Maronite legacy

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

Marian Nasser is living the dream.

Not the American kind, centered on things like wealth, fame, career and travel.

This is a spiritual dream, but as real and tangible as the rosary she began using in 2019 — a sacred treasure passed down from her paternal grandmother, Rose Hitti, who had died a year earlier.

Nasser was 19 at the time, unmarried and trying to discern her future.

One part of that future was clear — she would continue playing the organ at the church she had attended since birth, St. Maron in northeast Minneapolis. She was firmly rooted there, the place where she was baptized by Chorbishop Sharbel Maroun on Jan. 8, 2000, and where she had been playing the organ for Divine Liturgies since the age of 12. At this point, she was looking ahead to the possibility of marriage and family at the tightknit Maronite parish Chorbishop Sharbel has led since 1989. Her grandmother, whom she and others called “Teta,” which means grandmother in Arabic, “was very close to me,” said Nasser, “I just never had the courage to pray from that rosary.”

That changed while getting ready for bed one November night in 2020.

“I fell asleep praying (with) it,” she said. “And then, I actually had a vision that night with my grandmother.”

The dream involved her grandmother and a young man Teta wanted Nasser to meet while they all were talking inside the church. In the dream, Nasser ended up going into the church hall with him and dancing at a Lebanese party known as a “hafli.”

“I woke up, and I remember I still had the rosary in my hand,” Nasser said. “I was, like, shaking because it was so vivid, it was so real. I could remember feeling my grandmother and everything. It was very powerful.”

Little did she know at the time that the dream would come true. She got to know then-25-year-old Alex Nasser, an altar server, in 2020 and they began dating in early 2021. They did, indeed, end up dancing together at a hafli in February 2021, and eventually got married.

Turns out, they had been serving together on the altar at St. Maron for several years before they took notice of each other. Both had grown up in families very involved in the parish, and under the loving guidance of their Lebanese pastor, known affectionately as Abouna Sharbel. By the time they got married, Abouna, which means father in Arabic, already knew more about them than was necessary to confidently consider them ready for the sacrament of matrimony, he noted.

Such is the culture of this mostly Lebanese parish, where families like the Nassers and the Hittis worship together every Sunday and on other days of the week. For them, it only made sense that Alex and Marian would find each other and get married at St. Maron by their beloved pastor. Not only that, Abouna would go on to baptize their firstborn child.

The bonds that Alex, now 27, and Marian, now 23, formed with Chorbishop Sharbel began on the day each was born. A tradition in the parish involves couples inviting Abouna to come to the hospital the day their child is born. He did this for both Alex and Marian. He also baptized them both, and administered their sacraments of first Communion, first reconciliation and confirmation.

As the two grew up, Abouna took notice of each one’s gifts and invited them to volunteer at Divine Liturgies. Marian sang in the children’s choir, then started playing piano. At Abouna’s suggestion, she tried playing the organ, and immediately found her place on the altar.

Meanwhile, Alex had already been serving on the altar for several years, starting at about age 6. Like Marian, he, too, had been spotted and handpicked for this role by Abouna. Not a hard choice to make, as Alex’s father, Bruce Nasser, had been serving at the altar since Abouna arrived.

During the liturgy, Alex and Marian were stationed on the right side of the sanctuary, just 12 feet apart, but taking little notice of each other until December 2020, when they started talking after liturgies and during other parish gatherings. For Alex, his attraction to Marian was hastened by his grandfather, who pulled him aside one day after liturgy and said, “Have you ever noticed the organist?”

Alex did, and he asked her out on a date in January 2021. This and more dates soon followed, with long conversations and a natural chemistry between them. Then came the annual hafli in February. The two had decided this would be the occasion when they would go public with their relationship. Alex told his family beforehand that he would be coming with a girl but didn’t name her.

Marian came to the hafli not recalling her earlier dream. However, a cousin, whom she had told about the dream, put it all together and told her at the hafli that her dream was coming true that very night, right down to the blue suit jacket Alex was wearing that Marian recalled from the dream.

“It was very emotional for me,” Marian said of seeing her dream come true. That cousin, Mireille AlAhmar, would eventually become a godmother to the couple’s first child.

