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Showing posts with label Mount Lebanon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mount Lebanon. Show all posts

Tuesday 26 December 2017

Feast of St. Stephen and the death of his namesake, Father Stephen Auad

Image result for st stephen
The Martyrdom of St. Stephen
In the southwest corner of Toronto is the old Village of Long Branch and the Parish of Christ the King. Toronto, originally known as York, is essentially a city of towns and villages amalgamated over the years into one city. Long Branch was a village in its own right until 1967, when it was amalgamated into Etobicoke, meaning “where the alders grow,” which was eventually amalgamated into Toronto.

Parish of Christ the King and Shrine of St.Anthony of Padua 
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Long Branch was a summer resort area for the wealthy of Toronto, eight miles away, they would come on a ferry for the cool lake breeze. With cheap available land and the Canadian National Railway, it would later become an industrial community with companies such as Chrysler, Pittsburgh Paints, Castrol Oil right beside the church, Gabriel Automotive and Neptune Meters, all of which are now gone along with the good jobs and many of them, to Mexico. Long Branch had become a prosperous and pleasant community and it was to this little village that the Pastor of the Maronites, Father Stephen Auad, would come.

French postcard of Maronite militia, c. 1860
As with all immigrants at the time from Mount Lebanon, including my four grandparents to Canada, life in the old country was hard. My grandparents, along with Father Auad, were born just after the then latest wave of Islamic persecution. It was known as the Mount Lebanon Civil War or the Civil War of Syria, as Lebanon was officially part of the Greater Syria Province of the detestable Ottoman Empire. It began as an uprising by the Maronite Christians of Mt. Lebanon against their Druze overlords and culminated in a massacre of Christians at Damascus. Nearly 400 Christians villages and 500 churches were destroyed in a battle by Islamists which eventually spread even to the south of Lebanon. The British backed the Druze for economic reasons and political reasons, the French came to the rescue of the Christians at the urging of the Pope and the Ottoman's took advantage and fomented the strife. It included the Massacre of Aleppo, yes, that Aleppo, when over 5000 died as Mohammedans rose up against its Christians. It seems all too familiar now, no doubt and they may live quietly as your neighbour but as in Mosul, it was the Mohammedan neighbours that pointed out to the ISIS butchers where the Christians lived.

A year after my father was born in 1919 and only a few short blocks from the tenement on York Street where the Toronto Stock Exchange now stands, a Maronite Qurbono, literally "Offering" or Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated at St. Michael's Cathedral by the Rt. Rev. Shakralla Khoury. Khoury was the Maronite Eparch, or Bishop of Tyre and delegate from Mount Lebanon to the Paris Peace Conference following The Great War. The Qurbono was in Thanksgiving to God for the "virtual independence of Lebanon” from the defeated and vanquished Ottomans -- an independence that would not be totally realized for another thirty years due to the mischief and machinations of King Faisal.

Remarkably, the Qurbono, or Mass, at the Cathedral was reported on September 6, 1920, in the old Toronto World; and the earlier referred to "Pastor of the Maronites in Toronto," assisted at the Divine Liturgy.

Image result for our lady of lebanon queen street
Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Church, Toronto
Sadly for the Lebanese of Toronto and in spite of Father Auad being termed in the secular press the "Pastor of the Maronites" there was no Maronite Church in Toronto. The closest was in Buffalo with the result of most Lebanese, my family included, becoming assimilated into the Latin Rite. 

In 1980, Toronto Archbishop Emmett Cardinal Carter assisted the new Lebanese immigrants with the purchase of the former Anglican Church of the Epiphany on Queen Street in Parkdale, now Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church and the Maronites finally had their home. Pope John Paul II had just established the Eparchy of St. Maron in Canada (Montreal). There is now a second Maronite Church in the region with St. Charbel's in Mississauga and given the more recent strife and suffering of Middle Eastern Christians, we also see Chaldean Catholic, Syriac Catholic and Coptic Catholic and Orthodox churches being built throughout the greater Toronto region.

While studying in Rome, Father Auad was able to offer the Holy Sacrifice e in both the Latin and Maronite Rites. He would learn Italian which would prove helpful to his future in Canada. The Church in Toronto was an Irish Church and these first Catholics in Toronto suffered many indignities in what was known as the Ulster of North America. The Church here was hardly prepared for the next waves of immigrants, particularly the demanding Italians.

