Introduction to Our Religious Education Program

The Maronite Christian Formation (MCF) program, which is our religious education, uses the series Faith of the Mountain: The Maronite Catholic Catechism.

Mountains hold a sacred place in the Judeo-Christian story. From Mount Sinai to Mount Tabor, God has always met his people on the heights — revealing himself and calling them to do good work. For Maronites, this connection runs especially deep. It was on a mountain in the region of Apameus, Syria, that Saint Maron, the “open air” hermit and priest, lived and died. In the centuries that followed, it was in the mountains of Lebanon that early Maronite monks and hermits sought refuge and encountered the Divine through lives of prayer and asceticism.

It’s fitting, then, that our Maronite religious education program carries the name Faith of the Mountain.

The elementary and middle school series began in the 1980s under the initiative of Chorbishop Dominic Ashkar, with the guidance of the late Archbishop Francis M. Zayek. It went on to become the official religious education text for Maronites in the United States, receiving further revisions in 2000 and 2010. The high school series followed in 1993, developed by Chorbishop Seely Beggiani.

Now, as we step further into the digital age, Faith of the Mountain is being renewed once again — not to replace this rich heritage, but to preserve it and carry it to a worldwide, English-speaking audience.

The Saint Rafka Religious Education Program is an effort to continue the formation of our children in the faith and to pass on the Maronite Tradition preserved by our ancestors. Religious Education is strongly encouraged and is taught in English.