Alex and Marian got married Aug. 14, 2021, and, naturally, picked Chorbishop Sharbel to be the celebrant. It marked the first time he ever officiated at a wedding of two people he had baptized at St. Maron.

A year later, Alex and Marian had a daughter, Brielle, on Aug. 25, 2022. Once again, they asked Chorbishop Sharbel to perform the baptism, which he did Jan. 7, one day after both his birthday and the anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood in 1989 and his elevation to chorbishop in 2015.

Like he had done with Alex and Marian, Chorbishop Sharbel held Brielle in his arms the day she was born at St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood. Because of COVID-19 protocols, only immediate family members were allowed inside the room where Alex and Marian stayed after Brielle was born. Chorbishop Sharbel was allowed in, and he picked up Brielle, walked over to the window of the room and held her up for family gathered in the parking lot to see.

What does it feel like to be part of two generations of baptisms, and to go back 33 years with these two families plus many others in the parish?

“It reminds me that I’m ancient,” the 61-year-old pastor joked. “At the baptism of Brielle, they called me Grandpa Chorbishop.”

To build these kinds of relationships — and friendships — is “incredible,” he said, and creates special feeling and makes you feel united with whole community.” called creates “a the

“This stability in a parish is so important,” he said. “The pastor is a father to the community, and it’s good for the father to stay around for a long time.”

Alex’s parents, Bruce and Julie Nasser, have been at St. Maron their whole lives. They got married there in 1989, just months before Chorbishop Sharbel’s arrival.

Alex is the middle of their three children. All five attend Divine Liturgy together every Sunday, and Alex and Bruce still serve at the altar.

“We’re in church, I’d say, a minimum of two to three times a week, at liturgy,” said Bruce, 60, noting that his parents, Duane and Elizabeth, both grew up within a block of St. Maron. “We go on Wednesdays, we go on Sundays. Sometimes, we go on Fridays during Lent. During Holy Week, we go every day, which sometimes is eight or nine days in a row — every day at six o’clock. So, I’m blessed to have all my children with me — like bees in a beehive.” He added, “A lot of families don’t have that. Marian’s family is the same way here.”

Because of all this shared history, Bruce considers Chorbishop Sharbel not only a pastor, but also a confessor, spiritual father and friend.

“We’re blessed to have him here,” said Bruce, who recalled his father’s phrase about Abouna: “He’s one in a million.” Bruce continued: “He’s amazing ... whether it’s a little baby or it’s a 95-year-old person, he relates to everybody on a one-on-one basis — makes you feel part of everything.”

For Abouna, the feeling is mutual. He has spent lots of time with the Nasser family over the years, and has made regular trips to their lake cabin in Wisconsin. He has formed lifelong bonds with them all, including Alex, who as a child impressed him with his desire to serve on the altar.

“I remember that at church, he would come as a little kid and say, ‘Do you need any help?’”

Chorbishop Sharbel recalled. “Not too many kids do that at church. You have to grab them from the pews to serve on the altar. But, Alex will come and he will offer his help, and he still does that.”

Today, the Sunday liturgy routine is a bit different. Rather than sit 12 feet away from Marian near the sanctuary, Alex mostly stays in the pew to hold Brielle, with his parents next to him to help. Alex and Marian likely will have more children for Chorbishop Sharbel to baptize, and plan to move from their apartment in Mendota Heights to their own home someday. Rest assured, they will buy a house within a reasonable driving distance to St. Maron, they said.

As they reflect on their lifelong journey in the parish — serving there, meeting each other there and having Chorbishop Sharbel perform all their sacraments there — they realize they are an anomaly in a secular culture filled with fragmented, disconnected families.

“We’re so blessed — this faith, this parish — and we want to set a good example for other people,” Alex said.

“It’s definitely a beautiful story,” Marian said. “God put us together, and ... it’s literally the perfect fit.”

Chorbishop Sharbel has his own dream he hopes will come true in the years ahead.

“I look forward to baptizing more of their children, and, hopefully, I’ll be around to marry some of their children, too,” he said. “God willing.”

For now, he has one concrete idea in mind: Brielle’s wedding “in 2043, on my birthday. I’ll be 80.”