The old parish of St. Patrick's, built in 1867 the year of Canada's Confederation, had a new church built behind it on McCaul Street with the former becoming Our Lady of Mount Carmel and assigned to the Italians as their first parish. Because he could speak Italian, the Maronite Lebanese Father Auad became their pastor. It still stands today serving Chinese Roman Catholics, the Italians having long since moved on from that community. It didn't seem to go to well. Professor John Zucchi of McGill University who specializes in immigration history wrote in 1983 that:

"In the late 1920's the Parish Committee of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish filed a complaint in Italian with the archbishop regarding their pastor, Father Stephen Auad."

These Italians were villagers and more accustomed to a more active involvement of the laity in the parish than Toronto Catholics were accustomed to. The Irish were different; they had to escape persecution to forests and cliffs to find a rock to hear Mass. They were quiet in their Masses. Their history was different of course being persecuted on their own soil by the British, it was a different situation and they never questioned the priest or made demands. Given the prevailing climate in Toronto one can understand the Irish mentality. Their ancestors were persecuted in Ireland by the English and Scots and they came to York - later Toronto, and got it good here too in what was an English and Scottish protestant paradise dominated by Anglican, Presbyterians and Methodists.

The Italians were bolder and had their own customs and devotions and made demands unknown by the locals then. Father Auad had clearly adopted the prevailing official Irish culture of liturgical minimalism and flying below the radar for the reasons noted above and this conflicted with the Italians under his care. Professor Zucchi continued; 

"The committee was highly critical of Auad; he was too busy to hear confession; it was difficult to find him in the rectory or in the church; he rarely visited school children; his masses were too short, etc."

It wasn't only the local Italians that criticised the poor beleaguered priest unbelievably, even American Evangelical Pentecostals chimed in.  It was August 5, 1933 at Springfield in the state of Missouri and the Pentecostal Evangel displayed its bigotry and ignorance writing:

“The  following item  taken  from  the Toronto  press  will  show  how  it  is  possible for Christianity to catch the diseases of  the  old pagan religions:  "What  has become  an annual  public religious  function in Toronto will take  place tomorrow, when Rev. Father  Stephen Auad, pastor of  Mount  Carmel Church (notice that they left "Our Lady" out of the title!)  St. Patrick Street,  will bless  motor  cars and  other conveyances  after  the  11  o'clock  Mass. The vehicles will thus be placed under the patronage of St. Christopher,' patron saint of travelers. The time is coming when Christianity will be purged of all alien additions. Matt.13:41.”

It was now 1938 and Father Stephen Auad approached Archbishop James Charles McGuigan, later to be English-speaking Canada's first Cardinal, about building a shrine to St. Anthony of Padua in that old summer resort village of Long Branch now becoming an industrial centre. Finances being what they were at the time, just after the Great Depression and with Canada entering the Second World War, the Archbishop declined the request. Disappointed in the Archbishop's decision Father Auad went home and there he brooded about the situation obviously not happy and still fighting with the Italians until his housekeeper, one Mrs. Maggie Jobin, encouraged him to go back and ask again, but this time, more firmly.

So, he did and did so to the point of pounding on the desk of the future Cardinal. Astonished at the boldness, the good Archbishop, originally from Prince Edward Island, is reported to have laughed until tears flowed down his cheeks and then said, "If you feel so strongly about the church, go ahead, but keep it your responsibility" and on August 4, 1938, Father Auad was appointed the parish priest of the Village of Long Branch and directed to build a church.

Attending one weeknight Mass at Christ the King a few years ago, I noticed a window long overlooked. It seemed an odd Saint in a window here, St. Antony of the Desert. I started to look closer. In addition to St. Anthony of the Desert there was St. Maroun, the great mystic, monk and missionary to the people of Mount Lebanon and Syria who died in 410 A.D.  It is from him that the Maronites are named. The next window was Mar Youhana Maroun, or as we would say in English, St. John Maron who died in 707 A.D., the first Patriarch of the Maronite Church. Then a little further along, there she was, Our Lady of Mt. Lebanon whom the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and All the East declared in 1908 to be "Queen of Lebanon." Knowing that the people of Long Branch would not know these Saints, each one has a little banner with their name under their image and quotes from scripture about "Libanus." Here was a little parish, built by a priest who came from the land named so often in the Psalms, who procured these windows to the greatest of Lebanon’s Holy Ones including the Mother of our Redeemer whose birth we celebrate.

