Religion

Faith is, above all, a person's wholehearted commitment to an ideal greater than themselves. It rests on trust. In Saint Paul's words, it is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Faith thus emerges as perseverance and hope, grounded in Christ's sacrifice and in the certainty of unseen realities. It is the capacity to hope and to believe in the truth of what cannot be seen. These unseen realities are handed down through tradition, from which they derive their legitimacy. One can exercise faith in Christ only once one has received assurance of his existence, come to know him, and become aware of his message and his will. This knowledge comes through history, through an understanding of his teachings, and through an embrace of his Passion and his victory over death. Yet none of this is witnessed directly; it is handed down. Faith and tradition are therefore intimately and structurally linked.

It is September 25 at the Stade de France, near Paris, where Pope Leo XIV is set to meet with French youth that evening, on the first day of his apostolic journey to France. On a backdrop depicting a boat and a sail, a man and a woman can be seen standing, while, overlaid on a fourth-century Aramaic hymn rising through the stadium, a voice-over reads: “When France did not yet bear its name, Heaven was already preparing its plan. In the year 44 AD, on the shores of the Mediterranean, a frail wooden boat reaches the coast. Two disciples of Jesus Christ set foot for the first time on this land that would become Provence: Lazarus and Mary Magdalene. From the coastal calanques to the cliffs of Sainte-Baume, their passage would carve into stone, into hearts and into the memory of men the very first page of the Christian chapter in the history of France. ‘Here is the cry of my entire life,’ Mary Magdalene, the converted sinner, then proclaims: ‘Christ is calling you by name. No one is too broken to be loved!’”

“We were on Mount Tabor… now we must come down from the mountain and root this renewal of faith in everyday life.” In these terms, poet Jean-Pierre Lemaire summed up the four memorable days of Pope Leo’s visit to France (Paris-Lourdes-Metz, September 25–28). In many respects, the visit bore the mark of total surprise, even of a “miracle,” to borrow an expression used by the Pope himself aboard the plane taking him back to Rome. Leo XIV has had “a fortunate touch,” Catholic-world observers believe. Nearly half a century after John Paul II’s first visit to France in 1980—more than a generation later—he reaped what his predecessor had sown with his famous challenge: “France, eldest daughter of the Church, are you faithful to the promises of your baptism?” This harvest took the form of Christianity’s sudden visibility in a country believed to have become, according to the Washington Post , “the graveyard of Catholicism.”

Human civilization has been built upon the capacity for transmission. Tradition – from the Latin tradere , meaning “to transmit” – lies at the heart of progress. To borrow Le Corbusier’s words, it is “the unbroken chain of all innovations and, by that very fact, the surest witness to the projection into the future” (1) . In Sacrosanctum Concilium (2) , the Second Vatican Council recalls that “the liturgy expresses the faith of the Church as it has been transmitted through the centuries.” The Liturgy Tradition is transmitted through the liturgy, a true synthesis of all the arts. All the senses are involved: space, light and acoustics are conceived to serve the rite. As Father Pavel Florensky wrote, “in the church, space becomes theology” (3) . The fragrance of incense is a symbol of prayer rising to God: “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you” (Ps 140:2). The coolness of the stone in ancient churches is itself the tactile memory of the centuries. The warmth of candles embodies the light of Christ, victorious over darkness. Song is prayer; “To sing is to pray twice,” according to the phrase attributed to Saint Augustine (4) .

On the first day of his apostolic visit to France, speaking at the Élysée Palace to President Emmanuel Macron, the authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps, Pope Leo XIV delivered an address in which he praised “cooperation between France and the Catholic Church in the service of Eastern Christians,” linking this stance to “a proper secularism” as understood and welcomed by the Holy See. “Proper secularism, therefore, does not consist in excluding religion from public life or education,” the Holy Father stated in his address, “but in working to ensure that the State and religious institutions engage in dialogue and join forces in the service of the common good, so that the world may have life.”

Syriac has been kept alive in Lebanon through Maronite hymns. They have carried the language, along with all the heritage, consciousness, and imagination it has tirelessly conveyed down the centuries. These hymns are the most fully developed and best-preserved expression among the various manifestations of Syriac heritage. Their origins date back to the fourth and fifth centuries, with Saint Ephrem and Saint Jacob of Serugh. They accompanied the birth, development, and establishment of Eastern Christianity in this land. They also carry within them an ancient Canaanite-Phoenician, Aramaic, and Mesopotamian legacy. Through their widespread use, these hymns have above all passed on the Syriac language throughout the parishes and in the hearts of the diaspora.

A monastery of the contemplative Order of the Poor Clares, founded by St. Clare in the 13th century along the lines of the Order of St. Francis, was established in Rayaq (population 16,000), a small town in the central Bekaa plain, on August 11, the feast of St. Clare. The new monastery was deliberately established in a rural setting, where its prayers will enrich Lebanon’s “breadbasket,” incorporated into Lebanon by Patriarch Hoayek after the famine of 1915. Bishop César Essayan, apostolic vicar of the Latins in Lebanon, presided over the founding ceremony. The Christian population of Rayaq’s Christian quarter, Rayaq el-Faouka, turned out in force, extending an unforgettable and remarkably generous welcome to the five gray-habited nuns. Most of those present described the foundation as “a major spiritual event.”

Language, as a vehicle of national culture, can become an instrument of liberation, as it did for Johann Fichte and Karol Wojtyla, and even a fundamental reason for being, as Charles Malek argued. It shapes national consciousness, fosters cohesion in the face of military or cultural hegemony, and makes it possible to build the future while remaining rooted in the heritage of the past. While Johann Gottfried von Herder highlighted the role of language in shaping cultural identity, Johann Gottlieb Fichte took this idea further by directly linking language to the concept of the nation. What he called Volkstum (national culture) (1) emerged as an instrument of resistance to French supremacy. It was on this same principle that Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, promoted the use of the Polish language in the theater as a means of preserving the soul of his people under Soviet rule.

Having examined the emergence of the Maronite Church in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon, we must now turn to the role of language in the formation of the nation. It is particularly noteworthy how fully the Maronite ecclesiastical hierarchy grasped the importance of this issue and how deliberately it sought to act upon it. For the Maronite patriarchs, beginning with St. John Maron, language was the expression of their culture, spirituality, faith, and identity. This conviction found particularly clear expression in the seventeenth century through Patriarch Estephanos Douaihy. He referred to Syriac as la nostra lingua syriaca (“our Syriac language”) and attributed to it an almost mystical quality, comparable to the mysteries of the Christianity. By this, he meant that no translation could ever replace the Syriac original or fully convey its meaning. Words, after all, possess a memory of their own, and every culture establishes a unique relationship between the signifier and the signified.

Leaving a Maronite recital sung in Syriac, audience members are often struck by how deeply the words and spirituality have moved them. They experience an emotional intensity that is unusual — stronger, even, than what they feel when hearing a language they actually understand. This raises a question: how can a language that has become largely incomprehensible penetrate them more powerfully than one they learned in school? The Language of the Soul Syriac lies at the very source of Maronite spirituality, as it has for other Antiochian Churches. Though largely marginalized, this language remains embedded in the essence of Maronite identity. It speaks to the spirit, nourishes the inner life, and quenches a spiritual thirst. Through its sound, its rhythm, and the richness of its poetic imagery, Syriac opens up a singular inner space.