A Very Maronite Christmas

I need to start by apologizing to my Druze family. Last night a cousin of mine took me to midnight mass. I'm not overly concerned with going to church. I like to, and in the states I generally go on Sunday morning and I have no problem meeting up with people from church for beer or coffee. This, however, is a druze village and the idea that I ACTUALLY think christmas is important is a bit strange to them. Nonetheless I have one slightly fearless cousins who made sure I got to Midnight Mass.

This being Lebanon, Maronite Catholicism is the most popular form of christianity. In case you've never heard of it, it's a strange brand of catholicism. Back when Christendom was "united" and the ecumenical councils were in full swing (starting A.D. 325 and going until the great schism in A.D. 1054) there were seven ecumenical councils. Each one basically stated more fully the tenets of Christianity (orthodox christianity as it were) and each council produced a new brand of heretics. It seemed an exciting time. There were lots of brands just like today, including Gnostics (caste system) they produced A-gnostics which you might know as agnostics, the Assyrian Church of the east (split after 4 councils), The Ethiopian and Armenian Orthodox churches (split after 3 councils), etc etc etc. So here's the thing with the Maronites. St. John Maron is there patron saints, hence the name. Officially the stopped attending the councils. They didn't exactly "split" they just sort of stopped attending the sequicentennial family reunions after about 3 of them. Isolated way up in the Lebanese mountains they just didn't go anywhere. That being said, their theology and liturgy is different from everyone else's, but they never officially split from Rome. So they are Catholic, but not exactly.

The liturgy was mostly catholic with a little armenian orthodoxy thrown in. Mix with that Arabic music (24 tone scales) and a lot of minor keys (even for "happy" music) and everything in Arabic and you've got it. My cousin who took me translated the Arabic for me, and I translated the liturgy for her. It was an interesting experience, but at least I got to go to midnight mass. I think after three or four more visits I'll understand their liturgy almost completely. Even without understanding the words, my good Episcopal training got through the motions correctly. Woo E-team!

I should also mention, during the service (the eucharist itself) an argument broke out right at the altar. I'm pretty sure this is how things have been in all religions for all time. The only difference is that in America we are able to hold off from arguing on stage until after the important stuff is over. All religions have so many exactly identical things, and it's important for me to see some of them. It's also more important to realize that people are just people. Perhaps, that's not what I was supposed to get out of the Maronite church, but that's what I got from it.