Father Auad had a great personal devotion to St. Anthony of Padua and wanted this new parish at Long Branch to be named the Shrine of St. Anthony. Given that there was already a large church on Bloor Street dedicated to this much-loved Saint, the Archbishop did not agree. It was named Christ the King and a small grotto was built to house an Altar. “Shrine of St. Anthony” remains today engraved in the terrazzo flooring just below the plaque in memory of Father Auad. The first Mass offered there was celebrated by Father Auad on September 17, 1939, and on Sunday, May 26, 1940, the church was blessed by Archbishop McGuigan.

At Midnight Mass on December 25, 1944 and whilst delivering his sermon, Father Stephan Auad suffered a stroke. The next day, December 26, 1944, on the very Feast of St. Stephen, his name-saint, Father Stephen Auad went on to his eternal reward and a little bit of Lebanese history in Long Branch lay hidden.

On this anniversary of his death, may this little Christmas story serve as a tribute to this early and long forgotten priest of the first hundred years of the Church in Toronto. 

May Father Stephen Auad be rejoicing on this day with St. Stephen in the presence of the LORD whom he loved and served.  

Rev. Stephen Auad



Saturday 26 December 2015

The Feast of Stephen and Father Stephen Auad, the Pastor of the Maronites


Church of Christ the King
In the southwest corner of Toronto is the old Village of Long Branch and the Parish of Christ the King. Toronto, originally known as York, is essentially a city of towns and villages amalgamated over the years into one city. Long Branch was a Village in its own right until 1967, when it was amalgamated into Etobicoke, before Etobicoke itself, was eventually amalgamated into Toronto. Etobicoke means, "where the alders grow" in the language of the Mississauga, the native people of the area, now also the name of the City west of Toronto and only a few blocks from Christ the King parish. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Long Branch was a summer resort area for the wealthy of Toronto, only 8 miles away. They would come for the cool lake breeze on a ferry and it would later become a residential and industrial community with companies such as Chrysler, Pittsburgh Paints, Castrol, Gabriel Automotive and Neptune Meters all now gone, many to Mexico with the jobs along with them. Long Branch was a prosperous and pleasant community and it was to this little village that would come the Pastor of the Maronites, Father Stephen Auad.

As with all immigrants at the time from Mount Lebanon, including my four grandparents to Canada from Lebanon, life in the old country was hard. My grandparents, along with Father Auad, were born just after the then, latest wave of Islamic persecution. It was known as the Mount Lebanon Civil War or the Civil War of Syria as Lebanon was officially part of the Greater Syria Province of the detestable Ottoman Empire. It began as an uprising by the Maronite Christians of Mt. Lebanon, my ancestors, against the Druze overlords and culminated in a massacre of Christians at Damascus. Nearly 400 Christians villages and 500 churches were destroyed in a battle by Islamists which eventually spread even to the south of Lebanon. The British backed the Druze for economic reasons, the French came to the rescue of the Christians at the urging of the Pope and the Ottoman's enjoyed fomenting the strife. It included the then, Massacre of Aleppo when over 5000 died as Mohammedans rose up against the Christians of Aleppo. It seems all too familiar.

A year after my father was born in 1919 and only a few short blocks from the tenement on York Street where the Toronto Stock Exchange now stands, a Maronite Qurbono, literally "Offering" or Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, was celebrated at St. Michael's Cathedral by the Rt. Rev. Shakralla Khoury. Khoury was the Maronite Eparch, or Bishop of Tyre and delegate from Mount Lebanon to the Paris Peace Conference following The Great War (World War I before it became necessary to label it as the First). 

The Qurbono was in Thanksgiving to God for the "virtual independence of Lebanon” from the defeated and vanquished Ottomans, an independence that would not be totally realised for another thirty years and after another great war due to the mischief and machinations of King Faisal. 

[If you note a theme here about foreign domination by Islamists, Arabs, Europe, specifically Britain and now, the rest of us in the "West" in Christian Syria and Lebanon which has served to destroy these lands and kill thousands, you would not be mistaken, but let's get back to the subject at hand. ... ]

Remarkably, this Mass at the Cathedral was reported on September 6, 1920 in the old Toronto World; and that the "Pastor of the Maronites in Toronto" assisted at the Mass. 

Yet, despite Father Auad being termed in the secular press, the "Pastor of the Maronites" there was no Maronite Church in Toronto so Lebanese immigrants followed the Latin Rite and assimilated into it. That all changed in 1980 when then Emmett Cardinal Carter assisted the new Lebanese immigrants fleeing war and the latest Islamic persecution and Israeli war, with the purchase of the former Anglican Church of the Epiphany on Queen Street in Parkdale, now Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II had just established the Eparchy of St. Maron in Canada (Montreal). There is now a second Maronite Church in the region with St. Charbel's in Mississauga. Given the more recent strife, we also see Chaldean Catholic, Syriac Catholic and Coptic Catholic and Orthodox churches being built. 

