HOLY L AN D TR ADITION S
Faith, Fasting and Family Local Arab American Catholics recall Lenten memories, traditions BY CHRISTINA GRAY Lead writer, Catholic San Francisco grayc@ sfarch.org
20
J
uliette Totah, now 93 and living at St. Anne’s Home in San Francisco, was born in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah. Like other Arab-speaking Catholics, her Easter memories and traditions remain rooted in the Holy Land. “They are used to celebrating Holy Week in the ways they did,” said Father Rick Van de Water, administrator of St. Thomas More Parish in San Francisco and chaplain to Arab-speaking Catholics in the archdiocese. “It means so much to them.” American-born Father Van de Water found his vocation in the Holy Land as a young schoolteacher and remained there for
decades. He returned stateside and was invited to assume the responsibilities of longtime pastor, Msgr. Labib Kobti, now also in residence at St. Anne’s Home. Parishioners Argen Totah, Elias Totah, Juliette Totah and Huda Mogannam, all from Ramallah, and Vera Araj, from Bethlehem, talked with Father Van de Water about Lent and Easter in the Holy Land. LENTEN FASTING “The earliest history of the Holy Land was marked by the robust asceticism of the Desert Fathers, early Christian hermits and ascetics,” said Father Van de Water. “It generated among all Christians of the Holy Land a central tradition of Lenten fasting.” Argen Totah said the Lenten fasts of her childhood meant total abstinence from animal products. “We took no meat, dairy, eggs, butter or animal fat for the entire period of 46 days,” she said. STATIONS OF THE CROSS The Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus walked through the old city of Jerusalem on his way to Calvary, was packed on Fridays during Lent with students from nearby schools there to pray the Stations of the Cross.
APRIL 2022 | CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO
