Catholic Church and in other religions The chain of beads establishes a setting a pace for the prayer and the repetition provides a background for meditation Even though the origin of the Rosary is unknown it is undeniable that its popularity grew significantly through the preaching of Saint Dominic In 1213 the Virgin Mary appeared to St Dominic and recommended this prayer for the conversion of sinners and to stop wars St Dominic organized this prayer and called it the Rosary From the 16th century until the 21st century there were three sets of mysteries the Joyful the Glorious and the Sorrowful But in 2001 Pope St John Paul II added the Mysteries of Light The intent was to include meditations on the time Jesus life between His incarnation Joyful Mystery and His passion Sorrowful Mystery The Rosary had made its way to Lebanon in as early as 1580 and the Maronites were taught this way of prayer Ever since we have adopted it as our own writing reflections on the mysteries with our priests bishops and patriarchs encouraging us to pray it in times of trouble war illness and as a communal and family prayer Through it we reflect on the life of Jesus and His mystery of salvation We instinctively turn to the Rosary in times of crises and life s sorrows in personal and public tragedies The Rosary is a sequence of prayers St John Paul II said it s a compendium of the Gospel and it s intended to help us grow in our faith as we come to understand more and more about the life the death the resurrection and the Ascension of Jesus Christ and about the Church and who we are in the Lord That s why the way to view the Rosary is as a time of meditation We meditate on the great mysteries of the faith How to Pray the Rosary Step by Step Guide Begin with the Sign of the Cross Holding the crucifix pray the Apostles Creed On the first bead pray an Our Father On each of the next three beads pray a Hail Mary On the next bead pray a Glory Be Pray the first decade Repeat this pattern for the remaining decades SPIRITUAL ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 5 9 38 1 1997 2 2008 3 1986 2007 4 5 38 9 130 129 1997 Photo Credit Britannica Basilica at F tima Portugal

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16 FUN PAGE ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 HILARIOUS HUMOR SUNDAY SCHOOL I needed some supplies from a Sunday School cupboard that was seldom used and was secured with a lock I didn t know the combination but our clergyman offered to give it a try Father Jack placed his fingers on the lock s dial and raised his eyes heavenward for a moment Then he confidently spun the dial and opened the lock Seeing how impressed I was with this demonstration of faith he smiled and confided The numbers are written on the ceiling CROSSWORDS SUDOKU Find the solution word described by each numbered across or down clue and then write it into the corresponding squares in the grid 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Every SUDOKU has a unique solution that the player have to reach logically Enter the numbers into the blank spaces so that each column row and 3x3 box contains numbers from 1 to 9 without repeats 72 4 3 6 8 59 5 2 6 15 3 2 87 6 9 45 4 1 59 1 2 5 359847 61 Across 1 Small animals or insects that carry disease or are harmful to crops 6 4 Silky material 5 6 Small juicy fruit containing seeds in its flesh 5 8 Attractive nice to look at 6 Down 1 Stopping at en route as in The train went from London to Southampton ___ Basingstoke 3 2 Large country house with grounds 5 3 Unpleasant horrible 5 4 Clever the opposite of blunt 5 5 Furniture with legs and a flat top 5 7 Thin beam of sunlight 3 OUR LADY OF LEBANON LEBANESE MARONITE ORDER UNITED KINGDOM 6 DOBSON CLOSE SWISS COTTAGE LONDON NW6 4RS T 44 0 20 7586 1801 REGISTERED CHARITY NO 290830 melto maronitechurch org uk www maronitechurch org uk MARONITE SPIRITUAL HISTORICAL Free Monthly Newspaper Published by Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Church in the United Kingdom IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD AND THE WORD WAS GOD JOHN 1 1 ISSUE NUMBER 013 SATURDAY JUNE 3 2023 6 ICONOGRAPHY 7 DOCTRINE EPHREM S MARIOLOGY MARIAN CATHOLIC DOGMAS 9 INTERVIEW RAJAI KHOURY FOUNDER OF AIC AND PEACE PROSPERITY TRUST MARIAN ISSUE Month of May 2023 The Gift of the Holy Spirit from God Rabbula Gospels

ISSUE THIRTEEN JUNE 2023

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