While studying in Rome, Father Auad was able to celebrate in both the Latin and Maronite Rites and was what would be termed, "bi-ritual." He would, of course, learn Italian which would prove helpful. Catholic Toronto was Irish and these first Catholics in Toronto suffered many indignities in what was known as the Ulster of North America and the Church here was hardly prepared for the next waves of immigrants, particularly the demanding Italians. 

The old parish of St. Patrick's, built in 1867 the year of Canada's Confederation, had a new church built behind it on McCaul Street and the former became Our Lady of Mount Carmel and was assigned to the Italians as their first parish) with the Maronite Lebanese Father Auad as their pastor, because he could speak Italian. It still stands today serving Chinese Roman Catholics. 

Professor John Zucchi of McGill University who specialises in immigration history wrote in 1983 that 

"In the late 1920's the Parish Committee of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish filed a complaint in Italian with the archbishop regarding their pastor, Father Stephen Auad." 
MtCarmel.jpeg
Old St. Patrick's - Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church 
You see, the Italians were villagers and more accustomed to active involvement of the laity in the parish, even then. The Irish were different; they had to escape persecution to forests and cliffs to find a rock to hear Mass. Their history was different of course being persecuted on their own soil so it was a different situation and they never questioned the priest or made demands. Given the prevailing climate in Toronto as so well told by Bear at The Spirit's Sword, one can understand the Irish mentality. Their ancestors were persecuted in Ireland by the English and Scots and they came to York - later Toronto, and got it good here too.  Bear also writes in the combox, after the second posting of this story in 2014, that Father Auad was also known as a "healer." Do visit the link above for his take on the persecution of the Catholic Irish, it was a hard go for them. Toronto was not a nice place and the stories are similar to those told of the gangs of New  York.

The Italians were bolder and had their own customs and devotions. Father Auad had clearly adopted the prevailing official Irish culture of liturgical minimalism and flying below the radar for the reasons noted above and this conflicted with the Italians under his care. 


Professor Zucchi continued:

"The committee was highly critical of Auad; he was too busy to hear confession; it was difficult to find him in the rectory or in the church; he rarely visited school children; his masses were too short, etc." 
It wasn't only the local Italians that criticised the poor beleaguered priest unbelievably, even American Evangelical Pentecostals chimed in.  It was August 5, 1933 at Springfield in the State of Missouri and the Pentecostal Evangel displayed its bigotry and ignorance in its story, "Paganized Christianity” writing:
“The  following item  taken  from  the Toronto  press  will  show  how  it  is  possible for Christianity to catch the diseases of  the  old pagan religions:  "What  has become  an annual  public religious  function in Toronto will take  place tomorrow, when Rev. Father  Stephen Auad, pastor of  Mount  Carmel Church (notice that they left "Our Lady" out of the title!)  St. Patrick Street,  will bless  motor  cars and  other conveyances  after  the  11  o'clock  Mass. The vehicles will thus be placed under the patronage of St. Christopher,' patron saint of travelers. The time is coming when Christianity will be purged of all alien additions. Matt.13:41.” 
James Cardinal McGuigan
It was now 1938 and Father Stephen Auad approached Archbishop James Charles McGuigan, later to be English-speaking Canada's first Cardinal, about building a shrine to St. Anthony of Padua in that old summer resort village of Long Branch now becoming an industrial centre. Finances being what they were at the time, just after the Great Depression and with Canada entering the Second World War, the Archbishop declined the request. Disappointed in the Archbishop's decision Father Auad went home and there he brooded about the situation obviously not happy and still fighting with the Italians until his housekeeper, one Mrs. Maggie Jobin, encouraged him to go back and ask again, but this time, more firmly. 

So, he did and did so to the point of pounding on the desk of the future Cardinal. Astonished at the boldness, the good Archbishop, originally from Prince Edward Island, is reported to have laughed until tears flowed down his cheeks and then said, "If you feel so strongly about the church, go ahead, but keep it your responsibility" and on August 4, 1938, Father Auad was appointed the parish priest of the Village of Long Branch, and directed to build a church.

There were two other villages between Long Branch and Toronto, all now amalgamated. The Town of New Toronto and the parish of St. Teresa established in 1924 where Vox was baptised in the presence of his Scotsman Freemason godfather; of course, none of us knew it until he died and he left me his Shriner Fezz, which I've since gotten suitable disposed of. The other was the Town of Mimico, which means, “the place of pigeons” and St. Leo the Great Parish, established a few years earlier. Many children of those first Lebanese settled in Mimico and a few in New Toronto, but none, interestingly enough, in Long Branch.










Saint Maroun































Coming back from Holy Communion and walking past another window, I was astounded at what I had seen or perhaps more because I had never noticed them before. In addition to St. Anthony of the Desert there was St. Maroun, the great mystic, monk and missionary to the people of Mount Lebanon and Syria who died in 410 A.D.  It is from him that the Maronites are named. The next window was Mar Youhana Maroun or as we would say in English, St. John Maron who died in 707 A.D., the first Patriarch of the Maronite Church. Then a little further along, there she was, Our Lady of Mt. Lebanon whom the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and All the East declared in 1908 to be "Queen of Lebanon." Knowing that the people of Long Branch would not know these Saints, each one has a little banner with their name under their image and quotes from scripture about "Libanus." As mentioned, there were many Lebanese that settled in these parts but not one of them spoke of Father Auad that I can ever recall from my childhood and none of them attended Christ the King Parish. They were a different generation. They had just married and in their twenties were having babies; they worked, had businesses, bought houses and worshipped at the place they knew, their local parish. They didn't know that only a few short blocks away from their homes was a little bit of their cultural and family history. Here was a little parish, built by a priest who came from the same lands as their parents, who may have known them or blessed them as little children and here were the windows to the greatest of Lebanon’s Holy One’s and the Mother of our Redeemer whose birth we celebrate.

Our Lady of Mount Lebanon

Father Auad had a great personal devotion to St. Anthony of Padua and wanted this new parish at Long Branch to be named the Shrine of St. Anthony. Given that there was already a large church on Bloor Street dedicated to this much-loved Saint, the Archbishop did not agree. It was named Christ the King and a small grotto was built to house an Altar. “Shrine of St. Anthony” remains today engraved in the terrazzo flooring just below the plaque in memory of Father Auad. The first Mass offered there was celebrated by Father Auad on September 17, 1939 and on Sunday, May 26, 1940, the church was blessed by Archbishop McGuigan.

Surely now the young Lebanese of this community would seek out their old friend, Father Auad from the streets of McCaul, Queen, Bond, York, Simcoe, D'Arcy, and so on but alas, it was not to be; for at Midnight Mass on December 25, 1944, Father Stephan Auad suffered a stroke while preaching the homily. The next day, December 26, 1944, seventy-two years ago today and on that very same Feast of St. Stephen, his name-saint, Father Stephen Auad went on to his eternal reward and a little bit of Lebanese history in Long Branch lay hidden.

On this anniversary of his death, may this little Christmas story serve as a tribute to this early and long forgotten priest of the first hundred years of the Church in Toronto. May Father Stephen Auad be rejoicing on this day with St. Stephen in the presence of the LORD whom he loved and served. 

Thank you Father Auad for what you did so long-ago for those early Catholic villagers in Long Branch and for the windows serving as a memorial to our Maronite heritage.

Father Stephen Auad, 1884 -1944
 Requiescat in pace

Sunday 5 October 2014

Civilian offensive underway in Lebanon

OUR LADY OF LEBANON, PRAY FOR US!
My sources in Lebanon have just written that over 2000 armed civilians made up of Christians and Hezbollah have journeyed to the Arsal region to aid the army in rescuing its kidnapped soldier from the terrorists allied with ISIS. The Lebanese will not accept the fate that has befallen those of Iraq.

All you holy Saints of Lebanon, intercede for the unity and safety of the land of the cedars.

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Father Stephen Auad, the Pastor of the Maronites


Church of Christ the King
In the southwest corner of Toronto are the old Village of Long Branch and the Parish of Christ the King. Toronto, originally known as York, is essentially a city of towns and villages amalgamated over the years into one city. Long Branch was a Village in its own right until it was amalgamated into Etobicoke, which means in the language of the Mississauga, the native people at the time, "Where the Alders grow" and it was to this little village that was to come the Pastor of the Maronites, Father Stephen Auad.

My father was born in Toronto in 1919 and my mother came here from New Brunswick; their parents were all immigrants from Mount Lebanon which at the time was part of "Greater Syria,” from whence Father Auad also came. A year after my father was born in 1919 and only a few short blocks from the tenement on York Street where the Toronto Stock Exchange now stands, a Maronite Qurbono, literally Sacrifice, or Mass was celebrated at St. Michael's Cathedral by the Rt. Rev. Shakralla Khoury, Maronite Eparch of Tyre and delegate from Mount Lebanon to the Paris Peace Conference after The Great War. The Qurbono was in Thanksgiving to God for the "virtual independence of Lebanon” not totally realised for nearly another thirty years and after another great war because of the mischief of King Faisal. Remarkably, this was reported on September 6, 1920 in the old Toronto World; and that the "Pastor of the Maronites in Toronto" assisted at the Mass. It is possible that this first Maronite Mass in the Cathedral in Toronto had a little child present there with his parents. That little baby, one-year old Norman, my father, in the arms of his mother Farida and his father Wadea, are the grandparents of your writer who remains, canonically at least, a Maronite.

Yet, despite Father Auad being termed in the secular press, the "Pastor of the Maronites" there was no Maronite Church in Toronto until 1980. While every other "ethnic parish" was created, there was to be not one for the Lebanese -- and it was a different Rite! Italians, Germans, Poles -- all were given their own churches. The Lebanese, bearing blood of Phoenicians, Greeks, Canannites, even Hebrews were a different lot than most immigrant communities. They have gone all over the world as did their merchant Phoenician ancestors; to South America, Australia, even the Caribbean islands and they assimilated wherever they went unlike the Italians with whom Father Auad would soon come to have some conflict.

While studying in Rome, Father Auad was able to celebrate in both the Latin and Maronite Rites and he would have known some Italian. Catholic Toronto was Irish and these first Catholics in Toronto sufferred many indignities in the Ulster of North America and the church here was hardly prepared for the waves of immigrants, particularly the Italians. The old parish of St. Patrick's, built in 1867 the year of Canada's Confederation, had a new church built behind it on McCaul Street and the former became Our Lady of Mount Carmel and was assigned to the Italians with Father Auad as their pastor. It still stands today serving Chinese Roman Catholics.

Professor John Zucchi of McGill University who specialises in immigration history wrote in 1983 that "in the late 1920's the Parish Committee of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish filed a complaint in Italian with the archbishop regarding their pastor, Father Stephen Auad." You see, the Italians were villagers and more accustomed to active involvement of the laity in the parish, even then. The Irish were different; they had to escape persecution to forests and cliffs to find a rock to hear Mass. Their history was different of course being persecuted on their own soil so it was a different situation and they never questioned the priest or made demands. The Italians were bolder and had their own customs and devotions. Father Auad had clearly adopted the Irish culture and this conflicted with the Italians under his care. Professor Zucchi continued that the "committee was highly critical of Auad; he was too busy to hear confession; it was difficult to find him in the rectory or in the church; he rarely visited school children; his masses were too short, etc." It is interesting that even then, parish committees and special interests rallied to speak against their duly appointed pastor, but better days would come for Father Auad.

It wasn't only the local Italians that criticised the poor beleaguered priest; even American Evangelical Pentecostals noticed. It was August 5, 1933 at Springfield in the State of Missouri and the Pentecostal Evangel displayed its bigotry and ignorance in its story, "Paganized Christianity.” Our Pentecostal brethren wrote, “The  following item  taken  from  the Toronto  press  will  show  how  it  is  possible for Christianity to catch the diseases of  the  old pagan religions:  "What  has become  an annual  public religious  function in Toronto will take  place tomorrow, when Rev.  Father  Stephen Auad, pastor of  Mount  Carmel Church,  St. Patrick Street,  will bless  motor  cars and  other conveyances  after  the  11  o'clock  Mass. The vehicles will thus be placed under the patronage of St. Christopher,' patron saint of travelers." They went on to add, "The time is coming when Christianity will be purged of all alien additions. Matt.13:41.” What they don't know is legendary.



Our Lady of Mount Lebanon
It was now 1938 and Father Stephen Auad approached Archbishop James Charles McGuigan, later to be English-speaking Canada's first Cardinal, about building a shrine to St. Anthony of Padua in the old summer resort village of Long Branch now becoming an industrial centre. Finances being what they were at the time, just after the Great Depression and with Canada entering the Second World War, the Archbishop declined the request. Disappointed in the Archbishop's decision Father Auad went home and there he brooded about the situation obviously not happy and still fighting with the Italians until his housekeeper, one Mrs. Maggie Jobin, encouraged him to go back and ask again, but this time, more firmly. So, he did and did so to the point of pounding on the desk of the future Cardinal. Astonished at the boldness, the good Archbishop  is reported to have laughed until tears flowed down his cheeks and then said, "If you feel so strongly about the church, go ahead, but keep it your responsibility" and on August 4, 1938, Father Auad was appointed the parish priest of the Village of Long Branch, and directed to build a church.

There were two other villages between Long Branch and Toronto, all now amalgamated. The Town of New Toronto and the parish of St. Teresa established in 1924 where Vox was baptised in the presence of his Freemason godfather; of course, none of us knew it until he died and he left me his Shriner Fezz, which I've since gotten rid of. The other was the Town of Mimico, which means, “the place of pigeons” and St. Leo the Great Parish, established a few years earlier. Many children of those first Lebanese settled in Mimico and a few in New Toronto after the war and they became active in these two parishes, but particularly at St. Leo's. When that little baby Norman, most likely present for that Qurbono 25 years earlier grew up, he married his only love, Martha, a nurse from St. Michael’s Hospital at the new St. Patrick's on McCaul, next to Father Auad's original parish.  A year later in 1945 and with a young baby of their own, they bought a house with a rear yard boundary being that of the Parish of Christ the King in Long Branch. 

St. John Maron
A few years ago, I was attending Mass one summer evening in that little stone church built by Father Auad. I was impressed with the new painting and noticed how brilliant the small stained-glass windows looked against the newly painted walls designed to highlight them, not hide them in a sea of whitewash. I was looking at what seemed to be St. Anthony of the Desert and found it odd to be there. It was the first time I had seen a window to this Desert Father and to find it in Long Branch was something extraordinary. It was then that I recalled the plaque to that parish's founder in the portal of the church - yes, Father Stephen Auad and with that name he must have been Lebanese! Coming back from Holy Communion and walking past another window, I was astounded at what I had seen or perhaps more because I had never noticed them before. In addition to St. Anthony of the Desert there was St. Maroun, the great mystic, monk and missionary to the people of Mount Lebanon and Syria who died in 410 A.D.  The next window was Mar Youhana Maroun or as we would say in English, St. John Maron who died in 707 A.D., the first Patriarch of the Maronite Church. Then a little further along, there she was, Our Lady of Mt. Lebanon whom the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and All the East declared in 1908 to be "Queen of Lebanon." Knowing that the people of Long Branch would not know these Saints, each one has a little banner with their name under their image and quotes from scripture about "Libanus." As mentioned, there were many Lebanese that settled in these parts but not one of them spoke of Father Auad that I can ever recall from my childhood and none of them attended Christ the King Parish. They were a different generation. They had just married and in their twenties were having babies; they worked, had businesses, bought houses and worshiped at the place they knew, their local parish. They didn't know that only a few short blocks away from their homes was a little bit of their cultural and family history. Here was a little parish, built by a priest who came from the same lands as their parents, who may have known them or blessed them as little children and here were the windows to the greatest of Lebanon’s Holy One’s and the Mother of our Redeemer whose birth we celebrate.

Saint Maroun
Father Auad had a great personal devotion to St. Anthony of Padua and wanted this new parish at Long Branch to be named the Shrine of St. Anthony. Given that there was already a large church on Bloor Street dedicated to this much-loved Saint, the Archbishop did not agree. It was named Christ the King and a small grotto was built to house an Altar, yet, “Shrine of St. Anthony” remains today engraved in the terrazzo flooring just below the plaque in memory of Father Auad. The first Mass offered there was celebrated by Father Auad on September 17, 1939 and on Sunday, May 26, 1940, the church was blessed by Archbishop McGuigan.

Surely now the young Lebanese of this community would seek out their old friend, Father Auad from the streets of McCaul, Queen, Bond, York, Simcoe, D'Arcy, and so on but alas, it was not to be; for at Midnight Mass on December 25, 1944, Father Stephan Auad suffered a stroke while preaching the homily. The next day, December 26, 1944, sixty-eighty years ago today and on that very same Feast of St. Stephen, his name-saint, Father Stephen Auad went on to his eternal reward and a little bit of Lebanese history in Long Branch lay hidden.

On this anniversary of his death, may this little Christmas story serve as a tribute to this early and long forgotten priest of the first hundred years of the Church in Toronto. May Father Stephen Auad be rejoicing on this day with St. Stephen in the presence of the LORD whom he loved and served. Thank you Father Auad for what you did so long-ago for those early Catholic villagers in Long Branch and for the windows serving as a memorial to our Maronite heritage.

Father Stephen Auad, 1884 -1944
 Requiescat in pace

Wednesday 9 August 2006

Pray for the Land of the Cedars


While most of my BLOG commentary deals with sacred music and the state of the liturgy, at times like this it seems that even these important matters becomes trivial.

Over 120 years ago in 1886, my maternal grandfather, Domenic Haykel left the beauty of Mount Lebanon for an unknown future in Canada. Leaving Halifax his port of entry, Domenic made it as far as Fredericton, New Brunswick, became a British Subject and a few years later returned to find the love of his life, Naza (Elizabeth Deeb). They had one child in Lebanon and then returned to Canada's Maritimes and had 9 more. They were active at St. Anthony's Church in Fredericton. 


In 1910, Wadea Doumit (the family name means "Dominic") and his bride, Farida Francis (a first cousin) came to Toronto and lived in a walk-up tenement building on York Street where the new Toronto Stock Exchange now stands. For a short time they were members of St. Anne's Parish but eventually became part of St. Patrick's.

Both grandfathers became merchants. Three of Domenic and Elizabeth’s sons became millionaires and their Alma Mater was the school of hard knocks. Wadea and Farida never owned their own house but during the Great Depression Wadea fed the locals from the back door of his store at Queen and St. Patrick Streets and he later bought two houses for his young married sons one of which I now own.

My maternal grandfather must have been one of the first Lebanese to leave that beautiful land to come to Canada. At that time Lebanon was a province within the Ottoman Turkish Empire and not too many from Mount Lebanon were happy about that. The Maronite Catholics on Mount Lebanon were a faithful and brave lot. They kept their faith in Jesus Christ despite the Mohammedans and their ultimate victories against the Crusaders. But then like now their persecution was sometimes too much to bear. For almost 100 years it was the Druze that murdered thousands.

Yet, they prospered and like their Phoenician ancestors they explored the world. Originally they spoke Aramaic, the language of Our Lord, the same Jesus who walked in their cities of Tyre, Sidon and Cana, site of His first miracle. Eventually they became part of the Arab world but never Arab. That is why they are so resented; for keeping a focus outward to Europe and the Americas and Oceana unlike the Bedouin and Mohammedans.

After the Ottoman Turks crumbled came the French who rescued the Christians from the Druze and who helped to prepare the land for its independence in 1946, two years before another new land, the State of Israel.



So ironic today that Lebanon which other than participating in the initial 1948 conflict never, ever attacked Israel or joined in any of the middle-east wars since 1948 should be so brutalized.

But is this brutality solely the fault of Israel?

The Palestinian terrorists, even the name Palestinian has become synonymous with the “t” word, who first came on the scene in 1972 in Munich took the name “Black September.” Eleven innocent Israeli Jewish athletes were brutally murdered during the Olympic Games. The next few years would see more hatred and turmoil and loss of innocent life at the hand of Black September, Fattah and the PLO. Allied with other Marxist terrorist groups of the cold war period including the Beider-Meinhoff, IRA, Basque Separatists and the Red Brigade in Italy, terror reigned supreme.

A few years before Munich, Black September took place in Jordan. Trans-Jordan, the nation of the Hashemite Kingdom was under a British Mandate along with Palestine after the Ottoman Turkish Empire collapsed at the end of World War I. The new Kingdom of Jordon became home for thousands of Palestinians, most of whom got on with life and have become part of broader Jordanian society. Yasser Arafat, born in Egypt of Palestinian parents was the leader of the Fattah movement. With his followers they attempted to subvert the government of King Hussein in Jordan until in September 1970 they were attacked and deported for the treason they committed on a welcoming land. A treason that they repeated in Lebanon and Kuwait later.

The goal of the PLO has never changed. Israel must be wiped from the face of the earth. Not necessarily every Jew killed but every Jew killed if necessary.

And then they went to Beirut.

More preoccupied with developing a pluralistic, dynamic, prosperous society, the Lebanese then as today had not much of an army.

With thousands of Palestinian refugees in south Beirut, in Tyre and throughout the south, often in camps, Arafat exploited their poverty and suffering and upset a finely balanced government plunging Lebanon into chaos. He subverted the government, betrayed the Lebanese people and invoked the wrath of Israel and the disdain of the civilised world (well most of it, anyway).

All those years of suffering amongst the Lebanese people has begun again. Why?

Is it as simple as the Palestinians who can’t have their own land right now have to destroy the only pluralistic land in an otherwise intolerant region?

The Palestinians are suffering, no doubt; and tragically they have been deceived by their leadership and the Arab world and from the suckling at their mothers’ breasts have learnt nothing but hate.

They must reject Mohammad, join their few brethren who belong to the Melkite Rite and accept Jesus Christ as their LORD and Saviour. Then, they will have the peace they so long for.